World Bookmark Day at University of California, San Diego

By Scott Paulson, Communications & Engagement,Exhibits & Events Coordinator
UC San Diego Library

As an exhibits and events coordinator at an active university research library, I'm always looking for exhibits that encourage hands-on paper crafts activities. We have a strong following among undergraduates and neighboring community members with exhibits and programs involving origami and paper theatre construction/paper optical toy design, and now --bookmarks!  

Our Geisel Library building is indeed named after Dr. Seuss, and our visitors have expectations of specialized activities that have an educational/research component and, when possible, also involve Seussian creative participation. Exhibiting unusual bookmarks, along with reference materials that relay the history of these "quitter strips” and then encouraging visitors to make their own one-of-a-kind bookmarkers (using specialized tools and carefully collected supplies) is our newest annual event, with complete credit and many thanks to the inspiration and leadership of IFOB!

For IFOB’s Third Annual International Bookmark Day, the UC San Diego Library was proud to participate!  We had wanted to join IFOB in the first and second year of the event—but the third time was the charm for us. We’re late, but we’re committed! 

My live radio show, Ether Tale Radio Theatre, mainly does live radio drama, but we also discuss books and support/promote book events (poetry, too). We mention World Bookmark Day briefly at the beginning and then fast forward to 29:20 when we truly talk about it for around seven minutes.  

The Exhibit - Installation

Below is a picture showing an early start in installing the UC San Diego Bookstore bookmarks for our Library exhibit.

You can see here that we’re using various lucite stands, so that the bookmarks can be shown at different height levels, helping to provide interest in an otherwise flat landscape.

At one point, we do move some of the bookmarks as far forward as possible in the exhibit case, for patrons whose eye-level view might be influenced by a wheelchair.

Some visitors can’t peer over the exhibit case lid, but they may be able to view better through the side and front glass panels of the cases.

How the bookstore clerks use the bookmarks to recommend their favorite books.

The generous blank spots on these bookmarks allow the bookstore clerks to relay personal reviews!

The Exhibit - Featured Bookmarks

In the exhibit we showed bookmarks from our Library staff’s personal collections and official bookmarks from various UC San Diego offices, including the debut of a new bookmark from our campus Sustainability Resource Center.

Outreach interns staffed a table that day to discuss the campus’ sustainability mission.​

The most handsome bookmarks on display from our Library promoted the photographs, documents, audio, and video available on the UC San Diego Library Digital Collections website, reflecting a range of materials collected, managed and preserved by the Library. 

These online collections are well-served by old-school bookmarks!

Delightfully dark bookmarks from good friend author/artist Lori R. Lopez.

We also featured bookmarks from local artists.

I visited Susie Reneau’s hidden hillside art studio for an unrelated exhibit project and asked if I could buy these original bookmarks for my personal collection (and to exhibit in our World Bookmark Day exhibit.)  Susie often works in black & white, but she is otherwise very colorful and very active. She is also a well-known, semi-retired bubble artist!---but not in the dancing, vaudeville sense. Her bubble shows are a floating family-friendly delight of physics and fun.

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I enjoyed showing my personal bookmark collection, some self-made, some tourist art from recent travels, and many were impromptu gifts from friends and family who know that I can always use another bookmark!

This Pixar-inspired item adds humor to any bookmark display. I have a lot of 3-D bookmarks but this one is a favorite. So nice to have an opportunity to jump away, briefly, from everything being so flat and rectangular.

I usually display these punky magnifying bookmarks on top of vintage phrenology busts or atop empty tequila glass skull decanters…but here they are flat and simple with a beloved Library magnifying bookmark/ruler.

I was very proud to display this bookmark that was a gift from Xi Chen, our Chinese Studies Librarian and  East Asia Collection Strategist here at the UC San Diego Library. This leather item has an embossed poem that Xi translated for us:

 “Live a simple and humble life. Reading makes a man graceful.” From Su Shi (1037-1101, Song Dynasty)’s poem “Farewell to Dong Chuan”  

Bookmark from the National Central Library (Taiwan)

Create Your Own Bookmark

On 25 February, World Bookmark Day, we held an event where visitors could make their very own one-of-a-kind bookmark at the exhibit site.

Of special interest was a demonstration of needlepoint bookmarks that was presented throughout our two-hour event.

The floor was busy, as visitors could choose from eight different stations to visit to create their own bookmark –all featuring different supplies and tools.

The most surprising hands-on activity of the afternoon came courtesy of this wildly popular color fan deck (that I stole from my sister Debra on the morning of the event!) Visitors ripped out their favorite color tones for an instant elegant bookmark.

Our Bookmark-Making event went beyond our 1:30pm “last call” on World Bookmark Day. We packed up all the extra DIY stations and left one last table up for latecomers. Ladies ruled much of the day, but gentlemen arrived to participate at the end and they even helped us clean up!

Observations

Bookmarks make great event fliers---we’ll be sure to promote our annual Paper Theatre Festival through bookmarks this year!

And I think we should celebrate the upcoming 30th anniversary of our Library chimes with a bookmark to remind people that we take song requests!