Cataloguing absence, one abandoned bookmark at a time

Somewhere between the overdue notices and the returned-with-crumbs-in-the-spine copies, I've started noticing what's not there: margins where someone gave up, bookmarks left at page one, whole shelves that just hold air. The catalogue says what we have. Lately I'm more interested in what it can't say — the places people stopped. Quiet that doesn't need fixing is its own kind of record.