Digital didn’t kill marginalia. In fact, digital could turn it into a revenue source.
23rd February 2011
A clever idea. Famous person reads e-book, makes marginal notes, sells marginal notes as an add-on to the e-book. This will, of course, require standards so that the notes will dependably attach to the book, but it’s an interesting thought.
This has actually been used in times past. I believe that most editions of the Talmud include the text along with first, second, and perhaps even third-generation glosses. I once saw a printed copy of the Seanchas Mor
in Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library that had a similar format: Old Irish Text, Latin glosses on the text, and Middle Irish notations on the Latin glosses.