I want to thank Stefanie for drawing my attention to “What I Really Want is Someone Rolling Around in the Text.” The headline caught my eye a few days ago, but I didn’t read the article because I expected it to be yet another screed about how e-readers are destroying civilization, and real readers won’t use them. It’s not.

Despite the fact that I’m an English teacher, I don’t usually mark up my books. I just feel weird writing in my books. Maybe it has something to do with the time I spent reading library books as a kid. I don’t know. Professional reading I mark up a great deal and always read with a pencil in my hand, but not novels as much. And why not? I can’t say. I really marked up Passion by Jude Morgan—or, I should say, I underlined a lot. On the other hand, I highlight and take notes all over my Kindle books.

As Stefanie noted, Anderson begins to go off on e-readers a bit, but he also acknowledges the possibility of sharing marginalia in ways that we currently can’t—or at least not as easily. Stefanie explains that with public note-sharing, users can see others’ notes and share their own. Anderson actually ends the article excited about the possibilities technology might offer for sharing marginalia. It’s worth a read.

Stefanie also shared the public notes feature at Kindle, and if you want to follow mine, here is my profile.

photo credit: cobra libre