cellio | good news, bad news

Background: Often, the publishers of a prayer book also publish a "pulpit edition", a larger copy with larger type but otherwise identical. A few times I have noticably stumbled when leading morning services; it's obvious to everyone that the regular siddur is right at the limits of my vision (as modified by available lighting). A few weeks ago I casually asked if we were going to buy a pulpit edition and I was told one didn't exist yet. We have a "pulpit copy" of the regular edition that's been marked up with highlighter pen, but the first time I tried to use it I found that the highlighting caused problems for me (too dark, so reduced contrast making it harder to read the text). I made a comment to that effect and ever since have used a regular copy. It's not like I don't know all the cues by now anyway.

So, this morning I was surprised to find, when I got onto the bimah, a shiny new pulpit edition in the larger size. Woot! I opened it up to a random page and marvelled at the crisp, clear, Hebrew. This would make it much easier for me. The joy was short-lived, though; I turned to the beginning of the morning service to find that someone had highlighted all the leader's parts in blue. That's even worse than the pink they used previously. And even with the larger print size, it looked dicey and I didn't use it for fear of making mistakes. Some of those blue sections were dark -- even in the English I would have had trouble in places, let alone the Hebrew.

I really really hope that this is something they were going to get anyway, and that they didn't specifically get a book for my use and then mark it up in a way that makes it unusable for me. I would feel bad about causing them that expense, even though the markup isn't my doing and I would have said something if I'd known. Other people will certainly get use out of it; I only lead one morning a week, after all. But... ack.

For the record: if text must be highlighted directly, yellow is best. But better than marking over the text is to put highlighting (of any color) in the margins, with a tick next to the first word if that's ambiguous. The only time I've marked up a leader's copy of a siddur that's what I did, and it worked fine. (And, by the way: orange. When it's not going over text it's better for it to be a nice obvious color.)

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argh.

I don't even know why they make a highlighter in blue. *I* have problems reading text hilighted in blue... especially since the darn highlighting darkens over time.

Is this the new large-print weekday Sim Shalom? We just got them and they're the bee's knees.

BTW, we are coming to Pgh for Pesach. Probably should have mentioned that before! Of course we usually don't drive on shabbat/chag, so don't know that we'll see you, er... well, anyway.

I dislike marking books which I may want to mark differently (or mark less or have completely mark-less) later, and even more so if it's a book that other people will use too.

Small post-its, especially placed as tabs with the sticky part on the outside/top margin and the rest hanging out of the book, would be my ideal solution. You could also write notes or arrows on them to make their targets more clear. I've also seen various people (kids, adult beginners, people who have trouble with Hebrew) use bookmarks which don't affect the book itself at all.

Is this the new large-print weekday Sim Shalom?

That's the one. It looks like a great tool! Crisp and clear and not too heavy to hold.

I'm trying to decide which of the following to do:

- Continue as I am, leading from the regular-size book.

- Buy my own copy of the large one to use when leading (which I would do if I didn't already own the regular version).

- Make my own large copy of just the shacharit service by photocopying and enlarging pages from the regular one.

The last is appealing but questionable. It would definitely be wrong if I didn't already own the regular one, which I bought when no large one was available (or announced). It would make me a more effective leader, but it feels wrong so it probably is.

BTW, we are coming to Pgh for Pesach.

For how long? The whole week, or just the opening days? We'll be in Toronto for Shabbat and then the seders, but we'll be returning on Monday night. So depending on how long you'll be here, we might be able to hook up for dinner or something that week.

I was kind of surprised by the marking; do they really not anticipate making any changes in the (probably) 20 years they'll use this book? The one time I marked up a leader's copy it was solely for my use for a series of services that I knew wouldn't change -- and it was also a photocopy, so no big deal if that was wrong. I had made the photocopy so I could mark some musical cues and (sigh) add in a little translit in a couple places, so I went ahead and marked some cues with highlighter too. (For example, they had the custom -- this was kabbalat shabbat -- of chanting the opening and closing parts of each psalm in Hebrew, but reading the middle parts in English. That meant I needed to jump to the end of the Hebrew quickly; I marked those parts so I could, since I wouldn't have been reading along in the Hebrew already.)

Small post-its, especially placed as tabs with the sticky part on the outside/top margin and the rest hanging out of the book, would be my ideal solution.

I agree. This is much better than physically modifying the book!

Better still is to know the service well enough that you don't need cues, of course. :-) Though I admit that when you're coordinating with other people or doing something unusual, that might not be enough. For example, last summer when we were doing the group services at HUC, I needed to use post-its to mark where I in particular was doing things; if I'd just been leading the whole service I wouldn't have needed that. I also used a post-it to remind myself of one text difference from the siddur I'm used to, so I wouldn't go on auto-pilot and then say the wrong thing. Didn't work, but I tried. :-)

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who finds the blue annoying. I don't know why they make it either, but I'm guessing "marketing" -- once they decided to do any colors other than yellow, they probably developed this notion of needing a total of 5 colors (for optimal packaging or pricing or something) in approximately these base colors, and it went from there. Yuck.

You may want to mention something, so that the "mad highlighter" doesn't continue on and mark the rest of the book - I got the impression from your post that not all of the new book is marked yet.

Ooh, good point.

I don't know whether they haven't marked the entire book or I just happened to open to a section that contains no markup (like a part we don't do, or do rarely, or whatever). I didn't look at the other services.

Personally I think anything that permanently defaces a book such as a highlighter should be verbotten. I get hives thinking about using one in a regular book. I can't believe people do it in a siddur. Definitely post-it notes are the way to go. They make little flag it size post its for marking individual lines in books.

I occasionally write in books, but it's usually to add cross-references, not to highlight or further annotate the text. For example, in the book I learned trope from, for the tropes that only occur two or three times in the entire torah I've added those cites when I've bumped into them, 'cause it seems like something useful to know. Or if a commentary says something like "Rashi says X" and I went and looked it up, I may add a margin note about where Rashi says X so I never have to do that detective work again. That sort of thing.

Oh, one exception to "occasionally": I have no reservations at all about writing in cookbooks. If I find after making the recipe a few times that I need to add more $SPICE or grease the pan (when it wasn't specified) or cook 5 minutes fewer than the recipe calls for, I'll write that in. Cookbooks are closer to compilations of notes than to reference books, most of the time. (Exceptions are things like Cookwise, which I have never written in and probably wouldn't.)

I never highlight for emphasis, and especially not on a first reading. Until you've digested the material you don't really know what's going to end up being important, after all. In college some of my classmates would use highlighter pen in their texts and end up with 50% coverage when they were going for 5%, because they marked things as they read them. I think that actually detracts from the usefulness of the book, and when buying used texts it's something I looked for.

But, all that said, I'd be hesitant to mark up a siddur that's not a one-shot (special service etc). Who knows what your customs will be ten years from now?

good news, bad news

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post-its

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Re: post-its

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