International Friends of Bookmarks
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    • Gallery Page 3 - New Year's
    • Gallery Page 4 - Bookmarks on Bookmarks
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    • Gallery Page 6 - Owls
    • Gallery Page 7 - Woboda Bookmarks
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    • Gallery Page 9 - Bookmarks Speak
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    • Bookmark Quotes
    • IFOB Publications >
      • Earliest History of Bookmarks
      • Diamond Registration Marks on British Bookmarks
      • World Literature Classics
      • Holiday Haunts Bookmarks of the Great Western Railway
      • Reprints of the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games Bookmarks
      • Fascinating Bookmarks
      • Traditional Costumes of Countries - A bookmark Series by Rowohlt Verlag
      • Charting the Course of Celluloid Bookmarks
    • On Marking Books Redux >
      • Books and Cards Worth Giving
  • Bibliographies
  • Workshop
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  • Bookmark Producers
Cutout advertising bookmark from 1930s published by the Italian insurance company Compagnia Assicurazione di Milano
      
​Welcome to our Homepage
International  Friends of Bookmarks (IFOB) is a community of bookmark lovers with members all over the world who are interested in bookmarks, such as passionate readers, bookmark collectors, librarians, illustrators, blog editors, product designers, bookshop owners, bookmark producers, and others. Read more about us & our mission and join us here.
What's New
​
Member News
345 total members from 44 countries; ​155 on the Swap page; updated 19 May 2025
🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇭🇰 🇮🇳 🇮🇩 🇮🇪 🇮🇱 🇮🇹 🇯🇵 🇰🇷 🇲🇴 🇲🇾 🇲🇽 🇦🇺 🇦🇹 🇧🇪 🇧🇷 🇨🇦 🇨🇱 🇨🇳 🇨🇴 🇩🇰 🇫🇮 🇳🇱 🇳🇿 
For information on membership benefits and to become a member, fill out the form at the bottom of the About page.  
Newsletter #28 sent 16 January 2025 Contact us if you didn't receive it. 

World Bookmark Day Latest News
Celebrated on 25 February  🔖 📖 📚 
 the NINTH annual World Bookmark Day (WOBODA) was celebrated in 2025.  Go to the Woboda page to see events, winners, and updates. 14 Mar 2025
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World Bookmark Day, 25 Feb 2025 Raffle
Printable bookmark designs: 13 designs from four contributors ( Go to Woboda page to download). 
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Ella Watkinson, UK
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Regina Mačiulytė, Lithuania
Local Events:  San Diego, CA, USA; Lithuania, Spain, Poland.  See the Woboda page for details. 14 Mar 2025
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Celebration organized by Jacek Hałuszkiewicz with a big cake made by a confectionery shop especially for this event in the shape of a book, with a bookmark with the inscription "The first World Bookmark Day in Chojnice" (Poland)
Raffle donations for 2025.  Total 1,120 bookmarks; 9 entrants. Winner: Marcos Rippel, Brazil.  26 Feb 2025
Prize winners: See Woboda page for requirements
Asim Maner Award: Domènec Martinez Muñoz & Montserrat Casaponsa, Spain
Collection Award: no entries​
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Rita Colognola, The Netherlands, 150 bookmarks
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Roser Olmos Gonzalez, Spain, 10 made from her bobbin lace work, 23 Jan 2025
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Regina Mačiulytė, Lithuania, 110 bookmarks, 28 Jan 2025
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Alana Depena, Spain, 10 bookmarks, 8 Feb 2025

IFOB Received an Award! 🌟 🤩 🌟 🎖️  16 Dec 2024
Member Jacek Hałuszkiewicz who is a teacher from Poland sent this award IFOB.  Here is his description:  "Today as part of the next installment of the "Share your passion" event organized by my school, a diploma was awarded for you for supporting your passion. In this case, for raising the idea of collecting or looking for stories related to bookmarks. Passions are something special and the people who share them deserve respect. Warm greetings and CONGRATULATIONS to all."   

Many thanks for this creative and fun award.  We are honored!  
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Latest Blog Post
Profile of the winners of the Asim Maner Award for World Bookmark Day, 2025: Domènec Martinez Muños and Montserrat Casaponsa.  Congratulations!
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Asim Maner Award winners for 2025: Domènec Martinez Muñoz and Montserrat Casaponsa
Bibliographies
New editor:  We welcome Rita Colognola, The Netherlands, as the new editor of the TBS News bibliography  (updated 3 April 2025), as well as the general bibliography, updated 17 February 2025.  Thank you, Rita!  8 March 2025
More TBS Occasional Papers:  Sylvia Bunting, recently retired editor of TBS News and Occasional Papers, has given us permission to make 8 more Occasional Papers available., Nos. 8-16, July 2012-July 2017 (except No. 10 which is not yet available).  Thank you Sylvia and The Bookmark Society! 27 January 2025
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Georg Hartong's Bibliography updated 26 September 2024, and the index of TBS News updated 23 January 2025.
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TBS Occasional Paper No. 15: Chocolate: Bookmarks in Europe

Featured in Workshop
Featured in Library
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Pullout bookmarks to make, illustrating children´s safety education in former East Germany (DDR) submitted by Helga Moghaddam, 28 April 2023
A new section, On Marking Books Redux, debuts with an essay on Books and Cards Worth Giving: Paul Elder Bookmarks . 5 April 2024
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Featured Bookmark Producer
Meleniewska - Customizable leather bookmarks by Olivier Lemasle, France
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Meleniewska - Customizable leather bookmarks by Olivier Lemasle, France offered in these shades.
Featured Link
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See the range of bookmarks issued for the 1933/1934 Chicago World's Fair from Bill O's collection. 7 April 2021
Featured in IFOB Publications
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Charting the Course of Celluloid Bookmarks by Laine Farley 20 October 2020; updated 13 March 2021
Featured in Reading Room
A History of Collecting Bookmarks - by Allison C. Meier, in Fine Books and Collections, Autumn 2023

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Meier summarizes a brief history of bookmarks and quotes several collectors on their interests and reasons for collecting, including several IFOB members. She concludes: "A bookmark may last longer than the read itself, moving into other books, roving to new libraries, and hiding within the pages until maybe decades later it falls out again into the hand of a new reader, offering a trace of who held this book before." 20 September 2023
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Stuart Hudson's collection focusing on bookstores; photo by Hannah Hudson
Japanese Antique Bookmarks

Toshio Toyoshima has published a book on antique or vintage Japanese bookmarks from the Meiji period to around the 1950s. Japanese antique bookmarks, which have been little known until now, have a unique view of the world that is quite different from that of the West. 26 Jun 2023
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"Japanese Antique Bookmarks“ 『ニッポンのアンティークしおり』 by Toshio Toyoshima 豊嶋利雄

Featured in Quotes
Two quotes from Gintautas Deksnys, Lithuania
- quote from the life of the philosopher Voltaire in A. Akimova's book "Voltaire":

"...a straw or a withered leaf between the leaves of the book was the only, albeit debatable, evidence for the compilers of the book that Voltaire read this book in the field or in the garden. By the way, folded corners and scraps of papyrus paper attached to the pages helped them: this is how Voltaire marked where he had stopped reading" (Alisa Akimova "Voltaire", Vilnius: "Vaga", 1984, p. 293).. Submitted 6 April 2024

- quote about the life of the writer Alexander Dumas in Dirk Husemann's "The Paris Novel Factory":

...she was engrossed in a book with four bookmarks sticking out, and he was engrossed in a newspaper. To "Mousquetaire" (Dirk Husemann "Die Romanfabrik von Paris", Köln: Bastei Lübbe AG, 2023, p. 81). (submitted 11 April 2024)
Gintautas also submitted his own reflections and quotes 20 May 2024
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Featured Gallery
The Owl Gallery has 4 new bookmarks from Jacek Hałuszkiewicz, Poland; one example below. 4 April 2025
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Owls of Poland from Jacek Haluszkiewicz, Poland, 4 April 2025

The Owl gallery has 9 examples from Jacek ​Hałuszkiewicz, Poland, 14 Jan 2025
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The Countries gallery now has many examples from Poland. 15 January 2025
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St. Mary's Church in Krakow and the Wawel tapestries from the Wawel Castle from Jacek Hałuszkiewicz, 14 Jan 2025

Home                                     CONTACT  

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 INTERNATIONAL FRIENDS OF BOOKMARKS (IFOB)
www.ifobookmarks.org    I  facebook.com/bookmarksfriends  |   i[email protected] 
  • Home
    • News from 2019
  • About
    • Member News
    • Contact
    • Site Map
    • Raffle
  • Blog
  • Bookmark Swap
  • WOBODA
    • WOBODA 2024
    • WOBODA 2023 >
      • WOBODA 2022
      • WOBODA 2021 >
        • WOBODA 2020
        • WOBODA 2019 >
          • WOBODA 2018
          • WOBODA 2017
          • Wobo on World Tour 2016
  • Gallery
    • Gallery Page 3 - New Year's
    • Gallery Page 4 - Bookmarks on Bookmarks
    • Gallery Page 5 - Care of Books
    • Gallery Page 6 - Owls
    • Gallery Page 7 - Woboda Bookmarks
    • Gallery Page 8 - Countries
    • Gallery Page 9 - Bookmarks Speak
  • Library
    • Reading Room
    • Book Reviews
    • Bookmark Quotes
    • IFOB Publications >
      • Earliest History of Bookmarks
      • Diamond Registration Marks on British Bookmarks
      • World Literature Classics
      • Holiday Haunts Bookmarks of the Great Western Railway
      • Reprints of the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games Bookmarks
      • Fascinating Bookmarks
      • Traditional Costumes of Countries - A bookmark Series by Rowohlt Verlag
      • Charting the Course of Celluloid Bookmarks
    • On Marking Books Redux >
      • Books and Cards Worth Giving
  • Bibliographies
  • Workshop
  • Events
  • Links
  • Bookmark Producers