Please don't write in library books.
Remember the very first lessons you ever learned about how to be a responsible member of the human community? Don't litter, share, and don't write in library books. We've been noticing a rash of violations of the latter, so feel compelled to remind you: Please don't write in library books! While the books are 'yours,' in the sense that they are here to make your intellectual curiosity and growth possible, they are really 'ours.' All of ours! When you write in--or spill food on, or rip pages out of--books, you make them unavailable to other Sarah Lawrence students, faculty, and staff. Please treat library materials with respect--nobody likes using a dirty book with someone else's conclusions written all over it. Not even you, we bet.
Thank you from the library!
Thank you from the library!
posted by Emily Drabinski at 1:46 PM
2 Comments:
sometimes the marginalia is more interesting than the book.
You're right. Sometimes. Also, sometimes not. The 'marginalia is more interesting' argument was quite heated in the moments of transition from the card catalog to the electronic catalog. Catalog cards often contained lots of interesting and informative notes from librarians over the years, and the destruction of catalog cards represented the destruction of the collective knowledge of generations of librarians. But I think many people would argue that the electronic catalog and the ease of use it promotes, the ways hyperlinking can generate intellectual maps, the extension of browseability to previously closed collections, etc., represent real gains. We are always compromising between one or more competing desires in this very material world of librarianship. While the preservation of marginalia is arguably a good, it is also important to provide access to materials in good condition to generations of Sarah Lawrence students. It is this latter value that we hope to promote when we ask you not to write in the books.
Other thoughts?
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