Member Profile - Randy Whiteman

Editor's Note: Randy has some great tips for beginning collectors as well as on storing collections.  We hope he will showcase his collection in an exhibit or online in the future. 

Randy Whiteman

Tell us about yourself – where you are from, your occupation, etc.
 
I live 140 km north of Toronto, in the Canadian province of Ontario. I retired four years ago from my position as a Regional Director for Indigo Books Inc., a supervisory role that I held since 1990. 

Indigo Books is a large national retail bookstore chain, comprised of 3 different brands (Indigo, Chapters and Coles), with over 200 bookstores throughout Canada. My position often required long distance travel, as I was responsible for supervising between 15 and 20 retail bookstores. These stores were located primarily in large shopping centres. Prior to my employment at Indigo Books (and after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from York University in Toronto in 1978) I worked as a retail bookstore manager for a smaller Canadian company for a number of years.

How did you start collecting bookmarks?  Do you remember your first bookmark?

​I can’t remember exactly when I first started collecting bookmarks. However, I have been accumulating bookmarks for quite a long time – off and on for probably over 35 years. Being employed in the book trade my entire working life, I suppose that collecting bookmarks was a natural hobby to adopt and explore. And, as an avid reader and book collector, I also found bookmarks interesting items of associated ephemera. Of course, early on, I had no idea that I would become so involved in this area of collecting!

S. W. Welch, Booksellers

Librarie Beaconsfield Bookstore

Do you have any favorite types or special emphasis in your collection?

I have recently focused on collecting mostly paper bookmarks which advertise bookstores from around the world. I also collect author and publisher promotional bookmarks as well. In all cases I prefer vintage and pre-internet dated bookmarks. These older bookmarks are much more difficult to find - but so rewarding when I locate one. I also enjoy searching for and finding die-cut bookmarks (cutout) and celluloid bookmarks. And, although I don’t seek out homemade bookmarks, I can appreciate these and I find them very interesting.

Greeting card store

Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

What is the most unusual bookmark in your collection?

One example of an unusual bookmark in my collection has seeds imbedded in it - so that you can actually plant the bookmark in a pot with dirt and grow a real plant! Another unusual example in my collection is a children’s bookmark from Penguin Books Publishing which includes a pair of working 3-D looking glasses.

Plant Me! Seeds in a bookmark from Foodland.

3-D glasses from Penguin Books Publishing

How do you acquire your bookmarks?

While working at Indigo books I had constant access to hundreds of free publisher promotional bookmarks, although I didn’t always take full advantage of this fact. I also found many bookmarks hidden and left behind inside of used books that I purchased over the years. More recently, I have also purchased a few of bookmarks from sellers on e-bay. And I also sent letters to used bookstores across Canada soliciting a copy of their own promotional bookmark, along with any other paper bookmarks they may have accumulated. This strategy worked quite well as I have had a response rate of about 15%. Many of these bookstore owners are quite happy to have the bookmarks they have accumulated over the years go to a worthy cause! Just recently I received over 500 bookmarks from a used bookstore owner in Ottawa. They had been saving all of these bookmarks for many years and couldn’t bring themselves to throw them away! Finally, of course, I have also used the IFOB swap list quite often over the past 6 years.

Woodward's Book Shop

How many bookmarks do you have?

​I have slightly more than 6,000 bookmarks sorted and filed in about 20 binders, with approximately 1,000 more duplicates and other assorted bookmarks to trade.

How do you organize, display and store your collection?

​I struggled for a long time to find the best way to effectively store my bookmark collection. As a result, they remained unsorted and were stored in shoe boxes for many years. I eventually came up with a great solution when I discovered the double sided “Vario” plastic sleeves, manufactured by Lighthouse, available at a local coin and stamp dealer. {also online, for example] I utilize two sizes of these plastic sheets which are inserted into 3 ring binders, with either 3, 4, 5 or 6 pockets per page. These sleeves now accommodate the majority of my bookmark collection. I also have about 200 oversized bookmarks that do not fit into either of these sizes and so still remain stored in boxes! I don’t display any of my bookmarks - but I have recently been thinking of contacting my local library to see if they might be interested in doing a display of some of the highlights from my collection. And I would also like to post my bookmark collection on-line in the near future.

Binders with plastic, acid free sleeves made for bank notes

What has been your experience in using the IFOB Swap List?

​As mentioned, I have traded very successfully with a number of fellow IFOB members over the past few years and I still find this one of the best approaches to adding significantly to my collection. Some of my favourite bookmarks have come from swapping with other IFOB members. It has been a great experience communicating and trading with other passionate, like-minded collectors from all around the world!

What do you enjoy about IFOB?  Anything you would like to see IFOB do in the future?

When I initially discovered IFOB, I was surprised and thrilled that there were quite a large number of other people around the world that were as passionate as I was about collecting bookmarks. That encouraged and inspired me to keep collecting and eventually organizing it all out to get it into some kind of logical order. And as I watched the number of IFOB members grow over the past few years, it gave me an opportunity to learn about bookmark collections from many other from collectors via their web-sites. I also love seeing examples of many kinds of different genre of bookmarks, as well as any articles on the history of bookmarks on the web pages. Just recently I also joined our Facebook group.

Do you have any plans to celebrate World Bookmark Day next time?

​I have contributed to the Bookmark Swap event for the past three years and will probably continue to participate in this annual event.

Do you collect anything else?

​I collect first edition books, autographed by the author where possible, as well as vintage real-photo postcards. I also haphazardly collect many other forms of vintage paper ephemera such as vintage catalogues, pamphlets and other kinds of old advertising materials.

Anything else you would like to share?

​I am the co-author of a local history book on early lumbering in Ottawa and in the Algonquin Park area of northern Ontario, titled When Giants Fall: The Gilmour Quest for Algonquin Pine. The revised 3rd edition of our book is being released in 3 to 4 months.

Do you have any advice for those who are just beginning to collect?

I would recommend what when starting collecting it is a really good idea to collect very broadly. This approach allowed me to explore the many varied types of bookmarks that were available – including hand-made, leather, paper, vintage, adult, children’s, etc. After a few years and many bookmarks later, I then started to increasingly focus my collection on the specific subject/types of bookmarks that I liked the most! This approach gave me many bookmarks to eventually swap, which in turn allowed me to broaden my collection even further.