I had two independent study projects this semester, both of them huge papers with obscure topics, so I had to check out all kinds of foreign books from Inter-Library Loan. Of course, I didn't finish any of my papers by the time my books came due (at the end of November), so I had about 8 books out, overdue, for about two weeks. My library charges a dollar a day.
I finally got them in on Thursday night when I got my last paper done. I was feeling very proud of myself.
Today I got an email from the InterLibrary Loan lady. (Real humans work there?) It said:
quote:Anneke, We appreciated the return of the overdue ILL book entitled Marianne into battle: republican imagery and Symbolism in France. However, there was extensive underlining, writing, brackets, etc. in the book upon it’s return. Before we check out books to patrons, we look through them and note its condition. This one did not appear to have the markings when it was checked out to you. I have sent a note to the lending library regarding this and they may send an invoice for damages. If that is the case, I will submit this to our fines clerk.
And it's all true. I feel incredibly guilty, but I did it and it's all my fault.
Now, not only do I have to pay the fine, but I have to feel really bad for being a bad person in the library. Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Huh. I never thought it was wrong to underline or write comments on scholarly library books. I guess I was egotistic enough to think that my insights actually increased the value of the book.
Seriously, though, it's not like it makes it harder to read. Sheesh.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I kind of thought about it being bad when I did it, but rationalized it by remembering all the times I'd checked out a library book with underlines.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh my goodness! A dollar a day a book? That's so expensive!
And I believe underlining, highlighting, and marginal comments, make a book much more interesting and valuable, too! Rather than charge, they should pay you for your excellent annotations.
I finally ended my association with libraries (because ours here is so bad, and because I'm perennially late returning my books so that I do believe it works out cheaper in the end just to buy them, (certainly more pleasant)), and now I get to mark up my books to my heart's content and take as long as I like about reading them. Now that they have plenty of online used book sellers (so that out of print books are easier to find as well), then I am very happy.
Of course I do end up with more books than I have room for. All my shelves are crammed 2 deep with more turned sideways at the top. But I try to deal with that by giving them away at every opportunity.
Annie, you bad, bad person, you! For shame!
By the way, is your name actually Anneke or is that a nickname? That's an awesome name.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Anneke is my first name. Morgan is my middle name, but people have been calling me by that since I was 3 days old and the nurses couldn't pronounce Anneke. Recently, I've decided to re-appropriate my first name. Everyone in the College of Art and everyone at work and everyone on the internet and Hobbes's entire family all think my name is Anneke. Everyone in the Modern Languages department and everyone at church and my entire family all think my name is Morgan. Every once in a while someone will be in an art class and a French class with me and be supremely confused. Every once in a while, someone from church will come into work and be supremely confused. But yes, for all intents and purposes, my name is Anneke.
Or just Annie. I got that from my Mom's pet name for me - AnnieMo, which sounds a lot like the Spanish word ánimo. I rather enjoy it. Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I cannot stand reading books that have been marked; it's visually distracting and so takes much longer to process information. The library is there to serve everybody, not just you. If you must make markings there are plenty of photocopiers available to you.
Both my parents are librarians and I know all too well the futile and thankless job it is to maintain a complete collection in some semblance of good repair. Hearing things like this always irritates me. *grumble*
Makes it more valuable indeed.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ah, that's a great name. I used to have some Morgan/Annie ambivalence too, since you were Morgan on the old BML forum, but I've successfully transitioned to Annie, I believe. Now I think I'll start calling you Anneke, though, cause that is a cool name. Would that be okay?
I still have one or two friends that I met through work during the era when I was too shy to remind work people not to call me Anne. I've never been able to get these friends to call me Anne Kate instead. I wonder if they would go for Tatiana. <laughs> (I actually prefer Tatiana now and think of myself as that. But mostly I don't mind what I'm called, as long as it's not Anne. Anne is really not me.)
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Annie's obviously a consciencious library patron,Dan, you should be commending her for felling bad about it, since i know plenty who wouldn't.
I gotta say, kudos to the library for taking charge! of their book collection. I can't tell you how many times I've borrowed books with drawings in them or underlines that might as well have been crossings-out of words, and scribbles and highlightings...
Of course, i have had to restrain myself more than once from marking up library books. I know the temptation, Annie!
posted
I see that more on books that have been sold back to the bookstore.
There was this great book for a religion course that had hilarious comments written in it in yellow highlighter. Written next to a sentence that started like "Jesus' first mistake was..." I read, "Jesus doesn't make mistakes. He's perfect. <3"
posted
I agree with BtL about underlining in books in general. I may be constitutionally incapable of not reading a footnote, piece of marginalia, or the like. When there is the occasional note out to the side it can be kind of interesting, but it isn't too long before they become thick enough on the page to hopelessly distract me. Once I bought a used textbook without flipping through it, which was a huge mistake. It was in *very* good shape, in terms of wear and tear, but its previous owner must have been a native speaker of a language other than English. Virtually every word longer than a single syllable had been underlined, with a little arrow pointing from it to it's definition out in the margins. Drove me insane.
I do commend Annie for feeling bad about having marked up the book though.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think I twitch when people tell me to mark something in a text book...even if it's my own text book that I paid a good lot of money for...I just...can't do it...it's like betrayal or the breaking of a sacred oath...I feel like washing myself in some purification ritual whenever I am forced to write in a book
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
My own reference books are massively more useful to me the more I mark them up. Whenever I refer to something in Marks' handbook for Mechanical Engineers I tab it. Then when I've taken the time to figure out what something means and how to apply it, I make notes right on the page, so that next time the same question arises I know exactly what to do right away. Also, every time I buy something from a catalog, I mark the part number I eventually chose, and make notes if other brackets or accessories are also needed, and so on. Then the next time I don't have to repeat the entire process of figuring out what all the options are and which one is best for my application.
My brain plus my system of marked and tabbed reference books, catalogs, and go-bys, is enormously faster and more accurate than my brain with unmarked books.
I am definitely a fan of marking up books. Where would we be if Fermat hadn't wanted to mess up his nice copy of Diophantus' Arithmetica, for instance? Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
AK, one of my professors once saw a book originally owned by Voltaire which was not just annotated, but had entire sections crossed out and snide remarks to the author written boldy across the page. Sounds like you're on the right track for literary genius.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Annie, The joke at our public library is that I have singlehandedly funded the new wing of the library with late fees. It is those darned videos I get for the kids, which are a dollar a day after one week.
In a similar vein, we now get Netflix because it is cheaper than me renting videos and bringing them back late EVERY SINGLE TIME. It is a fatal flaw.
I wish I could absolve some of your underlining guilt, but I can't. As Bob said, library books are there for the public, not for the individual. It also burns my biscuits when someone borrows a book of mine and dogears the pages. They are just pet peeves of mine.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Or busts the spine. Fahim refuses to lend any books out because they always come back in bad shape. Same with DVDs.
Sorry, but I agree with the others - library books are for everyone to use and shouldn't be marked up. I hate it when people do that. It makes it much much more difficult for me to get through stuff. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh, Tatiana, I completely agree that it's useful to annotate one's own books--I don't hesitate to do that myself, and heavily. I love reading one of my books and seeing what I had to say about this or that subject 10 years ago; I'm often surprised by the stuff I knew, that I've now completely forgotten. It's just that I don't think it's a good idea to mark up books that don't belong to me. Crosses the line into vandalism, in my mind.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Lay-o, definite props to Annie for actually paying the fines. I'm more leery of giving props for overcoming your guilt and doing something you know you shouldn't But the post was more directed Ic and ak's posts. Ic might have been kidding, but without some sort of j/k road sign to guide me I was but a little lamb lost in the woods of his rhetoric.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
You are alright in my book, no pun intended. My son was faced with his First Confession for our church this weekend. As the priest offered to stay for any adults that also wanted the Sacrament of Penance, I had to think of which of the 10 commandments I hadn't broken.
I am a bad man.
"A loner, a rebel. Don't get involved with guys like me..." - Pee Wee Herman
If we only would have known that Paul Reubens was screaming out for help, maybe we could have prevented his demise. {Sigh}.
Posts: 1870 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Noemon, never fear, I don't mark up or dogear other people's books. But I always like it when I get a book that has markings in it. I guess I'm not in the majority on that, from what I'm reading.
And my own books I do mark up freely and find it very useful to me. For novels, if there is a word I don't know I might underline it and mark it on the edge of the page so I can find it again to look it up later when I am near a dictionary or my computer.
For textbooks or techincal books, I write condensed notes on the flyleaf. Like the one page of equations you write to memorize for your physics final, I try to write that page on the flyleaf, as a sort of quick reference guide to the whole book.
My copy of Goedel Escher Bach has my condensation of the propositional calculus on the flyleaf, and the axioms of the MUI system, and other problems and stuff that were mentioned inside. That one is looseleaf now, since I originally got it in paperback and read it so many times it fell apart. I guess I should eventually get a hardback copy, but I shall be loth to lose my annotations of the text when I do that.
I don't mind that librarians teach people not to mark in public books, except that the lesson seems to carry over to people's own books as well, and that seems like a bad thing to me. Books are interactive media, in my book. Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
One of my religious studies professors meintioned once that it wasn't uncommon for marginalia to get incorporated into the text of religious manuscripts when they were recopied. So, for example, some fervent reader would see Jesus' name and write "blessed be his name" or something just above it, and the next person to copy the text would just include it in the text. Interesting, no? I wish that I had an article that talked about it, with examples and such.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah, that sounds like the Tao Te Ching, that has scholars scratching their heads over what is original text and what is later commentary. That's sort of cool. Also imagining someone coming across one of my notes in some unspecified future and wondering who the heck this weird person was. <laughs>
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Annie, I had the hardest time in the world learning your name. I knew that Hobbes calls you Annie, often, but I also knew that it wasn't really your name. I was always like, "So does Ann-...Aah....Aaah....Hobbes, WHAT is her NAME?!" And then he would calmly say, "Anneke", and I would repeat it, and the conversation would go on, until the next time I tried to say it, lol. Seeing the spelling eventually helped me a LOT.
Posts: 119 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
You know, if I were to pick up a book from, say, the early 19th century or something, and find it filled with marginalia, I'd be delighted, and would probably spend a lot of time reading over what the person had to say. I'd see it as an interesting window into the mind of a person living back then.
So why do I dislike it when it's written by my contemporaries? It would still be a window into the mind of a person, just one who lived during my own time.
posted
The idea of marking in a book is making me twitch.
Sorry, but I got to go with BtL on this one - marking up that book and damaging so others couldn't get the same use out of it is selfish. However, you owned up to your selfishness and will pay the damages which I admire. Goodness knows it doesn't make you a bad person, it makes you a conscientious caring individual who did something she regrets.
If you like to make notes on the text you're reading, read with a notebook beside you for heaven's sake! Make copies of the section you're studying and mark that up to your heart's content. Marking up book pages....*shudder*
Maybe because I look on a good book as a work of art. Marking up pages is like spray painting graffiti or something.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think what's more criminal than marking books, is marking books ignorantly. I hate it when you go to buy a used book for a class and all that's left in the pile are texts where someone has highlighted or underlined a full 65-70% of the text. That's just sheer stupidity.
I would go out of my way to buy books early so I could get a clean copy.
On the other hand, I am absolutely positive that the foul fiend who stole my marked up copy of the Norton Anthology of Early American Literature from the tutoring center earned a full grade higher than he/she/fiend normally would have because of my notes and cross-references -- all done in fine-tipped maroon ink, of course.
:: shakes fist ::
I want my Norton back!
Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm definitely not a fan of checking out or buying marked up books. Usually, I think whoever wrote the notes is a moron. I read a book for my autobiography class where the previous reader had marked up the copy. Some of the insights were cool, but I would have liked to come up with them on my own--that's what I was in the class for, and her comments restricted what I would have come up with.
(Don't know why I assume it was a female, I guess because most English majors are.) The worst thing she did was write BEFORE a passage that a main character dies in that passage. I was royally pissed off.
Have I underlined in books that aren't mine? Yes. But always in very light pencil. I shouldn't have, I guess, but at least I didn't use pen.
Though, Annie, I do think you feel entirely too bad about this. If they want to charge you, then they get a new book--yay for them. If they don't, then I guess they don't really care.
As for overdue fees, I kept out about 8 books for 4 weeks in the summer. At 25 cents a day, it came out to $36.00. I still haven't paid the fine, and tomorrow I go into that same library for my 7th day of work. When I get my 2nd paycheck, I'll pay it.
I also owe about $5.00 or so at the public library.
posted
Talking of marking up books is making me twitch, too. I'm so careful with my books, I don't bring a pencil near them, much less a pen or a highlighter.
I also can't let books go. Even textbooks. I can't throw them away, I can't give them away, I can't sell them.
posted
Move halfway around the world, and you'll see what you can let go of! Yes, grammatically poorly structured, but I don't care. Seriously. Leaving Canada for Sri Lanka, I got rid of about 15 boxes of paperbacks and another ten or so of hardcovers. Otherwise, shipping costs, through roof, that sort of thing. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't mark up books that aren't mine, but when they're my copies, I feel free to. taht's part of why I paid for them, after all.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
kwsni, I still have textbooks from my freshman year of college - and that was a long time ago.
I finally did haul off a bunch of books and donate them to charity once - it was hard, but necessary when we installed our shelves in our library, and I filled them up the first night and still had four boxes left to go through.
The only thing I got rid of though were paperbacks - I can't let a hardback book go.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
When we moved across the country we quickly realized that it wouldn't practical to move all of our books with us. Dad, upon getting married, started putting together a collection of books he felt every young person should read, which gradually spiralled into a collection of books that everyone should read. Mom, of course, thought the idea was great and couldn't help but add many books of her own. People would just come to our place to do research for papers, between our library, my parents, and my genius brother there was no need to go anywhere else. Definitely something I want to do when I have a permanent home. There were too many to sell so I believe we just gave them all to Acadia University. We never did get a final tally, we stopped counting at around 4000 books. That was just from the upstairs library, not including our own personal collections or the downstairs bookcases. It was probably upwards to 6000 books all told. We did go through them and decide to keep the precious ones, but dismantling the collection was definitely the hardest part of moving.
And none of them were dog-eared or marked up in any way! Now I'm feelin' all nostalgic.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Over Thanksgiving my parents brought me all of my books from their house, and I've been busily cataloging them ever since. The fiction is done, coming in at a little over 1000 books (a surprising number of which are first editions--I had no idea!), but I have yet to tackle the non-fiction.
Now I just need to get the rest of my collection shipped up from my in-law's house.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm the sort of person who thinks books deserve respect so I don't mark any books, including my own.
However, here's a trick:
I always carry a package of post-it notes with me, and I write notes on the post-its, and stick them at the top of the page so they stick up like a bookmark.
This actually works better than just highlighting the words you might want to find, since you can thumb through the post its to find what you're looking for.
And of course, you can remove them before you take the book back to the library.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Check out any book in my school library that has been there for a while and you'll almost invariably find underlined sections and words in the margin. It's almost as if some professor in the school's history actually ENCOURAGED such horrid acts of book defacement and breaches of the borrower's agreement. What makes it bad is that oftentimes the person doing the underlining is either a) really stupid or b) obviously doing research on a topic that isn't related to mine. So I am forced to look at their notes and read the phrases they underline when it is clear I'm not going to benefit from their insight. That being said, I also will say that I mark my own books quite regularly, so I understand the temptation.
Posts: 786 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
At least no one in your family insisted on ironing the paper before they read it.
Well, in all fairness, no one in my family did either, but it made a great visual!
However, my father did insist he get the paper a la virgin. Everyone else could read after him. The pompous #@$! Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Did you guys not buy the two Harry Potter textbooks? Magical Creatures was one of them and the other was Quidditch Through the Ages, wasn't it? Harry's and Ron's notes and markups were totally what made those great! You pristiners are just weird! Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
That's funny... In the part of France I live, you put the suffix "ke" to a name to significe smallness and likeness. So I was called Anneke for all my childhood. Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Wall Bash]](graemlins/wallbash.gif)
