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.  

 - By Laine Farley

Our member Gaby Dondlinger from Luxembourg has been having fun sharing Woboda bookmarks in three interesting ways.  Before Christmas, she enclosed a bookmark with her holiday greeting cards--a nice surprise for her friends and family. 

Gaby has a talent for making tiny books that she sells at Christmas markets.  Here are some photos of her display where she also included Woboda bookmarks. Aren't her tiny books adorable?  They need some tiny bookmarks!

The third place she shared bookmarks was in Little Free Libraries in her region along with signs about World Bookmark Day.  She reports that a lady who is responsible for one of these places in Germany was very enthusiastic to learn about Woboda. She has been taking care that everyone who comes to get a book also gets a bookmark, and announced Woboda in the little local magazine.

This post begins a new feature to profile IFOB members.  We learn more about Debrah who was last year's runner up for the Woboda raffle.  Thank you, Debrah for sharing your bookmark stories. If you would like to be "interviewed" for a profile, please contact the IFOB editor.  We are interested in all of our members!

Tell us about yourself – where you are from, your occupation, etc.

​I was born in 1955 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia and from the age of 7 lived and revelled in Sydney's Northern Beaches, living mainly in beachside Warriewood, until age 19 when I departed for my first adventure overseas to the UK, Europe and the Middle East, including living and working for 6 months on a kibbutz near Tel Aviv. My subsequent overseas travel has been overland through many countries of Asia, two subsequent  trips to India, and most recently, two trips to the west coast of the USA, both inspired by SoulCollage® of which I am a Trained Facilitator.   I have also travelled extensively in my homeland of Australia and I have lived in four Australian states (New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia) and the Australian Capital Territory, for varying periods of time.  I currently live in the beautiful Camden Haven area on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales.
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I  have an undergraduate honours degree in Information Science (B. App. Sci. Info.) from the University of Technology, Sydney (1990) followed by a 17-year management career in information services and libraries, in both the private and public sectors. 
 
Sixteen years ago, after intensive training and practice I became an accredited Yoga Teacher and taught yoga for many years, sometimes solely and sometimes while also working another job.
 
I am now retired from full-time mainstream work and yoga teaching, but I continue to facilitate SoulCollage from time-to-time through SoulLight Collage and spend, my now more available time, on my various hobbies and projects, including family history.

How did you start collecting bookmarks?  Do you remember your first bookmark? 
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I have been a keen collector of bookmarks from about the 1970s - at first serendipitously or by accident, and then more intentionally!  One day I simply realised I had amassed numerous bookmarks, especially ones from bookstores, art galleries and museums and that I wanted to treat them with the respect they deserved!  So, I started to focus more on them and to better manage and preserve them.  I then started to intentionally look out for and collect bookmarks to add to my collection.  I also started to research bookmark collecting and the history of bookmarks.  This led me to some wonderful websites, especially the Mirage Bookmark website and its links and ultimately to connections with bookmark collectors all over the world. 

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

I enjoy collecting all bookmark genres, but my favourite genre is bookshop (bookstore) bookmarks, that is, bookmarks promoting bookshops, the ones they give you for free with your purchase(s) or even for just being a browser in their shop.  I also enjoy collecting Book Depository (the online bookseller) bookmarks and have managed to complete a couple of sets and almost complete others.  I also love bookmarks from libraries, art galleries and museums.  In regard to format, I prefer collecting paper/cardboard bookmarks, but I do have some plastic, metal, wooden, leather and cloth bookmarks in my collection. 
 
Here are a few of my most favourite bookshop bookmarks from my collection:

How do you acquire your bookmarks? 

The bookmarks in my collection are (1) ones I have freely and personally gathered from bookshops, libraries, museums and other places and events in Australia and overseas; (2) ones I have discovered left in some of the used books I have purchased; (3) ones I have found left abandoned in libraries and library books I have borrowed; (4) ones I have chanced upon  in a variety of  weird, wacky and wonderful places; (5) commercial ones that I have purchased from bookshops and elsewhere; and (6) ones I have received through swaps with other bookmark collectors around the world. More recently, some of my bookmarks have been gifted to me from family and friends here in Australia and overseas.  Certainly, I find that many of my bookmarks, especially those I have personally collected, are enduring and treasured mementos of favourite bookshops, books, places, people and events in my life.  My other bookmarks, the ones that have been donated to me or swapped with me, have been sources of learning as they have initiated my research into where they are from or what they are about.  (Yes, I am a bit of an information / research junkie)!   

What has been your experience in using the IFOB Swap List? 
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Totally positive! It is a wonderful service! I have thoroughly enjoyed swapping bookmarks with fellow collectors from all over the world. I also get contacted by people for swaps via my Mark My Place website, but it is also great to be listed on the IFOB Swap List.

What do you enjoy about IFOB?  Anything you would like to see IFOB do in the future?
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I enjoy everything about it!  The community of collectors, the information on the website and its links to more information, the articles, the Swap List, the aim to increase public awareness of bookmarks, and World Bookmark Day!  IFOB is already doing a lot of great things and I hope it continues to exist into the future. 

Do you have any plans to celebrate World Bookmark Day next time? 
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Most definitely!  I will be participating in the events offered by IFOB, including the bookmark raffle.  I also plan on mounting a Bookmark Collecting / World Bookmark Day display at my local public library and giving a free public talk on bookmark collecting at the same venue.  It is a large and busy public library and I am sure it will generate some interest.  I will be talking with the library manager and am hopeful of gaining her support and permission for this to go ahead.

Do you collect anything else? 
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I have been an avid reader since childhood and an enthusiastic book collector since my early teens.  Collecting books and bookmarks goes hand-in-hand really!   Now I have thousands of both!  In addition, I collect other book ephemera such as bookshop business cards and postcards.  I am also interested in bookplates and bookends, but I only collect those virtually on Pinterest!
 
Outside of book, bookmarks and other book related items, I collect postage stamps on women that fit with my project theme of “ I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR! Women’s Suffrage, Women’s Rights, Equality and Liberation: A Postal Herstory to 2015”. This is a huge project which I have been doing since the mid 1980s and am hoping to bring to culmination in the next couple of years. My plan is to eventually donate the several large stamp albums to a relevant women’s organisation and to share the whole project with the world via a website which I will create.  

Anything else you would like to share? 
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To me, bookmarks, in addition to their function of marking the place one is up to in a book, are small works of art and beauty or whimsy and many of them share inspirational, important and educational messages in a compact, effective and meaningful way.  Part of me loves, enjoys and relishes this hobby of bookmark collecting and part of me thinks it is dorky, nerdy and a bit of a waste of time!  The first part wins out though, by far!  Like all people who have the collection bug, whatever it is they may collect, there is no point trying to rationalise, explain or justify it.  I have decided to just enjoy it and to share some (but not all) of my bookmarks with interested people via my Mark My Place website and blog.
 
I also collect (pin) bookmarks of all kinds on Pinterest.  As of  August 2018, I have almost 16,000 bookmarks, of all kinds, pinned on my board and nearly 3,000 followers, many of whom have re-pinned my pins.  There are clearly lots of bookmark fans out there!
 
Finally, I can’t end this profile without sharing the front and back images of two favourite Aussie (Australian) publisher bookmarks from my collection.  

​Currently I have 135 in my cataloged collection (maybe more waiting in the wings of uncataloged boxes). I have found them in almost every category, so what follows are some examples showing their variety and clues for finding them.  

​Bookstores, of course, are good sources because they often use books on their namesake bookmarks.  From De Heksenkelder Internationale Feministiese Boekhandel, there are two--one on the side for the bookstore, a miniature image of the bookmark itself, and the other featuring a different book alongside a glass of wine, for De Heksenketel Café.  Antiquariaat Tweedehandsboekhandel also has a bookmark on each side, in this case of the same image of a medieval scholar gazing at his open book with a subtle bookmark.  Scenes of people reading are good candidates for finding companion bookmarks. 

Sometimes a cozy scene, even without a reader, can reveal a bookmark.  Here are two similar scenes of a fireplace, a comfy chair, a companion to keep company (cat and dog), and groups of books, one open, the other closed with visible bookmarks.  These “cosy nook” themes were popular in the 1920s-1940s.  

So too were those with greetings about remembrance and friendship like this one with a blue bookmark sporting a medallion at the end.  Themes of friendship based on a shared appreciation of books and reading often have books with bookmarks, similar to this one with an unusual teal marble-like background.  ​

​Besides bookstores, businesses seem less likely to use images of books, favoring instead their own products or pretty ladies.  An unexpected example is from Gold Medal Flour with bookshelf, candles, open book and red bookmark. Perhaps this is a category for a challenge to find more examples.  

​There are plenty of other bookmark producers that regularly feature books, however.  Religious publishers often depict the Bible and indeed bookmarks are popular gifts and giveaways for bible readers.  This example features another cozy nook for bible study along with suggestions on passages by topic.  An unexpected, rather mysterious bookmark was revealed in this metal bookmark with holographic images of praying hands, reversing to a book with bookmark.

​Any number of organizations might use books, but for an especially nice example, we can look to The Bookmark Society.  They produce a custom bookmark each year for members; this one for their 25th anniversary features a prominent bookmark on an illustrated book with a lovely background. 

​Of course, libraries use illustrations of books and they often produce instructional bookmarks to encourage their use, as in this examples from the National Library of Australia which has a subtle and humorous message.  The University of California, San Diego also uses humor as well as a quiz to promote the benefits of using a bookmark, printed as noted on acid-free paper, another bonus.  This charming green leather gift bookmark simply says “Don’t take me out” and its recipient seemed to heed that advice as indicated by the darkened and tattered ends with the middle in pristine condition from remaining in the book.  

​The bonanza bookmarks on bookmarks in my collection were created by Domenec Martinez and Col.leccio Costa in 2008 documenting the history of bookmarks.  Almost every one of the series of twelve has an illustration of a bookmark from different time periods.  The examples here feature rotating Medieval bookmarks (No.2) and a knob type from the 16th century (No. 8).  The knob is even embossed to give it a dimensional effect.  An extra bonus is that No. 8 is also an example of bookmarks in art. [Note: can anyone translate the text to English?]

I will end with two bookmarks produced by Asim Maner advertising his now defunct company, Mirage Bookmark’s lines of bookmarks.  The metal bookmarks were custom produced and featured precision designs, sometimes with cut outs as in this example.  The other line featured beautiful art bookmarks.  When Asim heard about my specialty, he was delighted and sent me a batch of his own bookmarks on bookmarks.  He also encouraged me to write about them, so after many months and good intentions, I have fulfilled my promise, and I hope you enjoy this short preview.  These examples and a few others are in a special gallery.  Please send any from your own collection to the IFOB editor to add.  

This article titled "Marking Pages with Bits of Life" is not a new article and is another of many such articles about the things people leave in books as intentional or accidental bookmarks.  We highlight it because it is about one of our members, Marilyn Scherfen.  Unfortunately, her email address no longer works and we have been unable to find her.  If you know her, please tell her to update her address.  In any case, Marilyn's efforts to categorize and document this "bits of life" is noteworthy!  Do you have stories or examples of such bookmarks?

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.