Bookmarks? What are we  speaking about
A bookmark is mostly a simple piece of paper. Somewhat long, printed and likely to carry an ad. You get it free in bookshops, libraries & possibly in your letter box from your local pizza takeaway. This is the profile of the common bookmark. So what? And why should I deal with it? You are right! A bookmark is nothing worth speaking about. This is what the majority thinks. We are here to demonstrate that there is more to bookmarks than meets the eye. Bookmarks have a long history of two thousand years (read more here). They have been the mirror of cultural eras. They come in an astonishing plurality of design and material.  Books and papers have been published on bookmarks. Museums and libraries have large collections of bookmarks. Bookmark exhibitions can be visited on the web, in museums and libraries. There are a lot of bookmark collectors worldwide. There are lists of bookmark collectors enabling friends all over the world to swap bookmarks. Despite all these merits, very little is known about bookmarks in general. Our efforts are dedicated to increase the public awareness of bookmarks. This is our mission.
About Us - International Friends of Bookmarks (IFOB)
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.

IFOB has been founded as a nonprofit in December 2015 by Asim Maner, Riehen, Switzerland, and currently we have 166 members from 36 countries worldwide.

We don't have a headquarters and our editorial team works decentral- ised in two different countries:
Laine Farley - Oakland, CA, US
Georg Hartong - Deventer, The Netherlands

For questions, please contact our webmaster.
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New members are welcome - membership is free of charge.
As a member of the IFOB you'll get our newsletters and you have the opportunity to join various activities such as writing blog posts, discussing with other members, displaying your bookmarks on our pages, and swapping bookmarks with others.

Interested? You can join us by completing the application form on the bottom of this page!

Mission
​Our primary mission is to increase the public awareness of bookmarks by research, publications, activities, events and by growing a community of bookmark fans worldwide. To this end, the IFOB started this website in December 2015 with the aim to develop it into a public resource of knowledge about bookmarks.

The particular aim of the IFOB is to support its members in collecting & exchanging bookmarks and in retrieving, generating and sharing information about bookmarks. To achieve this goal we provide this website as a communication platform for our members. Further activities include circulating a newsletter, publishing papers and organising occasional meetings for its members.​
Membership
Membership is free of charge and qualifies for a subscription to our newsletters. It also enables you to write blog entries, articles and to display your artwork relating to bookmarks on our website. You will also be able to join our private Facebook group to communicate with other members. You can add a listing to the Swap page to swap bookmarks with other members all over the world. Interested? Join us completing the application form below.
Membership Guideline
We welcome all individuals with an interest in bookmarks to join us, independent of their nationality, ethnicity, religious and political views. However, we cannot tolerate any religious or political activities in our community because we believe that this will lead inevitably to the discrimination of some of our members. To this end, applications using email addresses from organisations with a religious or political character will not be accepted. Please use your private email address instead for the membership application and for your communications within the IFOB community. 
Sponsorship
Our aim is to develop this website to a large & ad-free public resource of knowledge about bookmarks. We sell occasional publications in a gift shop on this website to cover a part of our expenses. We welcome private persons, companies, and societies with a relation to reading, books, and bookmarks as sponsors to support our activities, such as the launching and the promoting of The World Bookmark Day. If you are interested, please contact our webmaster. We will portray our sponsors on this website with due & careful credit.  

    Membership Application

Make a donation:  We ask that members donate a small amount such as $5 to cover our operating expenses.  You may donate any amount if you wish to support our activities.  Thank you!  

Privacy Policy
We respect the privacy of our visitors. We do not collect any information about our visitors without their knowledge. The voluntarily submitted information is only used for the declared purpose and shall not be given, traded or sold to any third party without the knowledge and agreement of the owner. We do not use cookies, scripts or any other type of tools to identify, search or manipulate the visitor's computer.
Follow an Instagram account that was created by our founder Asim Maner (no longer updated)
int_friends_of_bookmarks
Archiving
This web site is archived periodically at the Wayback Marchine, courtesy of the Internet Archive.