From a very early age I was taught not to write in books. Books, my father taught me, were nothing short of sacred, and were to be treated with respect. That meant no writing. The idea was later reinforced by New York's public school system, which each year handed out worn textbooks that had probably been in circulation for a decade but had magically remained immaculate through the years. The penalty for damaging a book was steep: You had to pay for it. Then, in seventh grade, something very strange happened. I was handed a stack of books, told to study from them, make them my own and above all, write in them. It was sacrilege, and I didn't listen. I read them, learned what they taught but refrained from writing in them. In high school I didn't really have a choice in the matter; for the most part my books were borrowed, and again, the price of writing in them was steep. But now, I've been disabused of my silly phobia of writing in books. You might mistake my copy of "The Inferno," for example, for a coloring book.
Here's the thing about writing in books: It can be really useful, not just for the present owner, but also for the people who will come later. I still remember being told by my freshman seminar professor how he had stumbled upon a used copy of our text and found the notes in it invaluable.
Here's the other thing about writing in books: It can also be really awful, not just for the present owner, but for the unfortunate people who will come later. I still remember taking my used copy of "The Inferno" back to the U-Store my freshman year and exchanging it for a new copy. The handwritten notes in the book were driving me insane.
So, now I have my copy of the book with my own notes, and they make me very happy. Of course, you might look at them and think my notes are completely moronic. That's one of the problems with writing notes in books: We write them for ourselves. After all, the point of my notes is to help me remember and understand things, so it's OK that I draw little crosses that mean very different things depending on the context. If you can tell when the crosses mean Christ and when they mean death, well, good for you, but really, that's not why I'm drawing them.
It doesn't matter whether I'm writing sonnets in my chemistry book as long as it's my chemistry book, because after all, it's my private property. If you come along later and happen to pick it up, that's the cost of buying a used book. If you don't like my scribbles, you can erase my hard work, return the book or deal with it.
It's an entirely different matter when people write in books that don't belong to them, though. I'm speaking, particularly, about library books. I've taken out about a dozen books from Firestone this semester, and about half of them have had writing in them. For the most part, the writing was fairly ignorable. Underlining isn't so distracting. Translators' notes aren't too bad when they don't pertain to your argument. But what's really awful is when there are unintelligible notes in the margin that clearly relate to your argument.
Unless I have a special talent for checking out books that have been written in, it would seem that this is a fairly widespread problem. Interestingly, the books in the public library down on Witherspoon Street don't seem to have that same problem, which actually makes quite a lot of sense. After all, the books in Firestone are primarily taken out by researchers, and notes are very handy tools. But they show a complete disregard for the other scholars who will need to use the book later on. The problem is especially grave for older books, which really can't take the erasing and aren't easily replaceable.
Books today are cheaply mass-produced, and since for the most part we own the books we use, we've gotten used to the idea that we can write in them. I imagine a lot of people who write in library books don't even give the matter a second thought, but please think about it the next time you're about to put pencil to paper in a book that's not yours. The books in Firestone belong not only to the University, but to all the scholars who have walked and will walk through FitzRandolph Gate. If you really need to take notes in library books, go ahead, but use Post Its. Martha Vega-Gonzalez is a history major from New York, N.Y. She can be reached at mvega@princeton.edu.
Read More
Why can’t lecturers win the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching?
Jerry ZhuLet’s acknowledge those who make “boutique teaching” possible, those who work tirelessly to make our rigorous curricula more accessible, and those who dedicate their time to advising and guiding us through all the challenges we face at this University. Lecturers should be eligible for the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Let’s acknowledge those who make “boutique teaching” possible, those who work tirelessly to make our rigorous curricula more accessible, and those who dedicate their time to advising and guiding us through all the challenges we face at this University. Lecturers should be eligible for the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Princeton’s administration of justice is Trumpian
Frances BroganThe disparity between the University’s approach to Giberson and its approach to pro-Palestinian protestors reflects a concerning trend of appeasing an increasingly emboldened right rather than resisting the threat it poses to academic freedom and the wellbeing of Princeton students.
Secular Opening Exercises? Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water
Frank StrasburgerThe secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
The secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
