How do you mark pages?

[txomsy]

At some point, when writing reference notebooks (notebooks where I noted formulae, word translations, etc.. for later reference), in a planned, structured manner, I would use colored sticky paper tape, about one cm wide, that I'd wrap around the border of the first page (at decreasing heights) of each topic so I could quickly identify where it did start (and end), sometimes using different colors.

 

But when noting down mixed, unstructured notes without order, as they come up, on different topics, it is not practical.

 

When they have a bookmark, I use it just to remember where I was reading. But that is not always available and often you can only mark one position, which is OK for serial reading, but not for reference texts where one wants to mark several different places.

 

Folding one corner over is a classic way of marking reading points, but I tend to dislike it, as it ends up wearing paper and finally tears off at some point on heavily used books/notebooks.

 

Using sticky notes or sticky bookmarks I find handy for books or for notebooks that are somehow protected, but if they are to be on a pocket or on a bag with other items, I find the sticky bookmarks tend to fall off, or worse, wrinkle the pages.

 

Paper bookmarks are great and visible for static books/notes, but worse for moving around as they are easier to fall off when the book or notebook is thrown in a bag.

 

Magnetic folding bookmarks are also sort of OK, but I find the thickness of the magnet inconvenient if you want to have several on the same book, plus they also tend to fall off (although less) on books moved around.

 

Elastic band bookmarks have a different problem: you cannot have more than two because one would not allow to access the other.

 

At some point (many years ago) I started getting metallic clip bookmarks with appealing decorative motives I'd buy on museums. These were better, but are less visible and can damage the page border if pushed too much, they are nice for hard-bound books where the cover extends beyond the pages and thus somewhat protects the pages (and the clip bookmark), but on soft-cover books/notebooks, it is very easy to push them and cut into the page.

 

Shortly put, I am still in search for good ways to mark pages in books and notebooks. Hence the questions:

 

How do you mark pages on books/notebooks? Both, to identify anchor pages, and to identify multiple reading points? And what are your perceived advantages and disadvantages of these?

 

What I would like is something that is not too thick or big, so I can use several on a book, and that does not fall off easily on the move, if the book is thrown on a bag to be rattling with other items, and that won't damage the pages easily.

 

[nibtip]

The metallic bookmarks are all Japanese.

 

[JulieParadise]

One of my "list books" has a structure similar to the one you describe, where there are multiple sections that need to be easily accessed but at "wandering" points, so flexibility is key, which prohibits fixed markers like tabs etc.

 

This one with 7 or 8 places within the book that I regularly add to are easily found with a combination of washi "flags/tabs" glued/stuck in at the beginning of the respective section. Some pages after that, at the end of the list, I have thick blotting papers between the pages of the "active spread".

 

I use the Clairefontaine blotting paper, white, 250 gsm, which is thick enough to not be overlooked. This serves as a(n oversized) reading sign, a protection from hand oils and a blotting paper, and it "wanders" with me as I go along my entries.

 

Depending on how long a certain page needs to be used, you may also consider washi tape flags on different sides of the book, i.e. permanent section markers on the side and additional markers on the top of the page (or vice versa) that only need to be in place for the several weeks this page needs to be accessed. Washi tape mostly peels off without a trace even after having been stuck to paper for weeks.

[txomsy]

Great ideas!

 

The transparent sticky notes I have tried, but as I like to use pocket-size notebooks I tend to fill pages to the brim, and if I use them, they often overlay some text. I have this feeling at the back of my head that there must be a better way to use them, but somehow can't bring it to consciousness...

 

BTW, how good are those metallic bookmarks? They look really nice, but I wonder if they'll scratch the paper or be too bulky, and if they're easy to insert/remove or will fall easily.

[JulieParadise]

44 minutes ago, txomsy said:

BTW, how good are those metallic bookmarks? They look really nice, but I wonder if they'll scratch the paper or be too bulky, and if they're easy to insert/remove or will fall easily.

 

Search for "book darts", these are very slim and neither add significant bulk to the book nor do they leave nasty marks on the paper. 

 

Edited to add: I bought one of those round tins with 50 book darts made of brass (?) about 11 or 12 years ago and still use these; only a handful got lost along the way or were given away etc. So these may seem pricey at first but are a very sustainable option.

[Karmachanic]

https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2014/12/little-known-hack-japan-get-notebook-organized/

[dragondazd]

I use cute paper page flags most of the time. If it needed to handle rough use I would use plastic post-it page flags. The sticky end is transparent. 

 

If that's still disruptive, consider leaving a space on each page for a potential flag.

 

[InkyColors]

16 minutes ago, Karmachanic said:

https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2014/12/little-known-hack-japan-get-notebook-organized/

Thanks for sharing!

[Karmachanic]

Allows one to have more than a single subject on a page.

[XYZZY]

4 hours ago, Karmachanic said:

https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2014/12/little-known-hack-japan-get-notebook-organized/

That is fabulous!  In college I used different colored markers along the edge of pages.  But combining that with an index that way is genius in its simplicity.  That is something I could really use in my journals.

[Karmachanic]

5 minutes ago, XYZZY said:

That is fabulous! 

 

And so simple.  Even I can do it 🤪

[inkstainedruth]

Depends on the book or notebook.  

For my morning pages journal, I used to use a brass bookmark I bought in the Metropolitan Museum of Art a number of years ago, in conjunction with a fabulous special exhibit of medieval art from Bohemia (one of their princes, in IIRC the 1400s, was educated at the French and Burgundian courts and brought the current style of art there back home with him).  But I lost Siggy (it was a cut and etched design based on an embroidered piece called the SIgismund Dragon -- which was one of the pieces in the exhibit).  So now I use a brass bookplate I got at a pen show a while back where a guy had a table engraving initials onto a flat piece of brass).  

For the composition books I used to keep track of what inks worked (or didn't) in a specific pen, I have a bunch of (somewhat) color-coded post-it flags (the plastic ones) but it's hard to find inks that will work on those to mark what the specific pen is.

For the cheapie sketch pads I use to test inks?  I have an index by volume and page listing the ink brand and color, and can roughly search through the right volume if I need to look at the page for a specific color (such as adding a note about putting it in a different pen).

For other notebooks?  It's less of an issue -- I just leaf through the writing ones or sketchbooks till I get to a new page; stuff I've written that I'm happy with gets transcribed into a computer file for editing and formatting.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[txomsy]

18 hours ago, JulieParadise said:

 

Search for "book darts", these are very slim and neither add significant bulk to the book nor do they leave nasty marks on the paper. 

 

Edited to add: I bought one of those round tins with 50 book darts made of brass (?) about 11 or 12 years ago and still use these; only a handful got lost along the way or were given away etc. So these may seem pricey at first but are a very sustainable option.

Thanks, I have added them to my wish list for the next time I make an order from Amazon. I'm looking forward to seeing how they go.

 

I am often perusing many reference books simultaneously, so such a solution would fit well for marking several pages in each.

 

 

16 hours ago, Karmachanic said:

https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2014/12/little-known-hack-japan-get-notebook-organized/

That is a great idea! At least for indexing "static" notebooks. It won't work to mark (moving) reading points, but would help locate topic-related pages very efficiently.

 

I can see how they can help me with 'reference' reference notebooks; i.e. I often work on several projects, for which I need to document myself, so I am reading articles and making short summaries where I keep the article bibliographic reference and a short abstract of key points within. As I keep reading on different projects, the topics of the reference+notes get mixed, often in the same page. I was using a color "code" (i.e. writing notes related to each project in a different color by project) so I could identify quickly to which topic/project each note belonged. But the whole point is so I can later consult these notebooks as a reference to remember something, specially when writing articles, and for that I would have to browse every notebook page, look at the reference+notes, identify their topic by color and read them until I found whatever I was looking for.

 

Such an organization is excellent for such notebooks: I could index by project/topic, but also by relevant contents and identify quickly the pages containing information related to whatever I want.

 

Neat!

 

If you use it, what do you use to make the sideways marks? I wonder if I could use an FP for it or if it is better to use a marker.

 

And, how easy is it to see the mark on the page border? Although that's less important, one can expand the visible mark 'width' by "folding" the notebook to widen the notebook border. Yeah, I think I will try it on the notebooks I already have and see how it works.

 

16 hours ago, dragondazd said:

I use cute paper page flags most of the time. If it needed to handle rough use I would use plastic post-it page flags. The sticky end is transparent. 

 

If that's still disruptive, consider leaving a space on each page for a potential flag.

 

I agree in that they are very handy. For marking reading points they are nice, but in my experience, when I've thrown a notebook (or book) in a bag or pocket, they tend to wrinkle and get caught on other items. But that's just me, and I am a real, careless brute (I know, not proud, but I know).

 

I think I will try the Book Darts and see if they hold better.

 

@inkstainedruth, that is great advice. Actually, using a computer was my first idea 40 years ago, when I first learned about personal computers: transcribing all notes to a computer should help consult them later very efficiently. But computers were not portable then, and when laptops came, they were not convenient for EDC. Nowadays, entering using a tablet or smartphone to look up information would be akin to a pocket or A5 notebook, but now I am hooked on paper notebooks and prefer not to spend extra time on digitization and keyword tagging. 40 years ago there was time enough for anything. Nowadays efficiency is the magic word and there is hardly any slack, and any extra time spent on any task is frowned upon.

[Karmachanic]

5 hours ago, txomsy said:

If you use it, what do you use to make the sideways marks?

 

Sharpie.  I put a piece of card under the edge of the page and mark beyond the edge. That way the edge itself gets marked.

[txomsy]

That's a great idea, thanks.

 

[knarflj]

On 8/2/2022 at 9:13 AM, JulieParadise said:

 

Search for "book darts", these are very slim and neither add significant bulk to the book nor do they leave nasty marks on the paper. 

 

 

+1!  I have used these for years.  They often have a sale in December.  

[dragondazd]

There's a wide range of Japanese index flag/page marker/sticky note/fusen products with more rounded shapes and lower profiles or ones designed to fold over. 

 

https://www.jetpens.com/Midori-Chiratto-Index-Tab-Small-Color/pd/27537

[mhwombat]

The page da

On 8/2/2022 at 2:13 PM, JulieParadise said:

Search for "book darts", these are very slim and neither add significant bulk to the book nor do they leave nasty marks on the paper. 

Yes, I highly recommend these. They don't leave marks on the page, so I'm happy to leave them in even my nicest books. And they are attractive too.

 

Here's one brand:

https://www.jetpens.com/search?q=Book+Darts&v=2

[Runnin_Ute]

Levenger has a version of them as well. Made of brass and in the shape of a fountain pen nib.

https://www.levenger.com/reading-1140/reading-accessories-23037/copper-page-nibs-17232.aspx

[txomsy]

12 hours ago, dragondazd said:

There's a wide range of Japanese index flag/page marker/sticky note/fusen products with more rounded shapes and lower profiles or ones designed to fold over. 

 

https://www.jetpens.com/Midori-Chiratto-Index-Tab-Small-Color/pd/27537

 

These look awesome! Thanks for pointing me to them, I didn't know about'em. The stickies I've seen till now had an ~2cm-long colored flag, which may be the reason I had so many problems.