In considering books as an interface, it is important to recognize the parts of this humanitarian whole and understand the material that allows for information transmittal– paper. As paper has shifted form and composition across cultures, its significance in transmitting ideas and sharing ideas remains unwavering yet flexible in its strength to sustain changing messages and mediums. One aspect I have been interested in over the past few Special Collections labs is marginalia and later additions to books that were not present in the work’s initial printing. As the blank spaces on the page allows for marginalia to be added, it allows for insights outside of the author to be contributed and conversations are fostered with the original work produced. As Bonnie Mak describes, “these patterns remain fluid as readers-cum-designers marked up their pages as they were inclined. Thus revised and augmented by different hands over time, the page emerges as evidence of its own production, performance, and consumption. The markings on the page are part of the ‘cultural residue’ left by a battery of authors, scribes, artists, booksellers, book owners, and readers, and can be read as a compelling narrative about the social history of thought,” (15). As readers add marginalia and mark up pages, they join the act of creating through their contributions rather than remaining in a state of passive consumption. With these additions, readers reshape and add new contexts to a given work, making the page a living artifact, as Mak points, “the page emerges as evidence of its own production, performance, and consumption”. Through the many hands it reaches, the page continues to “perform” its production duties of transmitting information, yet it also “performs” the thoughts of its readers as they go through the consumption process that is reading. Such “cultural residue” suggests that the page may be continually expanded beyond its initial message to carry cultural and historical insights and contexts that add to the initial story at hand. Marginalia, thus, informs us of the page’s ability to represent many voices and keep record of differing “social history of thought” across time and cultures.