Librarian confessions

::pets her nice clean books::
I don’t think I could bring myself to dog-ear a book. It would *crease the page* !! And I don’t write in my books either. Probably stems back to growing up with a father in the booktrade and helping to sell books and loving the clean, crisp covers and pages…. I don’t even fold the covers right back to avoid damaging the spine (and book binding these days is getting worse). ;)

But writing *corrections/errata* in books c.f *opinions* well that is…. Well I could consider it. And in Maren’s case I will not condemn her! LOL But I have yet to pluck up the courage to write in my clean Dragonhaven. Even though the author has commanded me to put in the errata. ::dithers::

Post-It notes! (or the sticky-note brand of your choice) They make excellent bookmarks. They stay right where they’re put, until you decide to move them, and unless your book is extremely fragile, they don’t hurt the pages a bit.

Clarification: it wasn’t like someone went through and blacked out lines of the play; it was printed so that they just weren’t there, with asterisks helpfully showing you where something was taken out. If a reader didn’t bother to look at the introduction where the asterisks were explained, s/he could conceivably have read the whole play without knowing anything was missing.

Also, the beginning of my first sentence ironically got, ahem, edited out. ;) The missing part is something like “When I was a lowly undergrad, I took a general History of…”

And I suppose I should encourage anyone else who may come across a similarly bowdlerized library book to show it to a librarian rather than doing what I did. Most of us would be horrified to find such a thing (I mean a censored book, not a written-in book) in our collections, and new editions of literary works can generally be ordered for $20 or less. In a few instances, the library may in fact be holding on to the old edition because it does have historical value, but if that is the case it should probably be in their non-circulating Rare Books and Special Collections anyway.

“But bookmarks fall out**.”

Post-it notes make the greatest bookmarks. You can write a note about what you are marking (and why you are marking it) on the top and leave it sticking out of the book–I do this a lot when I’m writing papers and need to re-find information–it’s like a mini-tab index. I, too, write in my own books–reading is a dialogue, and I want to have my say!

I use post-it’s for bookmarks. The stick and don’t fall our and don’t leave marks. The only other use I’ve found for the things is noting measurements for my knitting and attaching them to the side of the bookcase next my chair where I can see them.

Librarian hero night! *admires snazzy librarians*

OK I work in an academic library, and have for quite a number of years now, and learnt some time ago that sometimes the pencilled-in comments made by other students (or student turned academic in one case) can be extremely useful… I do rail against those who insist on sharing their inanities when they are in pen, especially when they are obviously brain dead to begin with. One of our biggest problems is with the ‘post-it’ note, though I have also learnt not to go through removing these (this year for my thesis I happened to reborrow the same book I had from 2002 to find my post-its still in place – saved me about 2 days’ work).

I must confess I am a reverse dog-ear-er (-er). I put the dog-ears down the bottom of the pages for those pages in my favourite books if I want to quickly find a reference or bit in the future. Eg – mini blue ‘palace’ in The Blue Sword (paperback copy only, not the hardback); lots of the bits between Narl and Rosie in ‘Spindle’s End’ (I have two copies of this book, both paperback, and the reverse dog-ears in each copy are not the same – go figure) (BTW Narl is my absolute favourite of all your male heroes)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 comic book series by Joss Whedon and Brian K. Vaughan

Does this mean only Vol 2 (which, yes, imo, is the best so far of season 8) won the award? (It’s the only arc BKV has written so far on BtVS.)

In college writing notes in the text decreased the resale value – which meant a shorter beer and pizza budget the next quarter.

I think the real issue is what the book means to the reader. Christopher Stasheff in his Starship Troupers series touches on whether an actor has a right to object to a script that he/she doesn’t agree with – as in a passage that trods preconceptions of religion, gender bias, etc. And I think that, in part, explains my position.

A book tells me a story. The cover art sets a tone, the type setting, everything combines with the words of the author to convey a story. Every time I re-read that book, I want the author’s story. It is important that unwanted distractions – such as extra bookmarks from the last few times reading it, marks, spills, splotches, rain marks, torn pages, dog-ears, etc. don’t remind me of the last time, or the first time, or whichever time I was reading the tome and the alteration occurred.

Because I am different each time I read the book. I constantly recall the words from some previous reading rather than the actual words before me. But each time I catch an earlier reading mistake, I treasure *this* read-through all the more. As I grow in experience, in books read and people loved, the same old story often means something different to me when I revisit an old friend. So I want to be able to experience, through new eyes, that same precious tale that the author, and the editor, and the publisher brought me.

I never want to lose a friend, or a book. I was *bitterly* disappointed on reading the hardcover Atheneum press Anne McCaffrey book, “DragonDrums”, when pages shelled out of the binding – before I got that far in the book. A few paperbacks used to do that, and was usually a disappointment, too. A dog-ear may or may not cause damage to the readability of the book. Marks in the book may not hurt anything, but they may not apply to a subsequent read-through.

Stories I leave pristine as possible, and treat carefully to preserve the life of the book. My Sharon Lee/Steve Miller “Balance of Trade” is kind of curled and peeled along the right side of the front and back covers (trade edition). I just started on what must be the 10th or 12th reading. Copyright 2004, first edition, soft cover. When I get a hard cover with a dustjacket? Demco Polyfit. Before I start reading. The dustjacket cover preserves the dustjacket indefinitely (I started using them in 1987 or so, and haven’t had a failure. Unlike a library, I prefer to fold them in place and not tape anything – with a minimum of attention I don’t need the tape, and I do *not* want adhesives and tapes mucking up my novels!

The Black and Decker Advanced Wiring Guide I used when wiring my barn? I added tabs, dog eared pages with charts and frequently-reference stuff. I made notes. My intro to welding book? no special care, but the only page I might have dog-eared was the chart of gas pressure settings for different tasks. My horse information books? (Workhorse Handbook, The Ultimate Horse Book, Centered Riding, Talking in Whispers, Talking with Horses, The Horse Whisperer, Lyons on Horses) Mostly clean, I haven’t had a reason to mark them up.

Documents I generate? Marked, crossed out, written in, references, notes all over.

I would have a difficult time replacing some books. I doubt that Kathleen Sky’s “Witchdame” or Pauline Ashwell’s “Unwillingly to Earth”, or even Palmer’s “Emergence” have been in print lately, or are likely to be in print again in my life time. I believed that E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series would be such a revered treasure, it would always be available. I cannot recall the last time I saw “Triplanetary” on a new book shelf. Even Tamora Pierce’s “Wild Magic” gets too little attention (I cherish the way that novel begins).

Nope. I feel the same about my novels as the library professed to feel about their books (just before they stamped the library name all over, taped the dust jacket down, and glued in the card pocket and due date slip).

How vexatious, the comments are closed in the Librarything post. Or perhaps it’s needful and I overlooked the explanation? I do that sometimes, le sigh.

Just wanted to note that I am elbales on Livejournal. Or should I go and post this at Pollyanna’s place?

In general, I don’t write in books…I will underline passages I particularly like lightly in pencil, but that is about it. However, I understand that others mark books up all over the place, and would never condemn them for it…EXCEPT: I had a friend borrow one of my books. A beloved book. A pristine book. It came back with notes and comments ALL over it…and in PEN! That is a huge no-no…writing in other people’s books!

Oh, and what am I supposed to add to my Dragonhaven? I must have missed that one.

I marked up and commented in my college texts A LOT, and probably in reaction have tended to minimize writing in my post-academic books. I don’t like to dog-ear pages lest the paper tear at the crease, but have frequently used a paper clip to mark a page. The books I write in the most are cookbooks, with notes about and changes to recipes–usually in the baking section! Sticky notes are useful for this, too. And if I find a really egregious printing error in fiction–like, say, the sort of pronoun swap or misplaced name that throws you out of the story altogether until you figure out what really should be there–I will generally cross out the error and write in the correction so I don’t have to go through the same process again on reread.

I completely understand Maren’s correction of the bowdlerized Moliere, even if I would never have had the nerve to write in a library book. That sort of thing, and real censorship of books and authors, should be fought, and librarians are so often on the front lines in that fight. Some of the librarians here might remember the slogan “There’s something in my library to offend everyone” that appeared for Banned Book Week twenty or so years ago. I had it on a tee shirt and wore it happily until the tee shirt succumbed to old age. It was true for my personal library and should *really* be true for public libraries.

******** wrapping the handle of your hammer with old-fashioned insulation tape

Try (push) bike handle bar tape, from bike repair/sale shops, Halfords, etc. Designed to be gripped hard :)

I think books, like houses, are a little more comfortable if they’ve been lived in. I don’t mind spine creases or battered covers, you can tell which books are my favorites that way, or which I brought camping (you’d be amazed how that campfire smell sticks!). Maybe it comes from reading my dad’s copy of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, as he loved to write notes in the margins and underline things he thought were important. We always used to make fun of him for it, but I like to read what he wrote.

I do try and keep the library books pristine, but if a flake of ice drops off the wrapper of my freezie pop, well, it’ll dry. ^_^;

I could never, ever, ever bring myself to dog-ear a book. The only thing I dog-ear is a catalog, so I can find pages quickly when I’m making phone or web orders. Catalogs are disposable, books are not.

I’m willing to write in textbooks, but not in other books. Not even in those workbooks you’re SUPPOSED to write in. Maybe I’m embarrassed to come back and read my own thoughts ten years later in said workbooks, but I suspect that my real reason is that I’d ruin it for future use. Even my paperbacks look essentially brand new even after they’ve been read multiple times.

Textbooks, on the other hand, need to have highlights and notes. It saves time. And it’s a way to vent. I took a course on constitutional law once, and you wouldn’t believe the number of exclamation points and editorial comments I left in it when it came to Franklin Roosevelt’s court-packing plan and other methods of ignoring the constitution when it came to doing whatever he wanted to do. Then I sold it. Poor guy who bought it — had a crash course in libertarian thought for which he never bargained.

One of the reasons I’ve just bought a new house is to have more room for all the books. They come into the house, but they never go out. And I’m only 48….

Judith

I admit my books are beautifully taken care of, even in their boxes. I even have a special (my sister says anal-retentive) way of holding paperbacks so that the spine doesn’t crack, no matter how big the book. But I admit to occasional dog-earing the odd book, but can barely bare to write on them. I used to in university when I had to plough through acres and acres of knowledge (remarkably little of which remains with me now), but it pains my soul to write in a book.

I don’t mind seeing occasional notes in second-hand books (only if I agree with the writer of the notes or completely disagree with them), although I find them distracting. I admit if I want to write comments I will do the sticky note thing, or even photocopy and write notes and comments on the copy (boo to environmentalists – this is pretty much the only paper wasting thing I do) or even copy it out by hand (if it happens to be poetry). Particularly for poetry I have been keeping my personal anthology by copying out beloved poems (in my best handwriting) in book after carefully maintained book. Recipes the same.

“Maybe Maren’s accuser was just back from reading Viking graffiti on Orkney and was still in a daze of sacred historicity. ‘Call Gudrun for a good time’ becomes a valuable historical artefact after a few hundred years.”

I love this. I collect pictures of art graffiti in Athens see my flicker page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/susan_from_athens/2546757322/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/susan_from_athens/2460351140/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/susan_from_athens/2460345842/

because it is such an ephemeral art form. But the righteousness with which some want to preserve or wipe it out is so revealing of human nature. In the eighteen sixties, in a fit of “only classical Greek culture is worth anything” the government ordered that all graffiti on ancient monuments should be scrubbed and wire scraped off. One historian protested and did his best to record what he could. But they wiped out pretty much the only written records that existed of Athens for one millennium. Sad isn’t it? Cultural censorship at its worse. They also tore down all the Byzantine and Ottoman structures on the Acropolis. The end result looks lovely, but anything from the 4th century AD forward was torn down. That’s a lot of architectural history, isn’t it?

My favorite bookmarks by far are post it notes. They never fall out, they don’t damage a page, and they’re easy to locate in a book! (And they’re easy to replace when I open the book and stick the post it to the outside cover, at which point it promptly drops off into the unknown because its not sticky anymore.)

Elfquest was out in 1983, as was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! And Usagi Yojimbo! Those were the ones I started getting into the libraries back then. And Marvel had such titles as God Loves, Man Kills (partial basis for the second X-Men movie), and Simon & Schuster had been publishing Origins of Marvel Comics, Son of Origins, Bring on the Bad Guys, and other collections in book form. Oh, and there were Heavy Metal graphic novels …

Something I should have said first: Thank you for naming me a heroine! You’re one of mine, for writing such wonderful books!

I have an excellent book on my shelf called “Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books” which informs me that it was trendy at one time to lend your books to your writer friends to get their marginal commentary. Coleridge’s marginal commentary was apparently much prized. So habits do change.

As for post-its – the chemicals in the adhesive are not PH neutral and as a librarian with some archival training I can tell you that you are doing your books no favors with post-its. For the long-term life of your book, pencil notes are kinder.

That said – I write in my books. And I’m not too terribly careful with circulating copies of current fiction that I borrow from the library – if they are busted I can buy a new copy to replace it. Most public libraries these days keep popular fiction only 5 – 10 years. If a book is older or out of print I do take more care with it, but having seen how library *staff* treat books, I’m not able to get too up-in-arms about how the public treats them.

It does bother me when library patrons use books to kill cockroaches and then return the book with the cockroach, though.

I must admit to having a hard time with dog ears and such (I don’t like the corners falling off, as they seem to do inevitably if they have been folded down). And if I see someone folding the spine back so that the front and back covers are touching, it makes me wince noticeably (and I HAVE to go tell the person not to, even if I don’t know them, even if it’s not my book…).

Writing in a book is different. In fiction books it’s fairly rare for me to do so, although I will at times if I have something I need to say to myself about the book. College got me into the habit of writing in non-fiction, which can be fun (although if I disagree strongly, I must admit that I will merely throw the book across the room [which is not nearly as satisfying as when my college roommate and I were studying our varying subjects and got into long and animated debates about whatever idiotic things the authors might be saying... Ah, the memories]), and I will still do that. So I can handle writing in a book.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I’m so glad to drop by again; I’ve missed youall! (I’ve thought to myself as I wander through the zoo, “I wonder how [person X] is doing. Are there any new blog pictures?” Etc. Life has been so crazy that today is literally the first day I’ve been on the computer for more than 10 minutes or so in a week, and all of my computer time has been official stuff. Sigh. I hope life calms down again soon.

I will confess to being a regular dog-earer of pages (bookmarks are slippery and they get in the way or I forget about them or…). I’m always slightly ashamed of that because it’s such a violation of The Bibliophile’s Canon as I’ve heard it preached. But I can’t help it! I can’t.

I am, however, rabid about there never being a crease in the spine of my paperbacks. I *hate* that. It breaks the back of the book! I’ve tried to teach a few people (my mom, my sister, a friend or two who wanted to borrow a book) how to hold the book like I do so that there’s no need to crease it. It’s not difficult at all–I can even do it one-handed. And, despite my mother’s insistence that it doesn’t open the pages far enough to read, I never seem to have a problem. :)

When I was nine, I not only circled all my favorite scenes in the first Harry Potter book, but I also “fixed” all the chapter illustrations because I thought it was ridiculous that the illustrator drew as though she had never read the book at all.

8 years later, I’m now much much pickier about what people do to my books. My biggest pet peeve is when they bend the spine back (on paperbacks) so that there are white lines all down it…as other people have said. I confess to keeping all my books in my room and making my brothers sign them out if they want to borrow them…but that’s only because they had a tendency to not give them back and I hated coming across a gap in my shelves.

(My brother keeps taking DRAGONHAVEN. It’s been written down about eight times.) :)

I got in trouble in college for refusing to underline. Not so much in trouble, as called out and questioned by the professor, which was okay because he was my favorite professor and I totally had a crush on him. But still. I only write in books when there is a good reason, and most of other people’s reasons don’t seem to work for me. I also perpetually banned a friend from borrowing books after she folded pages down in the one I loaned her. I probably wouldn’t even loan her the copy of BFG by Dahl that I dropped in the tub and consequently is a bit moldy… What can I say. I’m a bit strange about my books.

When I want to be able to turn to a particular episode, description, etc. in a particular book I’ve been known to create an index on blank pages in the book or on the endpapers. They are MY copies of these books, and I do prefer it when they do my bidding.

That makes me think of Beauty and walking serving platters. Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to think “I need to read something which will distract me from worrying” and to have books gently fly into one’s hands, open to precisely the passage which will distract most deliciously.

By the way Sunshine is so annotated … and much of Con’s dialogue is underlined, as at one time I was very curious about his “voice”. Isn’t it odd what we readers get up to! I might choose different colors and do Sunshine’s grandmother and Yolande … maybe even Mel, tho he’s a man of few words.

The thing of it is, where the rubber meets the road in the shared-use-of-the-tool (Book) in libraries is the rather large and diverse pool of sharers (as it were)

I wouldn’t have it any other way! I think its fabu that so many people, many of whose opinons are Utterly Mistaken in Every Way, all get to read and share the same books.

Of course, these very different people all have their ideas about what makes a book a better tool; what constitutes improvements. I think you can see where we’re going here…

Hence the Iron Clad Rule: Thou Shalt Not Mark In Library Books! No, not even to put in the bit the censors took out, or fix that spelling “error,” nor shall you improve the characters names, nor black out the naughty bits, nor add in explanatory notes that the author would (had he only Known Better) have put in himself.

Or the Library Police (TM) will get you.

Honestly, we’re not grinches; we just have a fairly realistic view of the Body Public.