Comments on: How to write in books that aren’t yours

By: Once again, write in books that aren’t yours

Once again, write in books that aren’t yours — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:30:59 +0000

[...] in 2008, we wrote a raving review of 3M’s Sheer Colors Post-It Notes. These transparent sticky notes were amazing because they made it simple to write in books that [...]

By: victoria

victoria — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:01:05 +0000

to all the folks looking for these. 3M discontinued these in 2007, without great amounts of calls they will not return them. but i found similar semitransparent sticky note from a company in china except they have a minimum order of like US $10,000… a bit out of my budget, so if anyone wants to go into business i will send copy of email i received and buy from you..

By: Rebekah

Rebekah — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:56:54 +0000

Now if only they’d come up with a decent solution for highlighting and writing notes in Kindle and other readers, we could save the environment and out minds too!

By: Jessica

Jessica — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 20:21:04 +0000

Just do what architects do. Buy tracing paper (in the roll) instead of vellum or tablet because it’s inexpensive. Lay the roll with the paper unrolling table side down (so it’s flat against the table) place a straight edge against the roll and tear the width of note you need. I usually get two or three notes per strip with pretty clean edges. I tuck them into the spine edge of the page i’m annotating and they stick there well enough. There’s no adhesive, but that just seems to get in the way later. I also agree book darts are awesome.

By: Neeraj

Neeraj — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:18:38 +0000

Im sorry but the line of comments are a little too long for me to read, and if this question has already been asked i apologise again. Where can i buy these transparent post-it notes?

By: steph

steph — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:16:09 +0000

i can’t find them too (

By: M

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:27:07 +0000

I am also looking to buy some of these bad boys. What gives, 3M? Where?

By: Chavi

Chavi — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:57:55 +0000

I can’t find these ANYWHERE. I’ve tried Office Max and Staples, to no avail. Where did you get yours?

By: Carissa Thorp

Carissa Thorp — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:00:54 +0000

In Australia, Beautone make square semi-transparent sticky notes called Clear Notes. I use them mostly to write subjects on manila file folders, so I can re-use them.

By: carlos

carlos — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:47:54 +0000

I was excited to see this posted, but the tip on velum was a slap-to-the-forehead “Duh!” moment for me that allows the “footprint leaver” and the “preservationists” to live in harmony. I’m going to order some post-it….. I mean, post haste…..

By: Perc

Perc — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:56:59 +0000

I went to the office supply store and looked, but no sheer post its like in your pic. I would LOVE to start using these. The link provided in the post take me to a sheer post its page – but they’re not clear – there’s either the usual colored strips or sheer arrows.

Please let me know where I can get my hands on some.

By: thinkingSage

thinkingSage — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:07:01 +0000

When I started working as a research assistant, I was paid to go through well-scribbled books and copy all of the marked information to a .doc (or txt) file. I found that I could condense a typical serious, non-academic, non-fiction book to a dense synopsis of quotes.

You see, the authors loved to mark up the books but none of them had the time to go into them a second time and recall the information. In the age of Google searches and databases who can blame them?

So writing the information is a waste these days. When you read a book, have your laptop open nearby, and just record whatever interests you as you read, tagged by page number. You’ll have what you want to remember available in *useable* format, and you’ll have avoided destroying your text in the process

By: Luis Caldas de Oliveira

Luis Caldas de Oliveira — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:38:46 +0000

I use small coloured post-its (50×38mm). When I find a key phrase or idea in a book, I write it down on a post-it note together with the page number and I glue it on the page. This helps locating those key concepts later on. After reading the book, I take all the post-its from it and I glue them all side-by-side on a sheet of paper to be digitized in a paper scanner. This way I keep an overview of the book that allows me to locate the most interesting ideas. See the full technique with photos in:

http://www.luiscaldasdeoliveira.com/?p=3

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:40:07 +0000

Thanks, Mary. For me, the vellum remark is genius.

By: chad

chad — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:26:55 +0000

I too am in Academic world and I always have to deal with the stress of loving a resource but not being able to own it. What I have found works well is to just take decent notes with page numbers and I have a running document that I type them into. I use a mac so I can create a pdf out of the print function so all of my reading notes are searchable.