Taking Ownership

25th February, 2009 4 Comments

As I kid, I had those “This book belongs to the library of….” stickers where you had to write your own name. I think they had unicorns on them. The stickers were also the lick kind.  Like giant stamps you had to lick and hope you could lay straight and flat inside the book. They tasted disgusting. And my handwriting sucked. It still does.  You could get pre-printed stickers that had your name typed out though. Regardless of the kind of sticker you had, a pack came with maybe ten.  Not so great when you have the entire collection of The Baby-Sitters Club books to mark as your own. 

When I belonged to the New York Public Library – my books were stamped all over.  ”NYPL” on the cover on the sides on the title page.   At least three stampings per book.  I haven’t noticed any exuberant stamping on my Brooklyn Public Library books.  Glancing at my current book, I don’t see any stampings of ownership, with digital check-out there is no card slot in back either. It’s very frustrating to know that if I don’t keep my receipt I will have no clue which library I borrowed a book from or when it is due.

Some people choose the much cheaper method of writing their name in the upper left corner of the inner cover.  Should I mention again that my handwriting is absolutely terrible?  I’ve known one woman who asked borrowers of her books to write their name as well, sort of a memorial to those who browsed the pages.

My coworker, Janice, has a son who is a voracious reader.  Before the holidays we were talking about stocking-stuffers and she mentioned getting him a personal stamp with which to mark ownership of the books he regularly lends to friends.  After much futile searching, I asked my Google-wiz mother to see what she could find.  Five minutes later I had a few emails with different options.  Fancy scripts and clip-art looking images abounded before Janice settled on a simple block font of his initials with the usual “From the Library of…” text forming a ring.  Apparently her son thought such a marking measure was a bit pretentious. 

All this thinking about book ownership and whether or not we should leave our mark led me to think of books like dogs.  It is said that we do not own our dogs – they own us as we set our schedules for their walks and feedings (and sometimes pick up their waste).  It makes me wonder if our books own us.  I’ve heard many different approaches readers have to books – some see nothing wrong with turning a cover back or dog-earring a page.  Others cringe as such cruelty and carefully preserve dust jackets or attempt to avoid marring the spine.  Some people scribble in the margins and others would never deign to so much smudge a pages. We set aside a shelf, and then more, a wall, and then a room to our books.

Clearly the books own us. 

I’m of half a mind to buy my own stamp, maybe to let future readers know that the book owned me. Maybe even a peel-off back pack of pre-printed lables.  Definitely nothing involving handwriting.  Although that’s a preferable method to a dog’s approach…

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