Boing Boing Staging

Public library's card catalog and books linked by scent


In 1974, Upper Arlington, Ohio public library launched a program to link their card catalog and shelved books by odor. The project was called: “Stick Your Nose in the Card Catalog.” From Weird Universe:


The idea was that the card in the catalog would have a scent, and then the book on the shelf would have a matching scent. So you could find your books by smell. There were about 60 scents in total, including apple, chocolate, garlic, lemon, roses, root beer, leather, pizza, orange, strawberry, candles, pine, cheddar cheese, clover, and smoke.


The library says that they “aren’t sure what exactly happened to the scented catalog, but we guess that the cards eventually lost their scent over time, but remained part of the catalog until it was decommissioned” for a digital system in 1989.

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