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A new testing method can rapidly determine the condition of old books and documents by analyzing the bouquet of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released by paper off-gassing. The technology promises to help conservators assess the condition of old works quickly, while not harming the documents.http://news.discovery.com/history/old-books-paper-chemical-test.htmlPlease note that the correct name of the UCL researcher is Matija Strličhttp://www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainableheritage/strlic.htmlHere is the link to an OA-paper of 2007:http://mdpi.org/sensors/papers/s7123136.pdfIn September 2009 an toll access article was published on the "smell of old books":Anal. Chem., 2009, 81 (20), pp 8617–8622DOI: 10.1021/ac9016049Publication Date (Web): September 17, 2009Matija Strlič was so kind to answer my question whether the analysis could be used for datation or provenance research:"Theoretically, both provenancing and dating should be possible, however, I doubt that a very accurate method could be developed on the basis of VOCs, unless the object was made using a material (glue, covers, ink, etc) with an identifiable and very specific VOC fingerprint."