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Bookmark
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A bookmark is a thin marking tool, commonly made of card, leather, or fabric, used to keep track of a reader's progress in a book and allow the reader to easily return to where the previous reading session ended. Alternate materials for bookmarks are paper, metals like silver and brass, silk, wood, cord, and plastic. Some books may have one or more bookmarks made of woven ribbon sewn into the binding. Furthermore, other bookmarks incorporate a page-flap that enables them to be clipped on a page.
History
[edit]According to new results of the research done on the history of bookmarks, there are indications that bookmarks have accompanied codices since their first emergence in the 1st century AD.[1] The earliest existing bookmark dates from the 6th century AD and it is made of ornamented leather lined with vellum on the back and was attached with a leather strap to the cover of a Coptic codex (Codex A, MS 813 Chester Beatty Library, Dublin).[2] It was found near Sakkara, Egypt, under the ruins of the monastery Apa Jeremiah. Further earliest bookmarks and remnants of them have been found in Coptic codices dating from the 1st to the 11th century and in Carolingian codices from the 8th to the 12th century. Bookmarks were used throughout the medieval period,[3] consisting usually of a small parchment strip attached to the edge of folio (or a piece of cord attached to headband).
Modern bookmarks are available in a huge variety of materials in a multitude of designs and styles. Many are made of cardboard or heavy paper, but they are also constructed of paper, ribbon, fabric, felt, steel, wire, tin, beads, wood, plastic, vinyl, silver, gold, and other precious metals, some decorated with gemstones.
The first detached, and therefore collectible, bookmarkers began to appear in the 1850s. One of the first references to these is found in Mary Russell Mitford's Recollections of a Literary Life (1852): "I had no marker and the richly bound volume closed as if instinctively." Note the abbreviation of 'bookmarker' to 'marker'. The modern abbreviation is usually 'bookmark'. Historical bookmarks can be very valuable, and are sometimes collected along with other paper ephemera.
By the 1860s, attractive machine-woven markers were being manufactured, mainly in Coventry, England, the centre of the silk-ribbon industry. One of the earliest was produced by J.&J. Cash to mark the death of Albert, Prince Consort, in 1861. Thomas Stevens of Coventry soon became pre-eminent in the field and claimed to have nine hundred different designs.
Woven pictorial bookmarks produced by Thomas Steven, a 19th-century English silk weaver, starting around 1862, are called Stevengraphs.[4] Woven silk bookmarks were very appreciated gifts in the Victorian Era and Stevens seemed to make one for every occasion and celebration. One Stevengraph read: All of the gifts which heaven bestows, there is one above all measure, and that's a friend midst all our woes, a friend is a found treasure to thee I give that sacred name, for thou art such to me, and ever proudly will I claim to be a friend to thee.
Most 19th-century bookmarks were intended for use in Bibles and prayer books and were made of ribbon, woven silk, or leather. By the 1880s the production of woven silk markers was declining and printed markers made of stiff paper or cardboard began to appear in significant numbers. This development paralleled the wider availability of books themselves, and the range of available bookmarkers soon expanded dramatically.
Considerations for safe bookmark usage
[edit]Bookmarks that do not damage the books that they are used in should be acid-free; thin, so they will not indent the pages they rest between; and include no dyes or decorative materials that might bleed into the book's paper, with flat, thin, gentle edges.[5]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Szirmai, J.A. (1999). The Archeology of Medieval Bookbinding. Ashgate. ISBN 978-085-967-904-6.
- ^ Lamacraft, C.T. (1939). Early Book-Bindings from a Coptic Monastery. The Library, Fourth Series, Vol. 20 (1940). pp. 214–233.
- ^ For a 9th-century Carolingian bookmark see: Szirmai, J. A. (1999). The archaeology of medieval bookbinding. Aldershot: Ashgate. p. 123. ISBN 0-85967-904-7. For a 15th-century bookmark, see Medeltidshandskrift 34, Lund University Library.
- ^ Gordon Campbell (2006). The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts. Vol. 2. Oxford University Press. p. 395. ISBN 978-0-19-518948-3.
- ^ "Collecting Bookmarks | Book Collecting Guide".
External links
[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bookmarks.
- Earliest History of Bookmarks by Asim Maner
- World of Bookmarks, Reference site featuring history of bookmarks
- History of Bookmarks by Lois R. Densky-Wolff (Archived 21 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine)
- International Friends of Bookmarks (IFOB), community website with much information about bookmarks
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Bookmark
View on Grokipediafrom Grokipedia
A bookmark is a thin marker, typically made of paper, ribbon, leather, or fabric, placed between the pages of a book to indicate a specific location for resuming reading.[1] In computing, a bookmark is a user-created shortcut, often in the form of a saved URL or icon, that provides quick access to a previously visited web page or digital resource.[2]
The concept of marking pages in books dates back centuries, with early forms including folded corners (dog-earing) or inserted slips of paper; the practice of using dedicated bookmarks dates back to antiquity, with the earliest known examples from the 1st century AD. The term "bookmark" itself originated around 1840, combining "book" and "mark" to describe a device or ribbon used to denote a place within a text.[3] Physical bookmarks vary widely in design, from simple printed cards to ornate metal or embroidered pieces, and are often customized with artwork, quotes, or promotional material.[4]
In the digital realm, bookmarks—also known as "favorites" in some browsers—became essential with the rise of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, allowing users to organize and revisit sites without re-entering addresses.[5] Modern web browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox support hierarchical bookmark folders, tagging, and cloud syncing for cross-device access.[5] Additionally, bookmarks extend to other software, such as Microsoft Word, where they serve as named anchors for navigating or hyperlinking within documents.[6]
Overview
Definition and Purpose
A bookmark, in the context of web browsing, is a saved shortcut consisting of a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) or Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that directs the browser to a specific webpage for quick retrieval, storing details such as the page title and favicon alongside the address.[7] Unlike a browser's history, which automatically logs all visited sites in a temporary, chronological record, bookmarks are manually selected and persistently maintained by the user for intentional reuse.[8][9] The term "bookmark" originates from physical markers—such as ribbons or slips of paper—inserted into books dating back to ancient times (such as the 1st century AD) to denote a reading position, with the modern term and dedicated objects emerging in the 19th century; this practice was analogized to digital navigation when the World Wide Web emerged in the 1990s.[3][10] Bookmarks serve core purposes in enhancing user efficiency, including saving frequently accessed websites to bypass search or typing, organizing resources into hierarchical folders for structured retrieval, facilitating access to cached content where available (though dedicated features like reading lists provide explicit offline support), and aiding research or personal archiving by curating persistent collections of web information.[11][12] In everyday use, individuals bookmark news articles for deferred reading, e-commerce sites for streamlined shopping, and educational materials like tutorials or reference documents to support learning and professional tasks.[13] In some browsers, such as Microsoft Edge, this feature is termed "favorites."[14]Core Functionality
Bookmarks function as a mechanism to save and revisit web pages efficiently. The process of adding a bookmark typically begins with the user navigating to the desired webpage in their browser. Once on the page, the user invokes the save command through various methods, such as clicking a star icon in the address bar, right-clicking the page and selecting "Bookmark this page," or using the universal keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D (Command+D on macOS).[15][9] This action opens an edit dialog where the user can assign metadata, including a custom title for the bookmark (often auto-populated from the page's HTML , an optional description or tags for categorization.[9] The bookmark is then saved to a default location, such as the bookmarks toolbar or menu, with the webpage's URL and favicon automatically captured.[16] Organization of bookmarks relies on built-in tools within browser managers to maintain structure and accessibility. Users create hierarchical folders by right-clicking in the bookmark manager and selecting "New Folder," allowing nested subfolders for grouping related links, such as by topic or project.[16][9] Tagging provides a non-hierarchical alternative, particularly in browsers like Firefox, where multiple tags can be applied to a single bookmark during editing, enabling cross-referencing across categories. Search functionality within the bookmark manager allows users to query by title, URL, or tags using a dedicated search bar, facilitating quick location amid large collections.[9][17] Retrieving a bookmark involves accessing it through browser interfaces designed for rapid navigation. Users can open the dedicated Bookmarks menu from the browser's main toolbar, select from a visible bookmarks bar for frequently used items, or launch the full Bookmark Manager via keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+Shift+O.[16][9] In modern interfaces, such as Chrome's Bookmark Manager or Edge's Favorites hub, bookmarks may display preview thumbnails—small screenshots or favicons of the saved page—to aid visual identification and selection.[16][17] Clicking a bookmark loads the page in a new tab or the current window, depending on user settings. Bookmarks integrate seamlessly with browser tabs and windows to enhance workflow. For instance, users can bookmark all open tabs in a window as a single folder via right-click context menus or shortcuts like Ctrl+Shift+D, preserving session states for later resumption.[9][17] This allows restoring multiple tabs across windows, supporting multitasking without losing context. Features like live bookmarks, which dynamically updated RSS feeds as bookmarks, have been deprecated in major browsers such as Firefox since version 64.[18]History
Origins in Early Browsers
The bookmark feature first appeared in ViolaWWW, a pioneering graphical web browser developed by Pei-Yuan Wei at the University of California, Berkeley, and released in 1992. This implementation provided a basic "bookmark" facility, allowing users to save and track favorite pages amid the rudimentary state of early web navigation tools.[19] The concept gained wider traction with the release of NCSA Mosaic in 1993, where bookmarks were formalized as "Hotlists" to enhance user convenience in exploring the emerging web. In its version 0.5, announced in January 1993, Mosaic introduced hotlist capabilities that enabled users to maintain a persistent list of interesting documents, with options to add or remove items across sessions.[20] This feature addressed the challenges of the nascent internet by simplifying access to frequently visited resources. In the early 1990s, the web operated under severe constraints of limited connectivity, primarily through dial-up modems that delivered speeds as low as 14.4 kbps, resulting in prolonged loading times for even simple pages. Bookmarks proved essential in this environment, permitting users to store hyperlinks for quick retrieval and avoiding the inefficiencies of repeated searches or full re-navigation over unreliable connections.[21] Key innovations in web architecture, such as those proposed by Tim Berners-Lee in his 1989 information management proposal, indirectly enabled bookmarking by establishing URI standards for unique resource identification and hyperlinking mechanisms that supported persistent, savable links.[22]Evolution and Key Milestones
The evolution of bookmark features in web browsers began with foundational implementations in the early 1990s, such as in the Mosaic browser, which introduced basic bookmarking to save and organize URLs.[23] In the mid-1990s, Netscape Navigator played a pivotal role by standardizing the bookmarks.html format, an HTML-based structure for storing bookmarks that allowed for easy export and import across systems.[24] This format, introduced around 1994 with Navigator's release, enabled hierarchical organization through folders, permitting users to categorize links into nested subfolders for better management.[25] Netscape's innovations set a precedent for bookmark storage that influenced subsequent browsers, emphasizing portability and structure over simple lists.[26] A significant advancement came in 1998 with the introduction of bookmarklets, JavaScript-enabled bookmarks that extended browser functionality beyond static links. Coined by Steve Kangas, who launched Bookmarklets.com in December 1998, these interactive tools allowed users to execute scripts directly from bookmarks, such as form validation or page modifications, enhancing usability without extensions.[27] In 2004, Mozilla Firefox introduced live bookmarks with version 1.0, integrating RSS feeds to create dynamic, auto-updating folders that displayed the latest content from subscribed sources like news sites.[28] This feature transformed bookmarks from static references to live content streams, bridging web browsing with syndication until its deprecation in Firefox 64 in late 2018 due to low usage and maintenance priorities.[18] The 2010s marked the rise of cloud-based synchronization, enabling seamless cross-device access to bookmarks. Google Chrome pioneered account-based syncing starting in its developer channel in 2009 and stabilizing in early 2010, allowing users to maintain consistent bookmark libraries across desktops, laptops, and later mobile devices via Google accounts.[29] This shift addressed the growing multi-device ecosystem, reducing manual exports and fostering ubiquitous access. The advent of mobile browsing further adapted bookmarking for touch interfaces, beginning with Apple's iPhone and Safari in 2007, which supported automatic syncing of bookmarks from desktop Macs or PCs over Wi-Fi or EDGE.[30] Similarly, Android's launch in 2008 incorporated bookmark features in its WebKit-based browser, optimized for smaller screens and gesture-based navigation, laying groundwork for later refinements in Chrome for Android from 2012 onward. These adaptations emphasized quick addition and access via taps, accommodating on-the-go usage patterns.Types of Bookmarks
Personal Bookmarks
Personal bookmarks consist of locally stored collections of uniform resource locators (URLs) that individuals save within their web browser for private access and organization, functioning as personal digital repositories for revisiting web pages without repeated searches. These non-shared archives are designed for solitary use, supporting workflows such as archiving information encountered during daily browsing.[31] Management of personal bookmarks typically relies on built-in browser features for organization. In Firefox, users can create hierarchical folders via the Library window (accessed through Ctrl+Shift+O) to categorize bookmarks, and apply tags for enhanced searchability—tagging involves editing the bookmark properties to add descriptive keywords, which can then be queried directly in the address bar. Chrome provides similar folder-based sorting through its Bookmark Manager (accessible at chrome://bookmarks/), where users drag items into subfolders for grouping, though it lacks native tagging and focuses on linear or nested arrangements. For advanced sorting, third-party extensions like those available in the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons enable features such as automated categorization and visual previews, extending beyond basic built-in tools.[9][32][16] Common use cases for personal bookmarks include academic note-taking, where researchers save references to scholarly articles or databases for ongoing projects; professional resource hoarding, such as compiling links to industry reports or tools in a dedicated folder; and personal finance tracking, by bookmarking calculators, bank portals, or investment sites for routine access. These applications reduce cognitive load by externalizing memory of URLs, allowing users to construct personalized "web spaces" tailored to specific interests like hobbies or learning pursuits.[31] A key limitation of personal bookmarks is their device-bound nature without synchronization, which can lead to duplication or loss of collections when switching machines, as data remains tied to local browser profiles. Additionally, large archives may become unwieldy due to limited visualization options in standard browsers, potentially complicating retrieval despite organizational efforts.[33][16]Social and Collaborative Bookmarks
Social bookmarking emerged as an extension of personal bookmarking practices, enabling users to publicly share and organize web links within online communities. The pioneering platform, del.icio.us, launched in 2003 by Joshua Schachter and operated until 2017, introduced key innovations such as user-generated tagging for categorizing links and public visibility to foster collective discovery. This site allowed users to save bookmarks with descriptive tags, making them searchable and shareable across a network, which contrasted with the private, browser-bound nature of earlier bookmarking. Successor platforms built on these foundations, shifting toward more visual and curated experiences. Pinterest, founded in 2010 by Ben Silbermann and others, popularized visual bookmarking by allowing users to "pin" images and links to thematic boards, emphasizing aesthetic curation over textual tagging. These sites incorporated advanced features to enhance user interaction, including user-generated tags for flexible organization, voting or rating systems to highlight popular content, and discovery algorithms that surfaced trending links based on community activity. For instance, del.icio.us's tag clouds visualized popular keywords, while platforms like Reddit integrated upvote mechanisms to prioritize community-endorsed bookmarks. Collaborative functionalities further distinguished social bookmarks by supporting group-based organization and annotation. Diigo, launched in 2006, enabled users to create shared libraries where teams could highlight text, add comments, and annotate pages collectively, ideal for educational or professional collaboration. Similarly, Pocket, introduced in 2011 as a read-it-later service, added group folders in subsequent updates, allowing subscribers to share curated lists of articles and media for joint review. These tools promoted communal knowledge building through features like real-time annotations and shared access controls, extending beyond individual use to facilitate team workflows. In modern contexts, social bookmarks integrate seamlessly with broader digital ecosystems via embedding in social media and API-driven sharing. Twitter (now X), since its 2006 inception, has supported link bookmarking through tweet compositions, where users share URLs that propagate virally across networks. API integrations, such as those from platforms like Buffer or IFTTT, enable automated bookmark syncing and cross-posting to social channels, enhancing discoverability and real-time collaboration. These developments have embedded social bookmarking into everyday online interactions, amplifying collective curation on a global scale.Browser Implementation
Storage and Management
Early web browsers employed file-based storage for bookmarks to enable simple persistence and portability. Netscape Navigator introduced the bookmarks.html format in the mid-1990s, with its first commercial release in December 1994, using an HTML-like structure beginning with the DOCTYPE declaration to organize links hierarchically through elements such asfor folders and for individual bookmarks containing URLs and titles.[34][25] This format allowed bookmarks to be stored in a single, human-readable file named bookmarks.html within the browser's directory.[24] Microsoft Internet Explorer adopted a different file-based approach, storing each bookmark as an individual .URL file in the user's Favorites folder, typically located at C:\Users<username>\Favorites on Windows systems.[35] These .URL files follow an INI-style format with an [InternetShortcut] section specifying the URL= field for the link and optional fields like IconFile= for custom icons, enabling direct file system integration where folders represent bookmark hierarchies.[36] As browsers evolved to handle larger datasets and more complex features, database-driven storage became prevalent for improved query performance and data integrity. Mozilla Firefox transitioned to an SQLite database with the release of version 3 in June 2008, consolidating bookmarks into the places.sqlite file alongside browsing history and downloads.[37] Google Chrome, since its initial release in 2008, has utilized a JSON-formatted file named Bookmarks within the user profile directory (e.g., %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default on Windows), representing the bookmark tree as a nested object structure.[38] Bookmark data structures across these systems typically consist of entries capturing essential metadata: a unique identifier, the URL, title (derived from the page or user-edited), a reference to the favicon for visual representation, visit count (tracked via linked history records), and timestamps such as date added and last modified. In Firefox's places.sqlite, the moz_bookmarks table holds bookmark-specific details like parent folder ID, position, title, dateAdded, and lastModified, while the linked moz_places table stores the URL, title, visit_count, last_visit_date, and favicon_id.[39] Chrome's Bookmarks JSON employs a node-based hierarchy where each entry includes fields like "id", "name" (title), "type" ("url" or "folder"), "url", "date_added" (in microseconds since 1601), and "date_group_modified", with favicons managed separately in a SQLite database.[38] Management operations ensure data consistency and reliability. Browsers implement automatic deduplication during bookmark addition by querying existing entries for matching URLs, preventing inadvertent duplicates at the point of creation.[40] Backups are facilitated through profile directories; for instance, Firefox automatically generates daily JSON backups in the profile's bookmarkbackups subfolder (retaining up to 15 recent files), while users can manually copy the entire profile folder containing places.sqlite for comprehensive restoration.[41] In multi-device setups, conflict resolution during synchronization prioritizes merging changes with local precedence: Firefox Sync uses a tree-merging algorithm in the Dogear library to detect inconsistencies and resolve them by applying remote updates only to non-conflicting branches, avoiding overwrites.[42] Chrome Sync merges incoming changes across devices via Google servers, retaining both versions in cases of simultaneous edits to minimize data loss, though this can occasionally result in duplicates requiring manual cleanup. As of June 2025, Chrome introduced separate subtrees for syncing and non-syncing bookmarks, allowing users to maintain local-only folders alongside synced ones, with extensions needing updates to the chrome.bookmarks API to handle the new "syncing" and "folderType" properties.[43]
User Interface and Features
In web browsers, the user interface for bookmarks typically includes persistent elements like the bookmarks toolbar, which displays frequently accessed links as clickable icons or text labels directly below the address bar. For instance, Google Chrome features a default bookmarks bar that can be toggled via the settings menu or keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+B, allowing users to pin up to a dozen items for quick access.[16] Similarly, Mozilla Firefox offers a bookmarks toolbar that can be enabled through the customization menu, providing a horizontal row of bookmarks and folders at the top of the window.[9] On mobile devices, such as in the Chrome Android app, bookmarks are accessed through a three-dot menu icon at the top right, which expands to reveal options for viewing, editing, and organizing saved links in a list or folder view.[44] Advanced interactive features enhance bookmark management efficiency. Users can search within their bookmarks using a dedicated search bar in the Bookmark Manager, as implemented in Chrome, where typing keywords filters results in real-time across folders and subfolders.[16] Drag-and-drop functionality allows reorganization by selecting and moving items between folders or adjusting their order on the toolbar, a capability supported natively in both Chrome and Firefox Bookmark Managers.[16][9] Thumbnail previews, which display small website screenshots alongside bookmark titles, were introduced in Chrome during the 2010s to aid visual identification, with recent updates in 2023 extending previews to folder contents for easier scanning.[45] Accessibility options ensure inclusive interaction with bookmarks. Keyboard navigation is standard across major browsers, enabling users to add a bookmark with Ctrl+D, open the manager with Ctrl+Shift+O in Chrome and Edge, or navigate folders using arrow keys within the interface.[46][47] In Microsoft Edge, voice commands integrated via Windows 11's Voice Access feature, available since the 2020s, allow hands-free operations like dictating bookmark names or navigating to saved links through spoken instructions.[48] Customization options let users tailor the bookmark interface to their preferences. Browser themes, such as those available in the Chrome Web Store, alter the color scheme and background of the bookmarks bar to match personal aesthetics or improve visibility, with changes applied via the Appearance settings.[49][50] Extension-based enhancements, like one-click export tools, provide streamlined actions such as instantly saving bookmarks as HTML files without navigating the full manager, integrating directly into the toolbar or context menus.Standards and Compatibility
File Formats and Protocols
The Netscape Bookmark File Format, often referred to as bookmarks.html, is an HTML-based standard for storing and exchanging bookmarks in a hierarchical structure using tags such as<DT> for individual bookmarks and <H3> for folders.[34] Introduced in the mid-1990s with Netscape Navigator, it features a DOCTYPE declaration of NETSCAPE-Bookmark-file-1 and supports attributes like ADD_DATE for timestamps in Unix epoch seconds, making it compatible across numerous browsers including modern ones like Firefox and Chrome for import/export purposes.[25] This format's simplicity and widespread adoption have ensured its persistence as a de facto standard for bookmark interchange, despite its origins in early web technologies.[51]
XBEL, or XML Bookmark Exchange Language, represents a more structured alternative as an XML-based open standard designed for extensible bookmark representation, incorporating elements like <bookmark> for entries, <folder> for organization, and attributes for metadata such as titles, descriptions, and creation dates.[52] Developed by the Python XML Special Interest Group and first announced in 1999, XBEL enables richer data exchange by supporting namespaces for extensions, such as adding user annotations or resource metadata, while maintaining compatibility with hierarchical bookmark trees common in browsers.[53] Its schema, defined via a DTD, emphasizes portability and validation, positioning it as a forward-looking format for applications requiring detailed bookmark semantics beyond basic URL lists.[54]
Other proprietary or browser-specific formats include Google Chrome's JSON-based exports, which structure bookmarks as a nested object with keys like "type": "url" for links and "children" arrays for folders, facilitating programmatic access and synchronization in JSON's lightweight syntax.[38] Similarly, Apple Safari employs plist files—property list XML or binary formats—for bookmark storage, organizing data in a dictionary with arrays of children and keys for URIs, titles, and GUIDs to support macOS's native serialization.[55] Browser-neutral HTML variants, building on the Netscape foundation, adapt this HTML structure for cross-platform exports without proprietary extensions, ensuring broad interoperability for simple bookmark transfers.[34]
Bookmark formats integrate protocols primarily through URI specifications, where entries reference resources via HTTP or HTTPS schemes to denote web locations, adhering to RFC 3986 for uniform resource identifiers. Handling of relative versus absolute links varies by format: in HTML-based systems like Netscape, relative paths in <A HREF> attributes resolve against a base URI if specified via <BASE>, but absolute URIs predominate for portability across systems; XML formats like XBEL enforce absolute URIs in the href attribute to avoid resolution ambiguities.[51] This protocol adherence ensures bookmarks remain functional when exchanged, with secure HTTPS URIs increasingly standard to align with modern web security practices.