Thursday, August 14, 2008

At least one conscientious library user

Most of the time, books from my library are returned in worse shape than they went out. The most common scenarios include, writing all over the margins or copiously highlighted text; although, a book once came in covered in kiwi too so, there's no limit to the destruction we see. As a one time student, I found this terrible, and apparently widespread, habit very VERY annoying. As a librarian, I find it completely disrespectful - and even more widespread than I previously thought!

Because of the vast number of highlighted and scribbled on books that come through the library, I thought I was alone in my frustration. I began to believe that students think writing in library books is the trendy thing to do or think that their marginalia are ideas of great genius meant to be shared. Well, I was wrong. There is at least one conscientious student out there who feels my pain.

The other day, as I was checking in books, I opened the front cover of a fairly new book to find an interesting post-it-note. The note summed up my feelings exactly; I could have written it myself. The post-it read:

"Please don't write in this book. You will ruin it for us all. It is really very annoying!"

Ah, finally a kindred spirit! I would like to find this mystery person and shake their hand. If there is one conscientious student out there maybe there's more and, maybe one day, all books in the library will be free from grafitti.

Hmm, fat chance of that. But at least I know there's one person on my side, fighting for good and not evil.

1 comment:

Erin said...

I love it! As a child I was taught not to fold the pages down in books.

You are absolutely right -- people aren't as conscientious today.