When I was growing up, my family moved a lot (my dad was in the Navy) and every time we moved we would pack up cartons and cartons of books. After Dad was out of the Navy and we had to pay to move ourselves, Mom would mail the books 4th class (aka book rate) to our new home, as it was cheaper than the per pound cost the movers charged. We never considered tossing the books; as my mother said, only Nazis threw away books.
Recently I saw a tweet where someone quoted statistics that most people never mark up the books they read. The tweeter was in the other camp, and saw no reason not to mark up a book. I have to admit, except for textbooks, I never marked a print book in my life, mostly because I saw marking it up as ruining it for the next person who might read it. With ebooks, of course, it depends on the eReader; some support highlighting and some don't. I do mark up my ebooks, partly because, except for husband, no one else can read them anyway, unless I loan them my actual Kindle. Also, I could always get rid of high-lighting, notes, and bookmarks if I wanted to. I mark fiction books I plan to review so I can refer to those sections or even copy and paste chunks of text. Every once in while I make a note to myself in a fiction book because I want to note something the writer did very well or very poorly.
But getting back to print, I did wonder if other people mark their books, and if so, why. How we feel about books is often a visceral thing, witness my mother's comment about Nazis. So of course, I came up with another poll. Even if you don't want to take it (you can't if you don't have an LJ account), feel free to leave a comment anyway and tell me how you feel about the print book.
Do you ever highlight or make margin notes in books?
Would you buy a used book that was already marked up?
Do you think the rise of digital publishing will change how people feel about books?