*You know what this sinister digital "tagging" practice is
bound to lead to? People 'TAGGING' REAL LIVE PAPER BOOKS,
that's what! Look at the shocking example provided by this
shameless miscreant here:
http://www.wynia.org/wordpress/?s=gadget&submit=GO
'Lifehack Your Books: Dogear, Writing In Books, and Apologizing to Librarians
DEC 13 2005
'First, I want to apologize to librarians and to make clear that what I'm about to say applies only to books you've bought for yourself. (((Oh yes... He's BEGINNING as if he were the voice of sweet reason, but this is the gateway drug to postliterate, paper-chewing info-intoxication!)))
'See, since libraries and books that our parents bought for us are our primary mode of book access in childhood, we grow up with a set of norms for how we interact with books. Because all of those books are expected to remain in as pristine of shape as possible for as long as possible, we have a set of rules in our heads.
'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. ((((HERESY!!! Burn him! Get a rope!)))
'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. (((It's the PRIMROSE PATH TO HELL!! ))) 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. (((He's creating the NAPSTER OF PAPER! All is lost!)))
'The second is the folded over page corner (dogear). I know some of you just tuned me out as a heretic, ((((HERETIC! HERETIC! your sophist prevarications will not save you from the cleansing flames of the auto-da-fe))) 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.
(((Are you listening, Seth Godin? Next time, write duller books so this vandal won't torment them so!)))
'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. (((Here our author descends to sheer perversity; oh for the tongue of St Thomas Aquinas to scourge this practice with the rigor it deserves.)))
'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.'
(((Dante must have created a special circle in hell for former English majors and turncoat librarians with this cheery postliterate attitude; probably, while they're forced to do endless comparative-lit studies, demons flay off their skins , and then fling them into the hellish gloom like discarded book-jackets.)))
