As I’ve been developing and designing a range of AR Bookmarks (or what I call the Book.AR.k), why not share the history of such a universal and practically timeless gadget from its conception? In this post, I will trace its story from its physical to its digital form!

Humble Beginnings

Bookmarks can be traced back further than we might think – with indications that bookmarks first emerged in the 1st century AD as an accompaniment to codices. Codices, plural of codex, (coming from the Latin caudex – meaning block of wood, which also could be used in a pejorative way i.e. blockhead!) were books made of paper/vellum/papyrus with its contents handwritten.

In Egypt, near Sakkara, the earliest bookmark was found – dating from 6th Century AD and made of ornamented leather.

In later centuries, when you consider the rarity of the earliest print books, it makes sense that they would want to protect them from physical wear and tear – and the bookmark could freely mark any page the reader wanted without doing so. Queen Elizabeth I was one of the first to own a bookmark (or “bookmarker”) by the Queen’s Printer, Christopher Barker. The bookmark in question was fringed with silk.

By the 1880s, the woven silk bookmarks were becoming replaced with the stiff paper and cardboard versions that we’d be more familiar with today.

Nowadays, many styles of bookmark are available – made in either metal, cardboard, fabric or plush. They can come in many shapes and sizes – even in a clip or magnetic form.

From Physical to Digital

Bookmarking functions can be found in every browser today, but the first design for a digital bookmark actually preceded the World Wide Web. Craig Cockburn proposed a touchscreen device called a PageLink in 1989 – similar to a hybrid of an ebook reader/browser. His patent, although applied for, was never produced.

Instead, it was the browser Mosaic 1.0 in 1993 that popularised the type of digital bookmark that we know today – called a Hotlist. It would change colour depending on whether the link had been visited before – tracking the history of where the person browsed.

Nowadays, due to the heavy use of mobile phones, bookmarks are often synched between device and laptop/computer, enabling a consistent presence of searched and curated information.

So why the Bookm.AR.k?

When designing the Book.AR.k, I put forward the most important question – what does mixed reality add to the experience? If a physical bookmark has AR content, what helps and what hinders its original function – to mark the place of the reader?

If we go back to the precious nature of the printed book and the need to preserve it, attitudes have changed since then. We can sometimes be accused of folding our book corners in lieu of a bookmark, as well as scribbling in the margins.

So why not have clear notes that are linked to the bookmark? Why not integrate a digital system – one that autosaves and stands the test of time of wear/tear, and stays in one consistent place?

I’ll have another page, depicting all of the bookmarks in the range (plus one I’m extremely excited about, the specialised D&D edition) in a lot more detail.

I hope you enjoyed this rather different post!

Suzie

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