path.jpgWhen you venture down a new path, you see and learn new things. One of the new things I’m seeing and learning about thanks to this adventure down the Needle and Thread: Stitching for Literacy Bookmark Challenge trail is bookmark collecting.

My gateway into the world of bookmark collecting was a blog by Alan Irwin called Bookmark Collector. As someone who keeps his finger on the pulse of all things bookmarkish, he found us, and he’s been sharing our doings with his fellow bookmark collectors. (Thanks, Alan.)

From Alan’s blog, I discovered:

  • a Yahoo! Group for bookmark collectors to discuss, share, and exchange bookmarks.
  • BiblioBuffet, which “serves up a banquet of zesty book reviews, piquant literary commentary, savory bibliophilistic observations and tantalizing conversations.” I have not yet sampled most of the menu, but I’ve tasted a number of the offerings on the Bookmark Sites page, and I’ve found them nourishing and satisfying.
  • Mirage Bookmark, the “web’s most comprehensive reference site on bookmarks.” From what I’ve seen so far, I would not argue that claim. I’ll share more from this site in future posts.
  • a Flickr page of vintage bookmarks.

I don’t believe these discoveries will make a collector out of me, but they’ve already changed the way I look at bookmarks, and I suspect they’ll alter the way I design and make them. I hope they do.

I look forward to further exploration.