The librarian who made me see old book smell differently

I was at the library sale in Des Moines last weekend, and one of the volunteers mentioned she sniffs the books before buying them. I thought she was just being quirky, but she said the musty ones from the 70s often have brittle pages that fall apart in a month. That made me check my own stack, and sure enough, three of my five scores were already cracking at the spine. I used to grab anything that smelled old, now I'm being pickier about the actual condition. Has anyone else started checking page flexibility before they pay?

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