Bookmarks Connect Students, Libraries, and Art

by

Laine Farley

One of the best things about following the annual bookmarks project at the University of the West of England, this year called Bookmarks VI: Infiltrating Europe and the USA, is that it has led me to a wonderful group of artists, librarians, and artist/librarians. As mentioned in my last column, an interview with artist Mary Marsh, the sole California distribution site for bookmarks was the Rosenberg Library at the City College of San Francisco. The librarian, Kate Connell, is also an artist and curator of exhibitions for the Library. She has developed a great program with the college’s Graphic Department where students design bookmarks for the Library. I conducted a virtual interview with her to find out more about how she connects art, libraries and bookmarks. 

Kate also put me in touch with her work-study student, Lucia Ruiz, who provides a student’s perspective on the bookmarks which is equally interesting. Kate sent examples of some of the bookmarks created by the students. More examples can be seen at the library’s exhibition blog which uses the bookmark designs as headers.

Tell me about yourself–your training, current work, your own art work, etc.
Kate: I’m a librarian, library curator and visual artist. I have a master’s in art and also my MLIS. Most of the artwork I do is community based. As a curator, I’ve modeled the City College Library exhibition program on the community arts model begun in the 1970s. For many years I was a participating artist, educator, and co-curator at the Galeria de la Raza in San Francisco. The storefront galleries of the 1970s, founded in neighborhoods that were outside the arts mainstream, produced exhibitions and other projects that served their audience so well. At City College, the goal of the exhibition program is to validate the interests and concerns of the members of the college community and to explore them through exhibitions that bring people into the library and encourage them to investigate exhibition themes further using library resources. We now have a blog and we always have a comment book in the largest exhibition space.
 
Right now, my husband Oscar Melara, who is also a visual artist, and I are working on two projects for our little known neighborhood in the Southeast corner of San Francisco, the Portola District. Both are collaborations with our new branch library, which has been housed in rented storefronts for eighty years. The first project is called “Portola at Play: A Multimedia Toolchest.” It’s a portrait of the community in a variety of media. Oscar and I are creating “Porto-Loteria,” a visual bingo game with images from the neighborhood. We’re combining different techniques to create the fifty-four Portola images that make up the game. Oscar paints and draws and I carve soft woods and clay and then scan them. We combine them to create images like “The Explorer,” “The Mockingbird,” “The Herbalist,” etc. The game is based on the Mexican game of Loteria. Our collaborators, John Calloway, a musician/ composer, and Gustavo Vazquez, a filmmaker, are making a CD of original music that describes the neighborhood, and a film that features neighborhood residents and describes community narratives. This will debut in April, and then Oscar and I will begin a collection of handmade books about the neighborhood for the Library’s reference collection. Our previous collaboration was a labor history mural for the inside of commuter buses, a collaboration with the Labor Archives and Research Center at San Francisco State University.

How did you get involved in the Bookmarks VI project?
Kate: Mary Marsh, an artist who works at another City College Library told me about it and arranged for City College to participate. She is one of the artists who made bookmarks for Bookmarks VI.

What is the most compelling thing about the project from your perspective?
Kate: The thrill of the handmade—holding a handmade bookmark and feeling the paint, the stitches, the canvas or the paper that each one is printed on. It’s transporting. You feel like going out and making something yourself right that minute. And the wit is so great; many of the bookmarks make really inventive use of language.

Explain the program where students in the Graphic Department produce bookmarks. How did it get started?
Kate: Since the exhibition program runs on a shoestring, I’m always looking for college resources to amplify the projects and to make them cross-disciplinary. The Graphic Communications program has one class where college entities can participate as clients. The process gives students a chance to practice the daily life of a graphic designer with all the highs and lows. Supported by the production manager, Colin Hall, and Chair, Smiley Curtis, wonderful teachers have taught this class and students work tirelessly. They also design the poster for our library exhibitions each semester. Very beautiful work. This last week I just selected one out of eighteen incredible designs for the Spring 2009 library exhibitions. Next week I’ll go back to work with them on bookmarks.

Who decides the topics for the bookmarks? How are the designs created?
Kate: I work with the class to select topics. We always have at least one horizontal one for each exhibition so that I can use it as a header in our library exhibitions blog. We also usually advertise each of the library’s six locations. Sometimes we just go with a simple theme like READ! Sometimes the students come up with something they’d like to see on a bookmark. They create the designs, often they recycle some of the ideas they developed for a design for the poster; since we can only choose one poster and there are always so many wonderful designs, this is a chance to use those same ideas in another format.

Can you say a little more about the process? How do you work with them after the designs are selected?
Kate: For the posters, I select a design or designs that I like and then tell them what I'd like to be different. Sometimes there are a few that are almost equally great and when they work on them further, both improve. In that case, I take both back to my office, tape them on the door and ask library staff to vote. Other times, I take like elements from different posters and then I ask a few students to collaborate and put the best elements from each poster together.

With the bookmarks I’m more open since I don’t have to choose just one. I respond mostly to how the bookmark works from the perspective of the library or how the content works. For instance, once a student used Spanish for the bookmark; the text was in Spanish, but the image didn't match. Or another time, an outrageous student put a toilet seat and roll of toilet paper on the bookmark, and the content implied that books were good for reading in the bathroom. I nixed this one because it just wasn't funny enough. I just felt that the image equated books with toilet paper too much—maybe I'm not describing the design very well—but there were so many great ones he'd designed I opted for them instead.

How did you decide on the rather large size of 2 1/2" x 9 3/4"?
Kate: I guess it all goes back to more is more. It would probably be a good idea to have a smaller one, but that would be less real estate.

What have been some of the most memorable bookmarks created by the students?
Kate: I loved the bookmarks created on labor history for the “Yarns of Rebellion: Women Needling History” exhibition. They made use of the photographs of Chinatown seamstresses of the 1930s from the collection of the Labor Archives and Research Center at San Francisco State University. Also, the bookmarks created for the exhibitions we had on Iran—those that used the artwork of Seyed Alavi and Ali Dadgar—were very beautiful. This semester we’ll have some with images honoring the 200th anniversary of Latino journalism in the U.S.; they’ll be great, I know!

In your experience, what is the value of the program for students?
Kate: The graphics students really want to get their artwork out there and have it “consumed” and for them this is a great opportunity. Unlike the poster for which we can only choose one design, I usually choose a bookmark design from every student in the class—it just seems more egalitarian, like the library itself. I think the designers are surprised by what a wallop a bookmark can pack. Small space, but a rich one.

Student Lucia Ruiz answers a similar set of questions about her involvement with bookmarks, followed by several questions that I posed to both Kate and Lucia.

Tell me about yourself. What are you studying at CCSF? What do you hope to do when you leave?      
Lucia: I am currently enrolled in the Culinary Arts program at CCSF and am completing my last semester. Before City I went to a small arts school where I first found my passion for creating things with my hands and imagining things in my mind. My focus in Culinary is pastry. I love the attention to detail that goes into each recipe and plated dessert. Being that this is my last semester, I am currently doing my internship at Citizen Cake (a restaurant in San Francisco) with the pastry chef. By the end of spring 2009 I will have obtained my A.S. and begin the process of transferring out of City to a four-year university. At this moment I wish to go on and receive my Masters in Business or Child Development.

How long have you worked at the Library? What is your job?
Lucia: I have worked at the Rosenberg Library since fall 2007 so about one–and-a-half years. I currently work for two departments of the library: the Circulation Department which deals with checking books out to students, shelving, scanning and such. I also work for the Exhibitions Department with Kate Connell. This is my favorite aspect of working at the library. I enjoy it because it allows me to utilize my creative and artistic abilities which I rarely get to do. Typically we are either preparing for a show, installing shows, taking them down, or maintaining them. It is exciting to be passing by a newly installed exhibition and see people surveying the work and taking in the information. With shows that especially speak to me such as our HIV and AIDS show I like to bring friends in to have a look and suggest to all my friends who attend City to check it out. I like that what we are doing is beneficial to the students, giving them something visually appealing that they can gather new information. It remains up to the students to take the time and enjoy it.

What is your role regarding the bookmarks that the Library uses?  
Lucia: My role when it comes to the bookmarks is to organize them—we receive hundreds in an order—and to stock and refill the bookmarks in their appropriate places. We have bookmarks that refer to certain exhibitions so naturally those are to be put by the exhibition they refer to. Most of the bookmarks promote the Rosenberg Library, the library blog and the beauty of reading. Those bookmarks we like to put around the library, and we attempt to keep them as entertaining as possible often having jokes on them or beautiful colors and designs. After all someone is going to use it so why not make it the best that it can be?

What is the most interesting thing about the bookmarks from your perspective?
Lucia: What is interesting to me about the bookmarks is that people use them. Prior to working at the library every time I needed a bookmark I would grab an old piece of paper. I did however own a few bookmarks but I thought them so delicate and beautiful that I used them more for display purposes rather than their actual use. Of course once I began working here I got to take these goodies home. The bookmarks we supply are sturdy, beautiful and usable. I have a few that I especially like that are up on my wall at home and then there is also one in the book I am currently reading. I have seen fellow classmates using them to mark their page as well as to help them read by placing them below a line of text. I feel that as long as these bookmarks are getting utilized and appreciated, which they are, then there will always be a need for them at City. There are thousands of students here to use them.

How are the bookmarks used? Where are they distributed?
Kate: We send them all over the college, to different campuses; we distribute them near each of the library exhibitions and at sites around the library. I usually take a stack when I go to ARLIS (Art Libraries Society) meetings and to other events.

Do you think the bookmarks are effective for advertising the exhibits and library services?
Lucia: As mentioned before I have often seen students throughout campus using the bookmarks. I also find myself replenishing the bookmarks weekly and I put roughly one hundred out each week. So yes I do feel that the students are using the bookmarks. I often find that ones I find visually appealing go faster than others which means that the students look at the bookmarks before they take them and read what they have to say. In this way I feel that they are effective in getting whatever message it is that they portray out.

Does the small and narrow format of the bookmark present any interesting design challenges or opportunities?
Kate: Very definitely. People take off in many different directions. Some think about the function of the bookmark as a way of holding on to contact info for the library, while others think about how an image at the end of the bookmark can stick up out of the book. Others think of it as an invitation or a kind of calling card. Someone always has a new way of looking at what seems like a limited format. They are incredibly inventive.

Lucia: The Graphics Department does a great job of utilizing the space that is given for them to work with. I almost feel the size of the bookmark helps add to the uniqueness of them. Personally I feel that these bookmarks fit nicely into most of the books I have read.

Do you use bookmarks? If so, what kinds?
Kate: Yes, I love bookmarks. I collect ones from work, I have great ones that Mary Marsh designed, and I get them from the public library. I use postcards and greeting cards, too. I love to read, and find that books and bookmarks go together like a cup and saucer.

Lucia: I am happy to say that I do, and since I started using them because of the bookmarks at school I find that I strictly use the ones that we provide here at the library. Though my favorite bookmarks are a wooden set I purchased in China with beautiful watercolor-drawn women on them they are about three to four inches long and surprisingly thin; these of course I will never use.

Bookmarks are ephemera, often not highly valued and thus usually discarded. Do you assume that the students’ bookmarks will have only a short life span or do you imagine them lasting and recording a bit of history?
Kate: Many students express a love of bookmarks. Some collect whole handfuls—I’ve asked before and found that these students are real bibliophiles and do plan to use them. A few times people have said to me “I need a lot of bookmarks, I love to read!” I guess I imagine that people will take them, put them in a book and then rediscover them down the line, or maybe return them in a library book and someone else will discover and enjoy them.

Lucia: I know that my bookmarks will be recording a bit of history because I like to save them and maintain their condition. Yet some that I use often will unfortunately sooner or later become less usable as they become more and more tattered, one of the drawbacks of paper bookmarks, but can also indicate that they were well used. I feel that some students here at City may discard these bookmarks once they are done using them. But I also know that many will realize the significance of a bookmark with the face of someone with AIDS and a heart-wrenching quote such as “I had barely started dreaming and making plans about my son when I got sick, so maybe the things I am dreaming about are what every mother dreams about . . .” (Paula Peterson) on it. How can beautiful and powerful messages such as the ones we portray on the bookmarks not somehow be recording a bit of history?

For me, it’s clear that Kate Connell has made a real connection for students between their artistic ambitions, their love of books and reading, and the fulfillment of seeing their work make a difference. And all through the small and simple device of a bookmark.

Bookmark specifications: Caught Reading: The Intimacy of Books
Dimensions: 2 1/2" x 9 3/4"
Material: Paper card
Manufacturer: City College of San Francisco Library
Date: 2008?
Acquired: Kate Connell, CCSF Librarian

Bookmark specifications: Write Read: Seyed Alavi and Ali Dadgar
Dimensions: 2 1/2" x 9 3/4"
Material: paper card
Manufacturer: City College of San Francisco Library
Date: 2006
Acquired: Kate Connell, CCSF Librarian
Note: This is one of six that form a continuous picture.

Bookmark specifications: Drawing from Life: Sketchbooks on Bay Area Ecology
Dimensions: 2 1/2" x 9 3/4"
Material: paper card
Manufacturer: City College of San Francisco Library
Date: 2007
Acquired: Kate Connell, CCSF Librarian

Bookmark specifications: City College of San Francisco Library [Frieda Kahlo]
Dimensions: 2 1/2" x 9 3/4"
Material: paper card
Manufacturer: City College of San Francisco Library
Date: 2008?
Acquired: Kate Connell, CCSF Librarian


Laine Farley is a digital librarian who misses being around the look, feel and smell of real books. Her collection of over 3,000 bookmarks began with a serendipitous find while reviewing books donated to the library. Fortunately, her complementary collection of articles and books about bookmarks provides an excuse for her to get back to libraries and try her hand at writing about bookmarks. Collecting Bookmarks (Physical, not Virtual) is Farley’s web site. Contact Laine.