Contents: About the Collection | Bookmark Collecting | Technical Details | Design | Accessibility Statement | Rights Statement | Citations | Further Reading | Tech

About the Collection

This site hosts a digitized collection of bookmarks from independent bookstores sourced from Erin Walden’s collection of bookmarks (learn more about me on the contributor page. The bookstores represented here are primarily located in the United States, though some have been sourced from around the world with the help of my friends and family. This project follows the Library of Congress Technical Standards for Digital Conversion of Text and Graphic Materials and implements rich metadata to create a functional and user-friendly browsing experience.

Since 2016, the year that I started my undergraduate education, I have been collecting bookmarks. The bookstores represented here follow the trajectory of my life, starting in Providence, RI, moving occasionally through New York City, Long Island, and Massachusetts, and slowly creeping toward the Midwest through Philadelphia and Ohio.

You will see souvenirs from trips to Portland, Oregon to visit my cousins and road trips back-and-forth from the East Coast to Indiana. My larger personal collection includes bookmarks from various cultural institutions and small presses, including the Shofuso Japanese Cultural Center in Philadelphia and Fortune a Philadelphia-based print collective assembled by/for queer and trans Asians. For this project, I have decided to include only bookmarks from independent bookstores.

An independent bookstore is exactly what it sounds like: an independently owned bookstore. Most only have a single location, though several here have multiple storefronts (such as McNally Jackson and Powell’s Books, among others). Until the mid-1900s, most bookstores were independent. With the rise of shopping malls in the 1950s, mall-based bookstore chains proliferated and underwent major expansions into the 1970s and 1980s. Later on, as the dot-com boom of the 2000s led to the proliferation e-books and websites like Amazon, independent bookstores began to decline. However, according to Paddy Hirsch of NPR, “between 2009 and 2015, the number of independent bookstores grew by 35 percent. This happened during the so-called ‘retail apocalypse,’ which has pitted Amazon against every retail outlet in America.” Today, the independent bookstore industry is still booming, with more than 300 bookstores opening in the last few years, according to The New York Times.

I am extremely grateful to friends and family who have gifted bookmarks to me throughout the years. You can learn more about these contributors on the Contributor Page.

This project was created for Z652: Digital Libraries with Professor John Walsh and Alex Wingate.

Bookmark Collecting

There is a rich history of bookmark collecting, especially in the book collecting world. Bookmarks can offer an accessible entry point into collecting as they are often free or low-cost and require little space to store. I hope that this website can be viewed alongside resources such as the Instagram account @bookstoremark and numerous blogs, some of which discuss vintage, travel, and Halloween bookmarks (among other topics). Those interested in more information about bookmark collecting can look to The International Friends of Bookmarks website. I hope that this project can be utilized by book lovers, booksellers, designers, and those interested in paper and material culture.

Technical Details

Bookmarks in the collection are contained in single image JPEG or PNG files. When a bookmark had two sides, I scanned each side separately and used InDesign to put them into one file. All photos other than bookmarks are hosted on my personal Are.na account. I hope that hosting the images on an additional platform can increase the exposure and reach of this site.

Metadata fields for this project are listed below. Those with links are searchable and will take you to the browse page for that field:

• Title
• Format: PNG (bookmark with a front and back) or JPEG (front only)
• Tagline
• Bookstore specialization
• Bookstore status: Open or Closed
• Latitude & Longitude
• Location
• Acquisition date
• Artist/designer
• Source: See the Contributors Page for a list of sources
• Color
• Material
• Size
• Damage
• Personal note

You can see the Metadata Application Profile here.

Design

This project uses Athelas, designed by José Scaglione and Veronika Burian from TypeTogether. The full Adobe Fonts library is cleared for both personal and commercial use.

You can see the color palette that I used on this Coolors page.

Accessibility Statement

I am committed to making this website as accessible as possible. I have used the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Chrome Extension to ensure that color contrast ratios meet ADA and WCAG guidelines and have included alt texts where applicable.

Rights Statement

My understanding is that Fair Use Permission applies to these bookmarks. When known, I have credited artists/designers. Please reach out to erwalden@iu.edu with questions or concerns.

Citations

Controlled Vocabularies:

• MIME Type
• Library of Congress Subject Headings
• Library of Congress Names
• Census Bureau Regions and Divisions of the United States
• Color Basics 12 Color Wheel
• Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus
• Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute Sources of Deterioration and Damage to Paper Materials

Further Reading

A list of some interesting articles that I came across during this project.

On Bookmarks:

• Bookmarks Past and Present (The Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum Blog)
• Bookmarks (Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America)
• Beauty And Utility: The History Of Bookmarks (Joanne Chung)
• Smart Medieval Bookmarks (Erik Kwakkel, medievalbooks)

On Bookstores:

• Bed Stuy Welcomes Two Independent Bookstores on Tompkins Avenue (Anna Bradley-Smith, Brownstoner)
• The New York Neighborhood Where the Art Bookstore Is Alive and Well (Chris Black, T Magazine)
• Some Surprising Good News: Bookstores Are Booming and Becoming More Diverse (Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth A. Harris, The New York Times)
• The Joy and Privilege of Growing Up in an Indie Bookstore: Erik Hoel on His Formative Years in the Shelves of His Mother’s Bookstore, The Jabberwocky (Erik Hoel, Literary Hub)