By Georg Hartong

​There is apparently a widespread bad habit of marking the place where the reading of a book has stopped, by making a fold in the top corner of a page: making dog-ears. In other languages the same phenomenon has a different name: in Dutch: 'ezelsoor', in German: 'Eselsohr' and in Danish: 'Aeselorer', all meaning 'donkey's ear'. In South-Africa, in the Boeren-language (familiar to Dutch), they name it 'varkore', pig's ear.
How is this called in French, Spanish, Italian and other languages? Does anybody know?  

The second scan a Danish and two Dutch bookmarks; on 'operatie ezelsoor': 'a book is not made of steel' and 'a book is not made of stone'; Bladwijzer means Bookmark; the remaining text: 'donkey's ears are ears that do not belong in books; even closed you keep seeing the book; donkey's ears spoil the beauty of a book; can you promise never to make donkey's ears again, Hi-a? ​

The third scan shows an English bookmark, a South-African one and a shaped one. ​

As you can see from the listing on our Events page, there are many book fairs all over the world.  They provide an opportunity for readers, writers, publishers and related organizations to be immersed in books, ephemera, and even art and music.  And, of course, they are great places to find free bookmarks.  Here are two reports on recent book fairs in Vilnius, Lithuania and Oakland, California, USA.

​As you can see, where you can buy fiction books, there are many people. Sometimes books are cheaper at the book fair, but sometimes it's just 2 euros or less. Also you can ask for writers’ autographs. Science fiction books are not so interesting, but also sometimes there are many people. 

​Also you can get bookmarks. This year I found about 100 new bookmarks.

In the music hall there are so many young people, who want to have photos with their idols. ​My idol is Andrius Mamontovas. He is one of the best musicians and has been singing more than 30 years. He is really famous in Lithuania. 

​8 kambarys is a group who sing rap/hip-hop. They are very nice people.

Of course, there were free bookmarks to acquire such as these from book dealers. 

​A curated exhibit of first edition books by L. Frank Baum and the subsequent authors of the "Wizard of Oz" series, courtesy of Joel Harris, a local member of the International Wizard of Oz Club, was complemented by a lecture from a librarian from the University of California, Berkeley, Peter Hanff.  He talked about the publication of the Wizard of Oz books by L. Frank Baum, based on his extensive collection of books and printing ephemera.  He also gave attendees a special keepsake postcard—but it could be used as a bookmark too!

​Even if you are not a collector of rare or antiquarian books, it can be worthwhile to attend this type of book fair to see the  history of books and variety of interests among dealers and collectors.  

Check our Events page section on book fairs to locate one near you.  Many are held on a regular basis.  And let us know if there are others we should add to the list.  

Have you ever seen a bookmark described as a page turner?  Or a paper knife? Or a letter opener?  This article on The Mystery of the Phantom Page Turner solves the mystery of whether there even is such a thing as a page turner and what distinguishes these other related objects. 

"Every so often, a journalist discovers that people use very odd things for bookmarks and librarians and booksellers find them.  Here's the latest one. 
"What is the cheesiest book you’ve ever read? For Washington DC librarian Anna Holmes, it wasn’t so much the book, as the slice of Kraft American that she found inside it, clearly used by a cheese-loving patron as a bookmark. "

A recent reminder of a trip to Paris a few years ago led me to review photographs of bookmarks found in art works in the Musée de Cluny – Musée national du Moyen Âge.  While I knew that paintings of this period often showed books with several styles of medieval bookmarks, I was surprised to notice the first one and then began to look for more.  Now, anytime I see a book in a work of art, I look closely to see if there is an accompanying bookmark.  We have other examples in our Gallery pages.  Share with us any examples you have found.  

​We learned about an exciting bookmark contest offering book prizes from Edoardo Bona who says:" I am the manager of a small library in a small Italian village. For 10 years we have organized a bookmarks contest that is having more and more success (2500 bookmarks in 2017) . We have had participants from many foreign countries too (USA, Madagascar, France, Germany, Turkey, Philippines). For this reason I am sending e-mail to collectors, libraries and Institutions that organize or have organized competitions bookmarks hoping that they can help us to share the contest." Check here for the contest rules in English.  The web site has a wonderful quote: "​It may surprise you that a library would promote reading through an unusual means such as a bookmark rather than through lectures, readings and book presentations. Yet the bookmark is a wonderful symbol of the joy of reading: it is the travel ticket that accompanies you through the pages of a book; it is the proof of your pleasure to hold in your hand a book, to browse it, to read it, to feel it your own."

Our new member Gaby Dondlinger from Luxembourg is not only an avid bookmark collector, but she is also the inventor of a new type of bookmark exhibition, the so called "coffee table exhibition". She has sent us some pictures to let us see her idea of displaying her most precious bookmarks which were given her as gifts by friends and family or she brought home from foreign countries. "I keep them under the glass of my coffee table, so I can look at them every day," as she puts it.

I must say I was totally surprised by her pictures because I had never seen such a storage and display method yet though some of the collector colleagues has written various articles about how to store and display bookmarks. It will be interesting to know about the history of this table later.

"Since I was young I have been attracted by bookmarks, not as an expert collector, but rather as a random buyer and keeper of bookmarks," says Gaby about her collecting passion. "I like bookmarks from different countries which show the speciality or the character of a country, be it by the material, the symbols, or the way it is made."

Bookmarks from different countries on display in the coffee table exhibition of Gaby: Folded paper bookmarks from Japan, and an Edelweiss bookmark from Austria.

Black lace bookmark from Malta, bookmark handwoven and stitched in blue and white from Wisconsin, USA, purple felt bookmark from Lapland.

Other bookmarks from foreign countries, top and below.

by Asim Maner, January 2017