Lifehack Your Books: Dogear, Writing In Books, and Apologizing to Librarians
Originally published on: 12/13/2005 8:56:25 AM
- Never write in books
- Never dogear pages (fold over the corner)
- Keep dustjackets on the books and add them via bookcovers if they don't have them.
And, for textbooks, books that your younger siblings need to use later, and library books, those rules are necessary to ensure that the books last long enough to be useful to as many people as possible. However, for books bought for individual use, these rules aren't necessary. If you adhere to them religiously for your own books (most of which couldn't possibly wear out via normal use), you're missing out on some of the best methods for getting the most out of books.
I personally believe that there is no greater respect that can be shown a book than by using it.
The first taboo I think everyone should just plain get over is the taboo of writing in books. I write in most of my books. Notes about the content, things the content reminds me of, etc. When you just plain write in the margins, inside the cover, etc. there's no way the notes for that content will get lost. They'll forever be attached to the text they refer to.
The second is the folded over page corner (dogear). I know some of you just tuned me out as a heretic, but I dogear pages. Worse than that, I dogear for 2 different purposes. I use the top right corner of the right page as my bookmark. I also use the bottom corner of a page that contains something interesting as a marker as well. That lower dogear is often accompanied by notes written in the margin. By folding over the bottom corner of interesting pages, I can quickly look at a book of mine and see how useful I find it. It also lets me flip through a book I haven't used in a while and easily find the bits I'm likely to want to find again. For a particularly interesting book, like The Big Moo(Seth Godin), you can see the density of interesting material easily.
The last thing is really more of a pet peeve of mine, but I hate dustjackets on hardcovers. They bug me and come off the book before I read the first page. Just had to get that one off my chest.
Overall, there are plenty of other ways to take this further. Postit flags, postit notes, etc. can all be used to help find interesting passages. For those of you who think I'm only talking about non-fiction, think again. As an English major, I abused many a copy of a classic while doing my deconstructive analysis and writing "compare and contrast" papers. I've got markers on pages in novels all over my bookshelf for interesting phrases, striking scenes, great turns of phrase, etc.
Personally, I don't feel like a book is really mine until the dustjacket is off, 10-20 pages are dogeared and it's got black ink in the margins.
Comments
commented on 12/14/2005 If you've ever read a book in a university library, you've seen the inane marginalia added by generations of students with -- apparently -- some mental deficiency preventing them from saying anything worthwhile.
Every time I read a good book I see new things; I don't want to be reminded of what I thought the last time through. I don't want to see what I saw the last time through. And I really don't want to know that the idiot who wrote the inane marginalia was me. ;)
commented on 12/13/2005 Found via BoingBoing, and deservedly posted there amongst the usual best-of. Greatest thing I've read in a LONG time, in fact.
Did we learn the double-dog-ear from someone, or just both evolve the same emthod convergently?
My long-form response is entirely complimentary, points out the especial satisfaction of seeing the "lifehacks" (for mindhacks and bookhacks are two sides of the coin, here!), mentions that, as a teacher of high school, I used to require this sort of active reading (which students hated, but which had the added bonus of making their books un-sell-back-able, so that they would learn to the think of books as part of an ongoing dialog with world and self)...and is otherwise posted in my blog, too.
commented on 12/13/2005 Oh, and I am a librarian. No apologies necessary -- communal texts have (as I pointed out in my own entry on the topic) an entirely different function. This is (one reason) why libraries don't put booksellers out of business, incidentally...and vice versa! (And why ebooks are still not yet satisfying?)
commented on 12/13/2005 [...] Via Boing Boing, here’s an advocate of dogearing and other abusive/affectionate behaviors. [...]
commented on 12/13/2005 Agreed -- use those books. Physicalize them. Make them yours. But PLEASE-- don't do it to library books. That's like peeing on the bus.
Aaron
commented on 12/13/2005 [...] December 13th, 2005 in Links Lifehack Your Books: Dogear, Writing In Books, and Apologizing to Librarians. A quote: [...]
commented on 12/14/2005 Hi! I'm a firm believer in writing in books, and this has made a very big impact on my education (as a student this helped immensely). I, like many folks, used to keep books in pristine condition, but it wasn't until I saw a book that had someone else's writing that actually gave me some insight into the project as well as some really helpful hints that I became a believer!
Good work.
BTW: if you're going to do it in library books, sometimes i would just leave notes in pages...
commented on 12/14/2005 [...] So just when I want to write about it and say how cool it is someone already did: Lifehack Your Books: Dogear, Writing In Books, and Apologizing to Librarians. The only issue I have with this is the dog ears part. I dont know if I can actually do that. I’ve trained myself over the years to memorize where I left off either my remembering page number, or location. Posted by nibaq under General, Ideas, Books, thought, rebel. libarians, lifehack Related Posts: [...]
commented on 12/14/2005 I dogear my books too. I will dog ear the corner that is closest to the bit of information I think I may want to refer to later (mostly because I often don't have a writing implement to underline the relative passage). I use this all the time as I often refer back to books I've read.
commented on 12/14/2005 [...] The second is the folded over page corner (dogear). I know some of you just tuned me out as a heretic, but I dogear pages. Worse than that, I dogear for 2 different purposes. I use the top right corner of the right page as my bookmark. I also use the bottom corner of a page that contains something interesting as a marker as well. That lower dogear is often accompanied by notes written in the margin. By folding over the bottom corner of interesting pages, I can quickly look at a book of mine and see how useful I find it. It also lets me flip through a book I haven’t used in a while and easily find the bits I’m likely to want to find again. For a particularly interesting book, like The Big Moo(Seth Godin), you can see the density of interesting material easily. Link (via Beyond the Beyond) [...]
commented on 12/14/2005 Yes! What a relief. And here I thought I was the only one who still dogears books. I was actually feeling embarrassed about it because I thought it was childish. The lower dogears? Wow, I thought I invented that one. Oops, guess not. I used to mark books a lot with permanent ink pens like highlighters, colored pens, etc. But then when I got to college and found out that I could sell back my textbooks, I dropped the perm. ink and turned to pencils, yes the same #2 pencils I used for marking scantrons for exams. Then again, I stopped selling back my books after my first year. So, thank you for this article. For librarians out there, I apologize for the writings. They're just in pencil.
commented on 12/14/2005 Writing a note to oneself in the margin of a book is kinda like listening to music and attempting to grab the notes with one's hands. Ultimately, one is left empty-handed and much too self-absorbed and distracted to enjoy the happenin' sounds.
I used to scribble notes in the margins of (some of) my books, until (many years later) I realized they made little or no sense to me. Actually, whenever I see a sloppy abundance of useless scribbled marginalia in a book, I figure the reader probably didn't learn much from the book...because he or she was so busy scribbling in it (yes, writing a good margin note takes time...and sincere effort!)
Whether one is a dedicated life-hacker or not (I'm super proud to say I'm not, but I do data mine every other Sunday) notes in the margins of books do not a learned person make...nope.
By the way, how do you feel about large, ugly black Magic Marker
notes scrawled in margins, between lines...everywhere in a book?
Or do your startling margin note life-hacker ideas just apply to notes
done in ball-point pen?
Just wonderin' - thanx
Live Long and Dog-ear
KB
commented on 12/14/2005 Norman: The notes don't prevent me in any way from discovering new insights. Insights come from making connections between ideas. There are ideas in the text, ideas outside of it and the ideas you capture in notes. Given that reading 2 years from now, I'll bring a different set of ideas to the text, having access to my old ideas only serves to provide more ideas with which to make connections. I would rather filter out bad ideas than not be exposed to potentially good ones. That said, 90% of notes left by people are crap. But, Sturgeon's Law applies in that 90% of *everything* is crap, including the original text.
benbenek: The whole point of my putting this up was to get people to embrace whatever use of books makes sense *to them*. The things I describe are what I do and are seen, by society at large, as "deviant" in some way from the "norm". Where you find a clinical approach to music distracting from the sound, I find it enhances it. Why? Because if I figure out that the chord that makes shivers go down my spine is a Dsus and not a Dm, when I play music myself, I can use it. Taking something apart only destroys or ruins the experience if you can't put it back together. When I've taken something apart and reassembled it, I usually have a greater appreciation for how it was built in the first place. I can shift my context between just enjoying it and enjoying it through the lens of understanding how it was built.
That your notes made little sense to you has little to say about the value of notetaking's value in general. For one, it assumes that the value is to your future self. While it can be, often, just the very act of writing something down causes you to have the thought in a more meaningful way. Second, you're judgement of other's experience by the artifacts of the experience seems a little silly. My notes are messy. However, my notes aren't meant for you. Nor are they an entire reflection of my experience. They may be from my first pass through a book and my second pass may have resulted in a 30 page paper full of deep analysis.
Of course notes in the margins do not a learned person make. Thats a straw man. Personally, I don't believe that a Bachelor's degree or a Master's degree or a PhD make one "learned" either. My methods are only to help me make use of books. That's it.
As far as magic marker, etc., I don't like it. But, that's not the point. That's why I specifically advocated these methods in books you *own* and not the books of others. If magic marker works for someone else, great. Jazz works for some people, but I don't enjoy it. Doesn't make it any less of an art form. My point is to *use* your books. If you don't take notes because they don't add value to your use, then great. If you don't take notes only because your parents told you "don't write in books", but writing in them would help *you*, then get over it and give it a try.
commented on 12/14/2005 via Boing Boing. Another book "abuser" here. I'm an underliner, margin noter, dog earer extraordinaire and have been for years. Very helpful when you have one of those "now where was that quote?" questions. Some books also become archives of my thinking and how it's changed. What seemed important then may no longer be important, or it may have enlarged in importance.
commented on 12/14/2005 Interesting entry. Although I do not entirely condone writing in library books either, I must say that I am mostly amused when it happens, especially with small comments, as opposed to underlining (I never liked that)... I remember checking out a book by Jared Diamond about the evolutionary gender differences between men and women, and someone had read it earlier with great indignation. Occasionally in margins she would write "Idiot!" or "You are the biggest chauvinist I've ever met" (addressing mr Diamond), and sometimes even adding small arguments. To me, it was like reading the book in dialogue with two people - mr Diamond and the feminist. It really added to the experience. And it made me think of ways in the future of contributing to books - ie. reversing the idea that once a book is printed, it's "dead". A simple way of doing this, which I've started doing, is technoratiing a book that I just read, and reading what others wrote in their blogs. Sometimes that can offer a whole new perspective on a text.
But what about the future? With ebooks (with proper readers), which I am waiting _very_eagerly_ for, will we be able to easily annotate text, share annotations with our friends, Web2.0 applied to books...
I also try to hand books on. I usually write my name, city, and date on the first page, and give it to someone. I started doing that when I was on the Transsib, reading a 70s radical book about new education, building geodomes and smoking weed, and on the first page, there was a stamp from someone at the World Bank who'd read it (I bought it in a second hand shop in Egypt)... And I thought it was so cool that someone at the World Bank had read it. So I added my name, and handed it on, asking the recipient to do the same. Take a book and pass it on.
OK, way too long. BAck to reading :)
stian
commented on 12/14/2005 A kindred spirit has been found! I have some books that belong to my father and his notes in the margin are a personal treasure to me. Would that more people would enter into the text and become a participant. Writing in the margin for me is a great way to decompose the (errant, in my opinion) distinction between the observer and the observed.
commented on 12/14/2005 This reminded me of the great service offered by Flann Obrien: for a fee, his man would read your (unread) books, handling them to make them look read. There was a sliding scale, so you could pay more and have notes written in the books, or handled a little more. For a lot more money, his man would follow you around and, using ventriloquism, he would let you pretend to talk about the (unread) books. Bizarre.
commented on 12/14/2005 Ouch! Dogearing is indeed a serious pet peeve of mine. But I think the benefits of both of these practices could be had with post-it notes. I've done that with textbooks, and it offers a lot more room to write than margins.
commented on 12/14/2005 The very words of your vandalism-advocacy fill me with pain. You are merely the first owner of this book, a trustee as it were. A book is meant to be a permanent thing, to pass on to another reader, ideally to a long stream of readers. I can walk a few feet from my work desk and pick up a French history written 1756, and engage in the text as if it was published yesterday, although the author is long dead, because the previous owners of that book didn't mutilate it!
commented on 12/14/2005 You know, I never use my books that way, but it sounds like a damn good idea for technical books. Next time I read one I might have to do that.
But I won't be doing that to my Sherlock Holmes Omnibus Edition, I cherish it too much :)
commented on 12/14/2005 I bookmark pretty much like you do--except that for the dogear at the bottom of the page, the distance I fold it up between the corner and the last line of text is proportional to how far up the page the significant passage is. That way, it's easier to find the wanted passage later. So, tiny dogear means the passage is near the bottom of the page, large dogear means it's near the top.
I don't write in books because I don't like to read other people's comments after they've written in *their* books, so why would I foist that on others, but I do write on index cards that I keep in the book while I'm reading it.
I used to think of books as sacrosanct--no writing, no bending of pages, dust covers always, no holding them open with objects or leaving them opened face down, but I later became obstinate in the face of the book fetishists who seem more concerned with the physical condition of the object than with the intellectual condition of its contents.
commented on 12/14/2005 Oh, yeah, I want to add: I still have some vestiges of the "object is sacred" thinking. Those large dogears pictured above? Obscene. There's no point in those. Unless you're missing the last joints of all ten fingers, I see no reason dogears shouldn't be small and tidy. And woe to the person who folds an entire page! They've marked themselves as an enemy for life. And that many dogears? Get a notebook and pencils fer fuck's sake!
commented on 12/14/2005 So sad...do you book-writers think your thoughts are so very important that everyone who may read the book in the future will be eternally thankful that they were able to encounter them? Or do you indicate in your will that your books are to be burned after you die, in a pyre with your body, perhaps? If not, please realize that someone, someday, may want to read that book you're destroying. They might want to approach it without have to take in your notions of what was important and find their own meaning there. I agree with the commenter who says, "...a book is meant to be a permanent thing..." I hate finding those damned marked-in books in used bookstores. But wait - YOUR books are a legacy to humanity, with your amazing knowledge contained in the margains! Right.
commented on 12/14/2005 Found my way here via librarian.net. Very interesting debate. Why do we leave footprints all over blogs and pdf files, but hesitate to write in books? And why do we elevate the book to an artifact to be saved and cherished? For me, books are for use. I do occasionally write in my books. I dog ear (bottom corner) to mark a page, but use a bookmark to keep my place. I reason that if others are bothered by my marks, they shouldn't complain since I lent or gave it to them. To each his own. I don't even go near my partner's books; he is very finicky about keeping them in the best condition.
commented on 12/14/2005 J Wynia Says: The things I describe are what I do and are seen,
by society at large, as “deviant†in some way from the “normâ€ÂÂ.
I have a feeling that society at large (whatever that is)
could care less about the topic of margin notes and dog-earing.
For heaven's sake, "King Kong" is coming out tonight!
J Wynia Says: When I’ve taken something apart and reassembled it,
I usually have a greater appreciation for how it was built in the first place.
Try that with a cute little puppy or a fluffy cloud and see if it works.
J Wynia Says: I can shift my context between just enjoying it
and enjoying it through the lens of understanding how it was built.
Where can I buy a lens of understanding?
I want to give one to a photographer friend for Christmas.
J Wynia Says: That your notes made little sense to you has
little to say about the value of notetaking’s value in general.
For one, it assumes that the value is to your future self.
I don't understand this assertion.
I think I need a lens of understanding.
J Wynia Says: My notes are messy. However, my notes aren’t meant for you.
Regardless of how messy your notes are, your notes ARE meant for me
if I find them scrawled in a library book that I checked out (and that I pay
for with my tax dollars) - if they weren't meant for me, then you'd erase them
or Wite them Out before turning them back in to the library...unless you're
uncaring and irresponsible
J Wynia Says: Of course notes in the margins do not a learned person make. Thats a straw man.
Are you talking about Ray Bolger?
What does he have to do with being a slob and messing-up books?
J Wynia Says: As far as magic marker, etc., I don’t like it. But, that’s not the point.
No, that was MY point...you're not answering my question.
In your opinion, is it OK to use a Magic Marker to make your beloved notes?
J Wynia Says: That’s why I specifically advocated these
methods in books you *own* and not the books of others.
Sir, you must think these things through more carefully.
None of us *own* books forever...in fact, nothing is *owned* forever.
Remember...we all die and we don't take our stuff with us.
Unless they're burned or destroyed by other means, then
books are usually passed on to eager family members, sold
to bookstores, donated to libraries, etc
When a book is sold or donated, annoying margin notes and
dog-ears are sold and donated too...multiply this a few times and
all you've got is a nasty-looking, crib-noted, dog-eared mess.
Now, why would anyone want to learn from a book that looks like that?
The graffiti and wear-and-tear of library books tends to be much
worse, because of the multiple slobs who think books are meant
to be written-in, bent and folded and mutilated and coffee-stained
(among other stains)
I have no idea what "life-hacking" is.
But writing in books and folding their corners
is about as revolutionary and forward-thinking
as turning over trash cans on the street
that's all I have to say about this lukewarm topic
thanks! - will read other reader's opinions
(but will not scribble notes on my eMac screen)
commented on 12/14/2005 Books are for use, they are not sacred objects. And I'm a librarian! If I'm reading for anything other than pure entertainment, it's with a pencil in my hand. Folks commenting here about not marking up books, seem perfectly happy to mark up this blog with their comments, wtf?
commented on 12/14/2005 Alice, et. al. -- to set up a hypothetical future reader as having more importance to any measure of potential book-engagement than I, the current owner, is a bit silly, isn't it? It MAY become someone else's book, but it is mine now, and anything I can do to make it MORE mine - in terms of its content -- is more valuable than (as W says) the objecthood of that book. Books are more valuable for words and ideas than paperness. While I respect (and utilize) second hand book-ness both as seller and buyer, know that anything that detracts from potential reader engagment isn't going to add value to the ultimate point of a book for any reader. And, for some of us, writing in it is a vital aspect of truly deep engagement, one unattainable any other way.
Best solution, I suppose, if you're worried about the possibility that one day the ONLY way for a potential reader to get at the book you currently have if for YOU to pass it along: buy two copies, so that you can pass one along and mark up the other. I do that anyway, for books worthy of passing along. But we're not marking up YOUR book, here -- you can't have this one; it's CURRENTLY mine -- so straw man is indeed the right call. Crying out on behalf of those yet-to-read only makes sense if we assume that one day, MY copy may be the only copy. Nothing but silly, that -- if it is so worthy of being read, it will be reprinted, or e-booked and printed from there at the very least.
commented on 12/14/2005 I've got a lot of old books I've purchased used, and expect that someone else will get them someday. I keep a few tins of these fabulous little copper book darts around:
http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=2&p=44956&cat=2,46154,46145
I used to use Post-Its like nuts, but these are better. I'll write notes, but I can't dogear.
commented on 12/14/2005 I too am a librarian and though I do not want anyone to write in the books that belong to the library I very much support the kind of active reading you are describing. The dialog between the reader and the writer is a thing that we have lost in the past few years.
I would recommend to you this book that deals with active reading in great detail.
Adler, M. & Van Doren, C. (1972). How to read a book. New York: MJF Books.
Cheers.
commented on 12/14/2005 Of course, you can follow various threads of imagery with different color highlighters as well. What English major wouldn't write and highlight, as well as keep track of things on the covers?? BUT, I have had major disagreements about this with a friend who feels that any writing is destruction. My feeling is that personal copies aren't archival and who cares? As a librarian, I get many "gift" books that are written in and I archive them directly to the trash, but for my own collection, I can't see why I shouldn't write in them. They just don't have any value except to myself.
commented on 12/14/2005 There is a famous book by a bibliographer named William Blades first published in 1879 called "The Enemies of Books." (available at link fixed to fix page wrapping) Among the enemies of books were (are) librarians. (Others were fire, water, gas & heat, dust & neglect, ignorance & bigotry, bookworms, 'other vermin', bookbinders, collectors, and . . . . servants and children.) He points out that we (librarians) stamp them, emboss them, write on their spines, write in them, and cut open their pages. You don't need to apologize to *librarians* for mutilating books!
One of my best teachers encouraged his students to do just what you do. He would say, "Make it your own!" and tell us what to write in the margins. He recommended that we re-bind certain valued books with a blank page between every page - this would give us an extra page to write on for every page in the original book.
commented on 12/14/2005 Mona says:
Why do we leave footprints all over blogs and pdf files, but hesitate to write in books?
I don't know about you, but I type with my fingers...so I leave fingerprints all over blogs.
Your analogy doesn't really fly. HTML text can be deleted with a simple backspace.
Ball-point pen ink definitely sinks into the pages of a book and becomes part of it for
the rest of it's literary history
Mona says:
And why do we elevate the book to an artifact to be saved and cherished?
First of, all books ARE artifacts (objects made by human beings)...and a lot of people cherish books.
There's no *why* about it.
Some people cherish their Hummers. I'm sure most Hummer owners would prefer that strangers didn't key their car. Similarly, many of us wise book owners would rather have non-defaced books,
Some of us would rather pay attention to the author and NOT to some guy with a Bic who needed to jot down some pointless, personal salient points.
Duane Gran Says:
Writing in the margin for me is a great way to decompose the
(errant, in my opinion) distinction between the observer and the observed.
Do you also stick your head in boiling soup in order to decompose(?)
the distinction between you (the observer) and the soup (the observed)?
The distinction between the observed (book) and observer (reader) is
already broken instantaneously when one reads...scanning words
and comprehending some meaning is the great unifier...book and reader become ONE!
Boyhowdy Says:
to set up a hypothetical future reader as having more importance to
any measure of potential book-engagement than I, the current owner, is a bit silly, isn’t it?
No, no...the concern isn't for a "hypothetical future reader" - -
the concern is for ALL POTENTIAL FUTURE READERS of any given book
It's a hallmark of this generation to care only for themselves
and THEIR THINGS, and not to care at all for kids growing up today
All books have the real potential of being read again (and again and again)
I tell ya, if I loaned one of my books to any of you folks and it came back
all marked-up with your thoughts and ideas crammed in the margins
I'd blow a fuse and hurriedly call the book police.
commented on 12/14/2005 Benbenek's megacommentary contains the grains of his own counterargument, I think. To wit: though a Hummer owner surely wouldn't want folks to key his car, we're not talking about car-keying, but ride-pimping. And no one says "hey, you can't pimp that ride -- what about the future used car owner," now, do they?
Again: as books are produced by the masses, not the singles; as books, too, are now easily re-producible; for all these reasons and more, I continue to maintain that I as current owner get to decide if there will be a future owner of a book or not.
And, by the way: speak not of false demand, of a thousand possible usedbook users that really wish I had not written in THAT book. The very idea that all books are somehow sacred, and that most will have a future owner, is just not borne out by the experience of the real world of the ten thousand copy printing.
As we librarians know, the weeding process (and the sad truth of the eternally unsold reams that are the subsequent library used book sale) itself belies the sad truth: for every book in good enough condition to be both sold as used and, more importantly, seen as desirable to a second purchaser, there are a thousand copies of that same book and a hundred others that no one wants, period.
It does not denigrate your or my own love of the used book to remember that, for better or worse, there are enough books in the world, according to all use patterns and real-world scenarios (as opposed to dire bookloss predictions and fearmongering), for us all to write in our own books to our heart's content, and still leave enough for all the posterity we can imagine.
commented on 12/15/2005 [...] P.S. I found the following on 15 Dec. 2005: Lifehack Your Books: Dogear, Writing In Books, and Apologizing to Librarians. [...]
commented on 12/15/2005 So, are the people who do write in books optimists and the people who are opposed pessimists? I view writing in books and dogearing as decreasing the (personal and monetary) value of a text. I lend out my books to friends quite a bit and I know that they'll take better care of the books if they see that I've taken care of them. Plus, I want as many friends as possible to get value from the author's text, not from marginalia. And I intend to eventually donate my books either to the University of Virginia or pass them along to my children.
Where does the myth that librarians value books as physical objects come from? I know many librarians and grad students in Info Studies, and none of them value books as physical objects as I do. They tend to be focused on disseminating the information contained in books, and are interested in the condition of books to the degree that it affects their acquisitions budgets. Obviously, librarians will vary on the "sacredness of books" issue, and I'm just thinking of the ones I know.
To order the oh so wonderful Book Darts directly from the manufacturer, visit bookdarts.com. Right now they have a special of 375 darts for $30, which is a pretty sweet deal. The adhesive page tabs damage paper, which is an important consideration for a researcher using old texts.
commented on 12/15/2005 (via librarian.net) Here's a relevant entry from my almost finished zine:
One of my jobs is going through books that have been trashed to decide whether the should be mended, replaced, bound, withdrawn, or donated to the Prison Reader's Encouragement Program (http://www.prisonreader.org). As I was picking through books with worn spines, missing leaves, writing and highlighting, and brittle pages, I realized how great it was that they were in such awful condition. It made me really happy to see such tangible evidence that our collection is so well utilized. So you read it here first, ladies, gentlemen, and genderqueers, I am a librarian, and I love battered books.
commented on 12/15/2005 ----------
Boyhowdy Says:
To wit: though a Hummer owner surely wouldn’t want folks to key his car, we’re not talking about car-keying, but ride-pimping.
I thought we were talking about dog-earing and scribbling in books...I didn't mention ride-pimping...what IS ride-pimping?
Sounds fun.
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Boyhowdy Says:
I continue to maintain that I as current owner get to decide if there will be a future owner of a book or not.
Cool...we all create our own reality. Yours will just contain
messy, unreadable books that no on in the future can use. It sounds like you'll even destroy your books so that no one else will ever read them. Sounds like a reasonable plan. After all,
**you get to decide** - yep, this generation just cares about themselves...me, me, me
It's funny (and ironic) that some people in this posting area are arguing for the defacing, folding and mutilating of books. As if writing in a book with a ball-point pen somehow gives them power and control. To me the act is similar to playing with one's food.
----------
Boyhowdy Says:
there are a thousand copies of that same book and a hundred others that no one wants, period.
Yeah, OK...and how exactly does this
relate to dog-earing and writing in books?
----------
Boyhowdy Says:
for us all to write in our own books to our heart’s content, and still leave enough for all the posterity we can imagine.
Now you're starting to sound real nutty.
Post your address and I'll send you a 64 pack
of Crayola crayons to get you going...and I'll
even throw-in some chisel-point Sharpies
----------
commented on 12/15/2005 The similar point-by-point is tempting, but sorry, I'm not going to let myself get baited like that. If benbenek wants the last word so much that he is willing to misinterpret me and others as selfish (or pessimistic) merely because we see each personal copy of a book as a COPY, not the thing which must be preserved, then perhaps enough others got it for it to be left alone.
Oh, and ride-pimping? As in "Pimp My Ride?" As in taking something that you own and adding value by personalizing it, and with pride? Not sure what to think of someone who not only can't accept that personalizing one's own books is not selfish as it has nothing to do with posterity (that's what library copies and mass printing are FOR), but isn't aware of other phenom in culture in which personalization is celebrated, except to say: broaden your horizons; watch the world; accept that there is enough in the world that you need neither ridicule nor insist on communal ownership of this here copy of this here book I bought.
So says yet another librarian. Who buys books to read 'em, and writes in them to understand 'em better and add value to 'em. Who buys second copies to pass along (not an either-or, theorist!) if the books are worth it. Who writes in his own copy only, and dogears for the diversity of dogear rather than accept the tyranny (less hack-able potential) of the same-sized Book Dart. Who writes in them because he is an optimist, in that writing means I believe I can continue to engage in a text ongoing and forever. And who buys yet another copy for the library if there is a risk the book might disappear.
Too many false dichotomies and straw-men here, so this will be my last visit. Thanks for the crayons, benbenek -- my three-year-old will enjoy learning to mark up her books, too (we buy a second copy to keep pristine for her later years). And thank goodness for Wymia's footer below, which helps keep me sane.
commented on 12/15/2005 Boyhowdy Says:
Too many false dichotomies and straw-men here
I've never seen the phrase "straw men/man" used so much in
a comment section...must be a life-hacking catch phrase
--------
Boyhowdy Says:
Oh, and ride-pimping? As in “Pimp My Ride?†As in taking something that you own and adding value by personalizing it, and with pride?
At it's barest essence, scribbling margin notes in a book only adds ego-value to a book ("Look, see! Those are MY comments, right next to the authors!" And see those underlines? Yes...all mine...and the dog-ears?...I must admit they're mine, too...yes, this is my book alrighty...")
Most of us real book lovers are disgusted by the site of someone else's hackneyed, fading, poorly-handwriten, shaky ink notes in the precious (used) books we buy...unless the notes happen to contain winning lottery numbers (or the secret to eternal youth and liberty for all), then in that case bring on the scribbles.
--------
Boyhowdy Says:
...but isn’t aware of other phenom in culture in which personalization is celebrated
OK, so let's just call margin notes and dog-earing "book personalizing" - - now it can happily exist with other bits of personalizing, such as ugly and/or dumb-looking tatoos, ugly and/or dumb-looking tongue-piercings, ugly and/or dumb-looking breast enhancement(s), ugly and/or dumb-looking botox treatments and ugly and/or dumb-looking extreme makeovers and/or "ride-pimpin' in general
--------
I was a librarian for a pretty distinguished library and
was also in charge of organizing the archives, which contained books that went back to the late 1500s, manuscripts, letters, books with author annotations and corrections (an exception to the rule of rampant margin-osity)
After working around centuries-old, fragile, leather-bound books-with-spines-that-crack-when-you-open-them, I developed a clear knowledge of "book as sacred object" - now, once I had that realization, it was just a hop-skip-and-a-jump to the notion that EVERY book is sacred (even books written by jerks, and political crackpots and wackos and nutcases and Stephen King)
It's all relative, I suppose. One is probably not going to burn in
hell for jotting down a recipe in the margin of a book by Dr. Phil or Al Franken. But scribbling an outline of a love-letter to your neighbor's wife in a copy of The Bible might get you a one-way ticket to Hades.
By the way, what's the general concensus on making notes and ugly dog-ears in big, expensive coffee table ART BOOKS ?? Like, is it OK to "personalize" a big Salvador Dali art book...or is it cool to personalize a nice, pricy book containing Jazz photographs from the early 20th Century?
commented on 12/16/2005 I enjoy having books that have been read and enjoyed, often those books are tattered, don't shut properly, may have some writing in them, whatever. If you can read a book without creasing the spine at all or marring a page, then good for you. If I'm enjoying a book, I bring it around with me, and inevitably it gets beaten up. To me, this is a sign that it's been enjoyed and loved. When I buy used textbooks for class - not ones that are "borrowed", but those that are bought and sold again as used for extra cash or because they're unwanted - notes in margins and underlining are helpful. If I'm not getting something, maybe the person before me did. I do my own underlining and write my own notes, and I'm not forced to read the prior persons notes.
Suppose Einstein or Ben Franklin had written notes in the margins of their books.. would those books not be more treasured today for their writings? Couldn't reading those notes possibly give you another p.o.v or base for your own thoughts? On the other hand, you never have to buy that "ruined, marked up" book. "Messing up" a book doesn't necessarily decrease it's value, and as I think Boyhowdy said, there are hundreds of other copies of any one book for those that like pristine books to buy instead of those that have been "defaced".
Everyone can make their own decision as to whether they write in their own books that are in their own personal collection, nobody will force you to, and nobody will force you to buy a book with markings in it. Just continue on buying the used books that are in pristine condition. I would've thought that were obvious.
Just my 2 cents.
commented on 12/16/2005 [...] Lifehack Your Books: Dogear, Writing In Books, and Apologizing to Librarians– The Glass is Too Big - J Wynia [...]
commented on 12/16/2005 I just happened to pull an old copy of Alan Watt's "Beyond Theology" off my bookshelf to read...and when I opened the book I forgot that one of the previous owners had circled passges and written such enlightening things as "judgemental fuck!" and "fuckin' BS!" on nearly every page. This particular lifehacker obviously got bored with the book, because every page after page 109 is un-Lifehacked (no penned margin notes)
Thank you, Lifehacker for hacking my book to pieces.
Yeah, I know...go out and get another copy...thanks for the advice, Lifehackers.
commented on 12/16/2005 First, my policy on comments is to allow them if they're not spam and are on topic. Given what I would usually call "troll" behavior on the part of benbenek, I wouldn't normally allow myself to be baited. However, I'm going to make this one response and ask that benbenek either dial back the hostility a few notches or refrain from further commenting on this posting. We're all pretty clear on your opinions on this topic and I'd prefer any further comments from you on this matter add to the conversation rather than throwing fuel on the fire that you fanned into full flame already. I'm not going to just provide a platform for flaming. I would hope you could show a fraction of the respect you claim that the printed page demands of us toward your fellow human beings or retire from this discussion to purely literary companionship.
ben, you seem intent on *deliberately* misunderstanding what are entirely cogent statements by completely qualified professionals. My response in 10 points:
1. If "straw man" is a confusing term to you, you may want to visit the section of your distinguished library that deals with rhetorical structures and logical fallacies. Or read this Wikipedia article.
2. A good rule of thumb is to take anyone who claims to be a "real" anything with a dump truck full of salt. In an average week, I buy 3-4 books. I've read voraciously since I was a kid and spent most of my weekend evenings in college holed up in the library. I wasn't doing homework. I was just enjoying access to that many books. Phrases like "most of us real book lovers are disgusted" are inflammatory, ignorant arrogance, dressed up in academic dress. I am as big a fan of "books" as you are.
3. "Book" is a fairly generic term that runs the gamut from the handbound leather-covered volumes from the 15th century to $2 romance novels. To compare them on equal footing is absurd. Today there *are* books that are prepared with great care, on high quality paper that, via the care the publisher has put into the printing, have *earned* the respect of careful treatment. My copy of the complete Calvin and Hobbes is something I treasure and treat with great care as are the copies of Edward Tufte's books. I wouldn't write on them, because they have greater value to me. However, the value has little to do with whether they are "books" or not. I've also got single sheets of paper that I treat with respect. I'm sure you'd be more willing to use a printout of this discussion before your college diploma if both were printed on the same paper stock. That wouldn't mean you don't have respect for "paper".
Consider stamps. Basic stamps for everyday use are worth thousands 80 years later. That doesn't change the fact that you slap them on envelopes every day and let them get all marked up to serve your purposes to mail your bill payments.
4. The value of the multi-hundred year old books has more to do with the rarity of the printed and bound form at the time than that they are "books". If 1 out of every 3 copies of those books had had it's cover torn off and the rest thrown into a dumpster at the bookstore to avoid paying for shipping of the whole book back to the publisher. If those same books were not to be taken out of the dumpster UNDER PENALTY OF LAW. If those same books contained a notice indicating that the coverless book is stolen. If those books had been printed on acid-filled paper that yellowed 10 shades in 6 months. If those books were printed by the millions, they'd be treated differently.
5. If you refrain from painting everyone who writes in books and folds pages as ignorant vandals based on the anecdotal situation of your book's ignorant previous owner, I'll refrain from painting all commenters on my blog as incoherent trolls based on your comments.
6. When you buy used books, you might think to look through them first. If it really is so marked up, why did you buy that copy instead of another. Given that Amazon alone lists 17 copies of that book available in used condition, with copies at $2.03 specifically noting them in unmarked condition, I can't imagine it having been that difficult to avoid the offensive copy in the first place. Tell you what, email me your address and I'll replace the copy for you. It's got to be cheaper than the blood pressure medication.
7. As a counter-anecdote, *I* have a copy of "The History of the English Language" from a professor of mine that has more useful information in the margins than in the text. It's got research notes from his review of original documents at Oxford. I assure you that the notes my father has made in his Bible are worth far more to me than yet another copy of the text. Most of the Bibles from my parents house (lots of them) will likely not be kept by me, but the ones they have written in over years of personal meditations, prayer and study will be treasured.
8. The problem with using anecdotes as the basis of your argument is that a counter-anecdote results in a stalemate. Nearly everything you've used as support material for your arguments has been anecdotal. Again, a trip to the rhetorical structures and logic department of your library might be in order.
9. This is NOT about ego. Do you have some vision of us walking around in public, waving our notes around to impress any academics who might be in the vicinity? The whole point of my posting was to use these methods to more actively *use* the books, to get more out of them privately and personally. Most things done for ego purposes aren't tucked away on bookshelves only to be discovered after the funeral.
10. I hereby promise to make part of the fullfillment of my will that every book be examined and it's relative worth to the market determined. For those that I've both "defaced" and pristine copies not available on the used market for reasonable prices, money from my estate will be used to track down 3 mint copies for donation. For those that are defaced and available for the 1-5% of cover price that most books are settling at, I'll have them shredded and composted, with the resulting fertalizer used to get new saplings started growing. The rest will be donated, along with the entirety of my estate to charity. Will that calm you down?
OK, point 11 and I promise I'll drop it. When I finish my novel and publish it, I'd love to hear from people who write in it. Of course, I'm also cool with someone taking the text and hand-writing the text onto hand-scraped vellum and selling the leatherbound volumes for 10's of thousands of dollars and not giving me a penny, so I'm probably not the best case to use as anecdotal evidence.
commented on 12/17/2005 J Wynia:
Given what I would usually call “troll†behavior on the part of benbenek, I wouldn’t normally allow myself to be baited.
I've stuck to your topic with every post I've made.
------------
J Wynia:
However, I’m going to make this one response and ask that benbenek either dial back the hostility a few notches
I must admit that I'm always adamant about my own opinions (including the opinions and comments on this page) - hostile I am not.
And besides, most trolls that I've encountered (I have my own message board) are usually incapable of making valid points about online topics. My points are valid, they're not hostile troll points. Now, sarcasm is a different story.
I am sarcastic...but sarcasm is not necessarily hostility. Sarcasm can be used to make points and to disarm faulty arguments.
------------
J Wynia:
If “straw man†is a confusing term to you...
I know what a 'straw man' is. I was just surprized to see it so often in one posting are on the internet. It's sort of an archaic term and (in my opinion) sort of weird to see repeatedly (ie; used by more than one post-er)
------------
J Wynia:
Again, a trip to the rhetorical structures and logic department of your library might be in order.
So, to you this whole discussion is nothing but logic and rhetoric? Where's your passion in this?
Where's your heart and feelings about this topic?
To me, you appear to be eerily detached from the very topic you started.It's disheartening to me to see such an obviously intelligent person (you) flying the flag for book-defacement...in fact, you're encouraging book-defacement without any shame.
------------
J Wynia:
"Book†is a fairly generic term that runs the gamut from the handbound leather-covered volumes from the 15th century to $2 romance novels. To compare them on equal footing is absurd.
No, no, no...as objects, as things, ALL BOOKS ARE EQUAL. You're getting into shaky territory here. This is the kind of thinking that leads to book-burning and banning ("this book is good, this one is medium-bad, this one is really bad")
A child's copy of "Cat in the Hat" is completely and absolutly equal to an original edition of The Gutenberg Bible...no question, no sarcasm, no hostility.
Maybe you believe all books are unequal and worth is dependent on individual tastes. I don't agree. It's like saying that an old Jellroll Morton rag is worth more than the latest song by Green Day. There's no evidence that supports this, rhetorically or otherwise.
------------
J Wynia:
The problem with using anecdotes as the basis of your argument is that a counter-anecdote results in a stalemate.
We are at no stalemate...I'm continuing my valid arguments using anecdotes, facts, opinions, feelings, sarcasm,ideas and assertions...and humour (humour's the one they usually leave out in debating class) I'm using much more than simple-minded anecdotes.
------------
J Wynia:
The whole point of my posting was to use these methods to more actively *use* the books, to get more out of them privately and personally.
And this is what we've been talking about. We've been talking about the extremes of using books (and the stuff in between)
Books are meant to be read...that's what they're used for. Right now, I can't think of any book that isn't read somehow. Now, anything beyond that is up to the individual. I just happen to think that scribbling all over books, folding corners and "personalizing" books does great harm...to the book and to subsequent readers.
That's what I've been arguing about.
So far, none of the "pro-defacing" opinions I've read seem to hold any water. They just seem to support the idea that people are basically selfish and uncaring.
------------
J Wynia
The rest will be donated, along with the entirety of my estate to charity. Will that calm you down?
Gosh, now who's being hostile? Hey, thanks for opening up this whole topic. It's really a tender one for a lot of people...and it's a topic I never really thought about in any depth.
Hopefully more folks will come across this post and add to the interesting parade of ideas.
commented on 12/17/2005 Troll behavior isn't about offtopic posting, it's about deliberately inflammatory statements made to bait those who feel passionately into arguments. It's walking into a Star Trek convention and saying that Trekkies need to get a life.
Many of your statements fit that description. Sarcasm is hard to convey in quick forum comments, as evidenced by your taking my final estate comments literally instead of the sarcasm *I* intended.
I'm not "eerily detached" to books. As I said, I *love* books, buy lots of them and got a degree in reading and writing them. However, where I became attached to the written word, you seem to have become attached to bound dead trees with ink on them. Do I also love some of those physical objects? Absolutely. But, I'm more attached to the words and images in them than to the form they take.
I have plenty of emotion about this issue (or I would have stopped responding days ago). However, I don't believe that I'll convince anyone who has your emotional position on this of my position by *using* those emotional arguments. My original posting talked about how much I enjoy reading books this way, how much I get out of them, etc. Those *are* emotional perspectives. However, you and others jumped straight to calling those positions "selfish" and accusing me of steps toward book burning.
Book burning is not dangerous because 400 sheets of paper between 2 leather covers is burned. I've never heard of a single instance of a society burning books because of their physical form. There are no "damn paperback" book burnings. There are no "acid-free paper only" book burnings. Rather, book burnings are ALWAYS about the content printed in them.
My use of notetaking and active physical manipulation allows me GREATER access to that content. It allows me to better understand and retrieve that knowledge and information.
When the reverence is tied purely to the physical form rather than the respect for the words and ideas printed on the paper, you're in dangerous territory as well. You yourself advocated digital "book burning" in this discussion.
You said, "HTML text can be deleted with a simple backspace." To me, you've just said that it's OK to delete words and ideas that I don't agree with. How you can on the one hand accuse *me* of being just on the *path* to dangerous territory while you yourself are directly advocating the destination of that dangerous path?
You're bundling all of your respect for the written word into a single form: books. By focusing on that form, you're ignoring the fact that book burning isn't about fire and paper any more than rape is about sex. Rape is about violence and power and book burning is about the destruction of objectionable ideas. It just takes the form of fire and paper.
When I compare the relative value of the types of books, I'm comparing the relative value of the physical objects. Are you telling me that your library doesn't put more value on an original 15th century Chaucer manuscript than on the exact same manuscript text in the $1 Dover edition?
Note that I am not denegrating the collecting or reverence of the physical objects. However, to me, that reverence has parallels with the collection of other physical objects: stamps, currency, candy packaging, pens and coins. In all of those markets, the relative value is tied to the relative rarity. And, given the natural deterioration of all of those objects, more value is placed on those in mint condition as they're the rarest instances of the objects.
As *historical* objects, notes often ADD to their historical value. While the marks in your book bug you today, they're the kind of thing that enhances the archeological interpretation of the artifact. 900 years from now, the fact that someone found the ideas in the book objectionable will add to the interpretation of the text itself. If there were a second set of notes serving as counterpoint it would further enhance the context of the book.
You state that you see this as an interesting parade of ideas. Yet, when published, this posting was pristine, would fit on a single sheet of paper and expressed a single perspective. It's now littered with comments, many of which I disagree with just as much as you disagree with the comments in your book. Yet, you see the page as it exists now as greater than the original that I published.
So do I. But, if I viewed the text of my article the same way you view writing published on the page, only the original posting would exist.
As a clean, neat article and web page, this posting is completely "defaced". You and the others who commented did so "without shame". Why? Because you felt your ideas would further the conversation. You believed that your additions belonged right next to my original expression. In short, you believed all of the same things about the writing on this site that I believe about the writing in paper books.
But, you didn't feel the religious guilt about it because the conventions of blogs and websites allow you freely contribute to the original text and to put your signature on those contributions.
I agree with that. However, I believe that the free interchange of ideas, that the open conversations, that equality of author and reader is of the utmost important. Where we appear to differ is that I *passionately* believe that that doesn't stop at the boundaries of the Internet. I believe that it carries over to the printed page. I believe that the conventions that have opened the Internet's writing to greater use are just as applicable to paper: bookmarks, annotations and convenient formats.
So, are you more attached to the physical artifact or to the content?
commented on 12/17/2005 Just FYI, there are now more than 10,000 words added *onto* my original posting of 600 words. Where does the greater value lie?
commented on 12/18/2005 [...] I just was reading Lifehack Your Books: Dogear, Writing In Books, and Apologizing to Librarians and thought about how I treat my books. [...]
commented on 12/18/2005 [...] Lifehack Your Books: Dogear, Writing In Books, and Apologizing to LIbrarians. [...]
commented on 12/19/2005 J Wynia Says:
Just FYI, there are now more than 10,000 words added *onto* my original posting of 600 words. Where does the greater value lie?
JW, you seem overly-obsessed with this topic now.
It's Chritstmas...lighten-up and have some nog
and get away from the life-hacking and intense
blogging for a while...maybe rent something good
from Netflix ("Elf" is fun and Bob Newhart's in it)
PS - if you would, please delete my posts on this topic.
I've changed my mind concerning several of my own points
and have almost made a complete 360.
PSS - that'll be the day when I ever
walk into a Star Trek convention.
cheers
commented on 12/20/2005 The greater value?
Honestly -- since I'm a SCHOOL librarian, and thus also and always a teacher -- would have come from someone actually going "hey, I never thought of it that way." I find that benbenek's conclusion is entirely untrustworthy, though, and perhaps proves that, whether he knows what a Troll IS or not, he sure knows how to bait -- almost a protoype of the term.
Thanks, though, to all -- especially JW -- for continuing so long. For me, at least, the value here was in no small amount threefold: a) original post and brainprompt, b) the marginalia I produced throughout the open comments section, and c) watching JW model continued responses and marginalia on a level to which I continue to aspire.
Sigh. One day, I too hope to begin writing a book. My wife actually brought it up last week; she's suggesting I take the summer off for it. If I do, JW's idea is a wonderful one -- and it perhaps anticipates printing a book with extrawide margins so others will be truly encouraged?
commented on 1/3/2006 [...] 2) Another thing that happens frequently in the EB is a reference to something that really piques my interest. These little asides always leave me hungering for more information, although unless I’m near a computer at the time I often forget to look into these little mysteries. As I was scanning back through the entry on Albania looking at the notes I made I found something I was meaning to look up. (Yes, I write in the Encyclopedia. And I fold the pages. Sometimes I doodle in the margins if an entry is particularly boring. J Wynia would be proud.) Here is the information that piqued my interest. “Albania’s economic transition stumbled in 1997 when individual investors, constituting perhaps one-third of the country’s population, fell prey to a pyramid finance scheme that devastated the national economy and led to weeks of anarchy. A UN-sponsored multinational force was called in to restore order.” A friendly word to the EB editors: That little story might not be the most pressing information to include in the limited space allocated for Albania, but to offer a teaser like that and not fully explain it is just cruel. [...]
commented on 1/5/2006 [...] Lifehack Your Books: Dogear, Writing In Books, and Apologizing to Librarians– The Glass is Too Big - J Wynia “I personally believe that there is no greater respect that can be shown a book than by using it.” (tags: books lifehacks tips reading lifehack hacks) [...]
commented on 1/13/2006 [...] Via Boing Boing, a look at marginalia. One of the comments particularly surprised me, as the author characterized modifying a book as an act of vandalism. He goes on to describe book ownership as a trusteeship; that we should preserve our books for future generations, so that they might experience those books as they were originally published. I don’t buy that argument, though. A book is a living thing. The very act of reading it transforms it. From oils in your hands, which over time develop into stains, to creases along the spine, a book that has been read bears scars that testify to its life’s travels. When further transformed, by the addition of annotations, a book becomes a unique and priceless historical document. Not that my marginalia have any pretentions to such importance, but I think they are a far cry from vandalism. [...]
commented on 1/13/2006 [...] Jessamyn West pointed the other day to a piece about lifehacking books by writing in them, with apologies to librarians. It brought to mind a bit from Roger Tory Peterson that I quoted in a paper I wrote about DRM and e-books last spring: Roger Tory Peterson, author of the classic A Field Guide to the Birds wrote, when the book’s second edition came out, that he was always happy when people showed him their copies of his book. “It is gratifying to see a copy marked on nearly every page, for I know that it has been well used. Although the cover is waterproofed, I have seen many copies with home-made oilcloth jackets; I have seeen copies torn apart, reorganized and rebound to suit the owners taste; others have been tabbed with index tabs, or fitted with flaps or envelopes to hold daily check-lists.”* [...]
commented on 1/18/2006 It seems that at least a few of the previous commenters have the same opinion as myself.
Don't deface your books just because, right now, they belong to you. Someone else may want to read them, someday.
If you would like to keep notes about the books you read, may I suggest a good composition or moleskin notebook instead? You could even type up your notes into a big Wiki for convenient indexing and searching, should you require. :)
commented on 1/20/2006 Got here via J.V. Lynch's livejournal.
I agree that when the book is for one's personal use, there's nothing wrong with writing in it. Authors, of course, write in books all the time, and surprisingly that takes some of us a bit of effort to get over on the first autographing session.
I tend to commit a different heresy: When I'm reading a book and have to stop, I open it and lay it flat to mark the page. Some of my book-o-phile friends have looked at me like I'm the Antichrist for that...
commented on 6/25/2006 Is "foxing a page" the same as dog ear"ring" a page?