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World Book Day and COVID-19

April 23, 2020

I’ll be honest. I really don’t like reading ebooks. And I find if difficult to concentrate listening to audiobooks, even though I love listening to podcasts. I read hard copy books, ones I can hold in my hands and take to the beach (back in the pre-COVID-19 days). I like books whose covers I can look at and whose pages I can flip through.

But as the owner of Bookplate Ink, audiobooks and ebooks are also a little scary and disappointing to me. And with the coronavirus pandemic, I have had some concern that people will start reading more ebooks. After all, libraries and many local bookshops are closed.

But there’s hope! Today is World Book Day, officially UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day. As Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO said, “Books have the unique ability both to entertain and to teach. They are at once a means of exploring realms beyond our personal experience through exposure to different authors, universes and cultures, and a means of accessing the deepest recesses of our inner selves.” What better day to think about and act on that than today? If you’re like me, the state of the world today makes it all the more tempting and important to be able to escape into a good book.

Here at Bookplate Ink, we encourage people to celebrate World Book Day, any day really, by ordering hard copy books from an independent bookstore. Although bookstores are closed during this pandemic, many are still shipping books to customers. And by ordering from an independent store instead of Amazon, you will be supporting a small business that mostly likely really needs your help right now. You can find independent bookstores in your area at www.indiebound.org/indie-bookstore-finder, part of the website for the IndieBound, a resource for Independent local bookstores. If you can’t find a local bookstore that it shipping books, try Powell’s in Portland, Oregon, www.powells.com/, the world’s largest independent bookstore.

Here in Ohio, it is a rainy day today. Perfect for curling up with a good book!

Basel Paper Mill

October 16, 2019

Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Basel, Switzerland. Basel is a beautiful city on the banks of the Rhine, with houses and buildings dating back to the 1600s. There are many museums there, including art museums, a toy museum, a caricature and cartoon museum, and a music museum.

My husband and I were visiting friends, but I couldn’t resist going to the Basel Papermill. This wonderful mill/museum produces and sells paper and paper products and print services, while operating as a museum.

On the first floor, visitors are able to not only view paper being made, but try their hand at it also. The photo on the left shows a mixture of pulp and water being mashed together while the one on the right shows the back end of the machinery.

Watch and listen to the video below, showing the entire machinery mashing the pulp to prepare to make the paper. I love the sound!

Upstairs, there is a full letterpress print shop, including the original Heidelberg press shown here. And, of course, it was thrilling to find bookplates amongst the print samples in the shop, The bookplate shown below is one I’d seen online.

This is only a snippet of the many interesting experiences and information in the paper mill/museum. If you are ever in Basel, don’t miss it!

Many Ways to Use Bookplates

October 3, 2017

The traditional use of bookplates, begun in the 15th century, is to identify the owner of a book. Bookplates, also known as ex libris, are usually decorative, with artwork that is meaningful to the book owner. Often they show the family coat of arms or some particular area of interest to the owner. Many well-known figures have used bookplates and many well-known artists have created them over the years, but they are available for anyone to use.

The Antioch Bookplate Company, in its early days, promoted the use of bookplates for ordinary folk, as people could order one of its many designs — often called universal designs — that are available to the public. No need to hire an artist to create a design specifically for you, although that is always an option. Many well-known artists, such as Lynd Ward, Rockwell Kent, and Robert Whitmore, created artwork for Antioch bookplates.

The Antioch Company closed several years ago, but Bookplate Ink continues to print their popular designs, both personalized and non-personalized. Many of our customers are individuals ordering for their home libraries, but it is noteworthy how many interesting uses people have for bookplates.

Memorial Bookplates: Many bookplates are placed in books being donated to a library or school in memory of someone, and are often books from their own collection. Sometimes, however, a collection of new books is donated in memory of a loved one, co-worker or teacher. One of our customers donates books to a nearby nature center in memory of her dear daughter, who died much too young. Another customer has requested bookplates in memory of her book club members. And many bookplates are in books given in memory of a favorite teacher or librarian.

University Libraries: Many of the bookplates we print are shipped to universities, either for their main library or a departmental library. Some of these are to designate a particular collection, or ownership by a university department. Some bookplates are sold at college bookstores, with the logo for the school.

Kickstarter Campaigns: Who said bookplates aren’t part of the modern world? Bookplate Ink has printed many bookplates to be given as a reward for donating to a Kickstarter or other online campaign. These bookplates are usually signed by the author/and or illustrator who is the recipient of the funding. Many of these have been for comics and graphic novels.

Authors: Bookplates provide a convenient way for authors to reach out to fans with an autograph, when shipping a book or a signing in person aren’t possible. Author Bernard Cornwell has been using bookplates in this way for years. He has a significant fan base in Brazil and recently had his usual bookplate printed in Portuguese. Maggie Stiefvater sends bookplates with her own beautiful artwork, as shown below, to fans in the United Kingdom when she can’t go there on tour.

Gifts: Of course, one of the best uses for bookplates is as a present to your favorite reader. Grandparents and parents often order non-personalized bookplates as a stuffing stuffer at Christmas. Bookplates personalized with a name make a special gift for the holidays or a birthday. Many people are thrilled to find the same design they used as a child still available for them to give to their own children.

How to host a baby book shower

September 16, 2014

The invitation mimicked a library checkout card

My son and his wife are expecting a baby girl next month and one of my daughter-in-law’s closest friends, Katie, hosted a baby shower for her. I was pleased when the invitation arrived and I saw that it was a “book shower.” Every guest was asked to bring a children’s book in lieu of a card. Of course, I thought a natural Babyinvite addition would be bookplates! When I contacted Katie, it turned out she had just looked at Bookplate Ink’s bookplates on Etsy! Since the shower was for my future granddaughter, I created a new bookplate for the shower.

GreenEggsandHam Bookplate Ink has printed bookplates for customers’ baby showers, but I had never been to a book shower. I was very impressed with the way Katie put the shower together and thought it would be fun and helpful to share her ideas.

Everything about the shower was related to books. Classic children’s books were displayed around Katie’s dining room, all related to one of the food dishes she had prepared. For example, Dr. Seuss’ famous Green Eggs and Ham was paired with muffin-size egg soufflés. Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales sat by a tray of cheeses, and If You Give a Moose a Muffin was displayed next to a tray of almond muffins.

In the kitchen, there were a variety drinks of beverages, including Pinkalicious spa water and Bear’s sangria, both based on children’s books. For coffee, Katie had white mugs on which fun literary messages had been printed with a Sharpie marker.

In another room, K Mugs atie had a desk set up with a wonderful, creative guest book. The pages were removable to allow guests to write a message to the parents, decorate with a variety of stickers, and slip the paper into a plastic sleeve in the book. I put the bookplates here to allow the guests to fill them out before putting them with the books they brought. It would be easier to send baby shower bookplates to your guests along with the invitations, but we didn’t have a chance to coordinate this.

Katie also had a cute game for guests to play, called Children’s Book Scramble. The idea was to figure out which children’s book title was described in the obscure description. For example, the answer for “Locale of the Untamed Creatures” was the book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

Overall, the shower was a huge success. The guests all seemed to enjoy the book theme and the books were a wonderful conversation piece. The best part is that my future granddaughter already has a wonderful library of books, complete with bookplates that have a loving message from her friends and family.

Little Free Libraries and bookplates

October 24, 2013

Recently, we have received orders for bookplates with text indicating the book is from a “Little Free Library.” What is a Little Free Library? And who started this trend?

Little Free Library in Orlando, FL

I honestly thought this was just a good idea that various individuals were instituting. Then I came across the Little Free Library website, where it is explained that a Little Free Library is “a ‘take a book, return a book’ gathering place where neighbors share their favorite literature and stories. In its most basic form, a Little Free Library is a box full of books where anyone may stop by and pick up a book (or two) and bring back another book to share.”

According to the website, this idea started in 2009 when “Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisconsin, built a model of a one room schoolhouse as a tribute to his mother, a former school teacher who loved reading.” Soon, inspired by Andrew Carnegie’s support of 2,509 free public libraries and a mission to promote literacy and a sense of community, a goal was established to build 2510 Little Free Libraries, a goal which was reached in 2012.

I was excited to see an example of just such a library in Orlando, Florida, at one of my favorite restaurants, Dandelion Cafe, which hosted many events to support a sense of community. Their library, located at the front of the cafe, was a colorful and cheerful box. Unfortunately, Dandelion Cafe closed due to the pandemic.

I urged you to visit the Little Free Library website to read about this fascinating and inspiring concept. Maybe you’ll want to build a library in your community!

The small world of bookplates

March 5, 2013

Bookplates, like family photos, often become part of a treasure of family memories and history. I saw this demonstrated recently when my husband and I were visiting a friend. Our friend is a musician and comes from a family of musicians. While we were visiting, he shared with us several bookplates that had belonged to his father and grandfather, both of whom are now deceased.

E31-There-is-no-frigate-ship-library-bookplatetif One of his father’s bookplates, shown here, was fun to see because it is a variation of a design that we are still printing at Bookplate Ink, E31. As you can see, this nautical design was altered to add the cat and fiddle picture that was the logo for The Catgut Acoustical Society, to which our friend’s father belonged, and printed in green. Most likely, this bookplate was printed by Antioch Bookplate Company in the 1960s.

I was excited to see another bookplate that belonged to my friend’s grandfather. This is one that has been out of print for many years but was also printed by Antioch Bookplate Company. It was a Christmas gift from our friend’s brother to his grandfather in 1962. Not only was this design used by our friend’s grandfather, but it was also the design used by another mutual friend’s grandmother, who happens to have been the mother of the man who started Bookplate Ink.

It’s a small world in the bookplate world!