"The history of books and reading practices is an apt starting point. Annotation was both ubiquitous and habitual by the 1500s, not long after the invention of the printing press and growth of print culture. Throughout the early modern period, approximately 1500–1800, as scholar Heidi Brayman Hackel has recounted, book use among “less extraordinary readers”—or novices and everyday annotators—included people adding various types of marks while reading books. Marks of active reading, like underlining, indicated sustained engagement. Marks of ownership, such as signatures, distinguished books as valued objects. And marks of everyday recording, perhaps unrelated to the content, added ancillary information."
Wednesday, April 07, 2021
Meaning In the Margins
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