User:Simon/Annotation typologies

From XPUB & Lens-Based wiki

traces of book use in from the books

Typologies of traces of use identified from a previous project, which explored books from the 000-099 section of the Redmond Barry Reading Room in the State Library of Victoria.

User:Simon/From_the_Books:_SLV_RBRR_000-099

  • ACCIDENTAL DOG-EAR
  • ANNOTATION
  • ASTERISK
  • BOOK PRICE
  • BOOKMARK
  • CIRCLED TEXT
  • CREASED PAGE
  • CROSS
  • DEAD ANT
  • DOG-EAR
  • ERASER RUBBING
  • ERRATA
  • FINGERPRINT
  • FOLD
  • HANDWRITTEN LETTER
  • INK BLOT
  • LIBRARY DOCUMENT
  • LIFTED PRINT
  • LINE
  • LOOSE PAGE
  • NOTEPAPER BOOKMARK
  • NOTES
  • PAGES REMOVED
  • POST-IT NOTE
  • RECEIPT BOOKMARK
  • REPLACED IMAGE
  • SCUFF
  • SMUDGE
  • SQUIGGLE
  • STAIN
  • STRIKETHROUGH
  • TICK
  • TORN PAGE
  • TORN PAPER BOOKMARK
  • UNDERLINING
  • WARPED PAGE
  • WEAR AND TEAR

These formed a loose classification system that indexed these books not by bibliographic reference, but by the frequency of occurrence, taking a "bag of words" approach. Problems that arose were linguistic - it was difficult assigning a word to an example as this already had some assumption of intention (e.g. a doodle as an intentional drawing vs squiggle as unintentional drawing).

thoughts and reflections

Whereas my previous approach was one of identification based on nouns, which presented problems. In a sense, to name something is to own it. Things become property much more easily than actions. Perhaps a different approach of identifying actions may be more open and associative than a noun-based classification scheme.