I am pleased at the supportive tone of this thread.

I use a book - a small subset of the Digital Tradition - and feel funny about using it. I am not a performer - I'm talking about song circles. I try to keep a large repertoire going - I made a rule to myself not to sing the same song to the same group within a year. I sing mostly Child ballads and have about 60 of them going in various levels of "knowing" them. I need my safety net to have the courage to sing.

In some song circles almost everyone uses a book or notes of some variety and in others almost no one does. I have been afraid to sing at some groups where books seemed unwelcome.

Know your song so that you can put it over well, but don't worry about using a book.