NORMAN, Okla. - When most people think of Norman, they think of the University of Oklahoma (OU) Sooners. Galileo, in other words, does not spring immediately to mind.

Nor does Copernicus. Nor Aristotle, nor Leonardo da Vinci.

Yet these legendary players in the fields of arts and sciences keep each other quiet company among the university's remarkable History of Science Collections, which I got to peruse briefly during a visit for the dedication of OU's new College of Journalism.

Spending time among the collections' 90,000 volumes is a rare sensory experience, especially for bibliophiles like me who smell books before reading them. You can have your Chanel No. 5; I'll take a 15th-century leather-bound volume of Pietro de' Crescenzi any day.

A casual visitor isn't likely to stumble across the collections, which are located on the fifth floor of the Bizzell Memorial Library. First you have to get buzzed into the reception area of the History of Science lobby. Then, if you're lucky, Dr. Marilyn Ogilvie, curator and professor of science history, will take you to the vault.

Ogilvie is one of only two people with access to the rare-book storage area, where temperature and humidity are maintained at 55 degrees Fahrenheit and 51 percent relative humidity.

First things first: Yes, wine would do perfectly here, and I wasn't the first to inquire. And second, yes, I felt like I was entering the Vatican Archives, just behind Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra in Dan Brown's novel, "Angels and Demons." Well, except for the linoleum floor, overhead fluorescent lighting, the absence of Bernini sculpture and a few other minor details.

Still.

First you notice the chill, then the unmistakable aroma of old books. Thousands of them. Vellum pages. Leather and wood bindings. The history of ideas, of man's search for truth and meaning and God (or not) right there in stacks. Ogilvie admits she gets goosebumps when she enters and it's not about the temperature.

The treasures here are too numerous to mention. The oldest book is a 1467 edition of "Opus de Universo" or "Work About Everything" by Hrabanus Maurus. It's an encyclopedia of sorts, arranged not alphabetically but by order of importance. "God" leads the way, as one might imagine.

Of all the gems here, the Hope Diamond for me was a first edition of Galileo's "Sidereus Nuncius," published in 1610. Not only is it a rare first edition, it was one of Galileo's own books. We know this because he inscribed it to a friend and jotted notes in the margins.

Another marvel is a corrected version of "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" (On The Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs") by Nicholas Copernicus, published in 1543. Continued...