When dirt is cool.

Dirt is nice, especially when it conserves stuff. Any archaeologist knows that.
Getting your hands dirty is nice. Any craftsperson knows that.
And any bibliophile knows that you should not touch books when you have dirty hands...

but what if you are a bibliophile archaeologist-slash-craftsperson? You will probably have at least a few books that are at least a little dirty. Now that can also be a good thing! Trust me! In a few hundred years, should your books with the dirt on them have survived, and should they be deemed interesting enough for study, stuff might happen with the dirt on them.


As it now does with the dirt on late medieval manuscripts. Someone is actually looking at dirt traces as wear patterns on prayer books, and trying to extract information about the use of said books by the reader. This, I'd say, is really cool stuff to do with dirt!