Mark Me Well

by

Frank X. Roberts

Who folds a leafe downe
Ye divel toaste browne

L.S. Thompson, “A Cursory Survey of Maledictions”

In his Philobiblon (Love of Books) first printed in 1473, Richard De Bury (1287-1345) describes a flagrant example of such behavior. De Bury, who was the Bishop of Durham, castigates students in the monastic schools of his time who, in order to mark a place in a book, “distribute[d] a multitude of straws . . . to stick out in different places, so that the halm [i.e., the straw] may remind [them] of what [their memories] cannot retain.” In time, says De Bury, these straws not only distended the book, but were frequently forgotten and left to decay within its pages.

The good Bishop of Durham reveals the pain in his booklover’s heart when he writes of students who sit over their books bedewing them with “ugly moisture” from their running noses or filling the pages and inner margins of their books with fragments of fruit and cheese while attempting to study and eat at the same time.

Through the centuries it seems that eating and reading have always gone hand in hand, (or perhaps hand in mouth would be a better way of phrasing it) much to the detriment of books. Charles Lamb in the nineteenth century claimed that the topography of a book could be much better known and traced if read with tea and buttered muffins, the crumbs from the muffins apparently acting as serendipitous bookmarks.

Some of the abuse of books through the use of inappropriate items as bookmarks may be attributable to absentmindedness. John Selden, a seventeenth-century scholar, used his spectacles as bookmarks. Selden left his books to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, and when the books were examined by the librarians, dozens of pairs of spectacles were found.

In a similar vein, Alexander Ross, another seventeenth-century scholar (but a unique one, indeed, in that he seems to have been a scholar of means) used gold coins to mark the pages of the books he was studying, and then forgot to remove them. After Ross’s death, gold coins amounting to £1,000 were found between the pages of the books in his library. This behavior, while perhaps amusing, was still potentially as damaging to the books as the carelessness of Richard de Bury’s students or Charles Lamb’s cavalier attitude about books and eating.

Dog-earing, that is folding the corner of a page down to act as a bookmark, has also long been used by thoughtless readers who, it would seem, are too lazy even to find something to insert between the pages of their books. While both the use of objects unsuited to the purpose as bookmarks and dog-earing will cause damage to books, with dog-earing the damage is more immediate and lasting, for once a crease is made in the paper on the corner of a page, it becomes impossible to return the page to its pristine condition. And unless the crease in the paper is returned immediately as close as possible to its original state, in time the corner of the page will break off.

Sadly, it is not only the untutored readers who use the dog-earing method to mark a page in a book. Lovers of books, purchasers of used books, antiquarian book collectors and librarians at all levels are only too familiar with the fact that this practice is still extant. Some benighted readers not only dog-ear pages but have also been known to fold in half whole pages at passages they wish to remember. This thoughtless and selfish practice (to give it no worse names) was the lifelong habit of the poet Edward Young (1683-1765). It is recorded that after he died “books were found in his library which had long resisted the power of closing.”

Sadly, too, it must be said that books continue to be abused in all the ways rehearsed above, and many more. Most booksellers and librarians have horror stories of their own about bizarre items found between the pages of the books they have handled. The following is a short list of strange “bookmarks” published in a contemporary periodical. The items in the list were supplied by librarians who found them in books in their libraries:  shoestrings, dirty socks, human hair, pins, cheese slices, corsages, matches (burned and unburned), French postcards, paper money in various denominations, razor blades, steak knives, uncooked bacon, traffic tickets, unpaid bills, a tongue depressor. I could go on but it gets quite depressing.

Why, when libraries and many other institutions and businesses worldwide give away genuine bookmarks or sell them quite cheaply, readers persist in using matchsticks, monthly bills, and items of food as bookmarks is a problem for the psychologists, and a mystery well beyond the scope of this article.

The reading of books, and the writing of books, despite current prognostications, appear to have plenty of life left in them, and as long as the writing and reading of books continue there will be a need for those silent sentinels, bookmarks, to “mark a place.” Let us hope that the right kind of bookmarks are used. Heartfelt pleas by lovers of the book, such as the following, can still be found in publications: “When you read your books, be careful about how you mark your place. The best bookmark is a very fine, thin, white ribbon. Other bookmarks tend to break or scratch the pages. And please—no paper-clips; they mark and tear the pages and are hazardous to the binding.”

Bookmarks may be collected for the words of wisdom or amusement which sometimes appear on them, or perhaps because they are easily portable souvenirs to remind the collector of some literary or historical personage or some historical event related to a place he or she may have visited. Collecting bookmarks can be a very satisfying and enriching hobby.

Unfortunately, however, due to the fact that bookmarks are made from just about every kind of material, animal, vegetable, and mineral (and thus may react chemically with the pages of a book) and to the fact that they come in various lengths and thicknesses and often with sharp edges, most bookmarks are not really suitable for placing between the pages of books which have any value at all.  It is assumed that the true lover of books would never put any bookmark, no matter how attractive it may be, between the pages of a valuable book if there was even the remotest chance of its doing harm to the book. If it is necessary to put any kind of a marker between the pages of a rare or valuable book, the material used should be the finest and thinnest, white, acid-free paper available.

With the current heightening of awareness of how acidic paper has hastened the deterioration of books, many libraries and other organizations interested in book preservation are now producing and distributing bookmarks on acid-free paper.

Finally, it should be noted that the nonuse of bookmarks in reading materials regarded as expendable or of no lasting value as physical objects is not being argued. It is recognized that readers need the kind of aid good bookmarks provide. Nevertheless, the wise users of books will try to form the habit of using bookmarks made of thin, pliable and chemically stable materials, and not use items that might tear or scratch or otherwise mar the pages or do damage to the binding of a book. After all, even if the book in hand is the least of books in terms of its value as a physical object, someone else might just want to read it.


Frank’s extensive career in teaching and librarianship began when he taught English in the U.S. From 1961 to 1963, as part of a Columbia University program called “Teachers for East Africa,” he taught English and American Literature in East Africa. There he met his wife, Dorothy. They returned to the U.S. where he simultaneously taught and finished two Masters’ degrees, in Education and in Librarianship. In 1968 they returned to England where Frank taught Library Studies, and adopted Hodge, a cat who later traveled around the world with them. In 1972, Frank was “seconded” for two years to teach at Makerere University in Uganda, East Africa, but left reluctantly after one year when the tyranny of Idi Amin became intolerable. From there it was back to England, then Australia and finally  to America in 1979, to Buffalo where Frank earned his doctorate. Later they moved to Colorado, where he was Professor of Library Studies at the University of Northern Colorado until retiring in 1997. Frank published James A. Michener: A Checklist of his Work with a Selected Annotated Bibliography (Greenwood Press) in 1995. He has written on bookmarks, specifically on medieval bookmarks, his special area of interest. A poet by avocation, he writes eclectically but traditionally. Frank and Dorothy live in Colorado with two very senior citizens of the feline persuasion. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it