Preservatives

This week's question from Booking Through Thursday:

Are you a Footprint Leaver or a Preservationist?

Preservationist, generally. But a footprint leaver when it comes to textbooks. I don't usually need my textbooks after the end of semester, and I mostly get them secondhand. Those books usually have all kinds of footprints on them already -- underlines, notes, doodles, everything. So I don't really feel guilty about adding to them. But even then I would never use anything other than pencil to underline something. When it comes to other books, I wouldn't even touch them with pencils. You wouldn't find anything handwritten on the book, not even my name on the first page. That's probably the reason why people often don't return books they've borrowed from me; because they can't find the owner's name. If I really wanted to go back and read a particular page, I'll write the page number on a little scrap of paper and keep it in the book. That way, I can re-read pages without dog earing the book.