“[L]et us take down one of those old notebooks which we have all, at one time or another, had a passion for beginning. Most of the pages are blank, it is true; but at the beginning we shall find a certain number very beautifully covered with a strikingly legible hand-writing. Here we have written down the names of great writers in their order of merit; here we have copied out fine passages from the classics; here are lists of books to be read; and here, most interesting of all, lists of books that have actually been read, as the reader testifies with some youthful vanity by a dash of red ink.” Virginia Woolf, “Hours in a Library,” Granite and Rainbow: Essays by Virginia Woolf (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1958), p. 25.“

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapbooking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonplace_book

“Commonplace books involve the noting, collecting and archiving of materials. Formerly Book of common places. orig. A book in which 'commonplaces' or passages important for reference were collected, usually under general heads; hence, a book in which one records passages or matters to be especially remembered or referred to, with or without arrangement. First usage recorded: 1578.”

http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/SearchExecXC.asp?srchtype=CNO

Commonplacing is the act of selecting important phrases, lines, and/or passages from texts and writing them down. A commonplace book is then a notebook in which a reader has collected quotations from works he or she has read. These commonplace books often included comments and notes from the reader. They were a sort of reflective journal of what one read or learned during his life–a practice common to many of history’s leading thinkers.

images:

http://dovegreyreader.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/04/21/cplace_bk.jpg http://www.diyplanner.com/files/lmm_ontred2.jpg

http://www.ubcpress.ubc.ca/images/covers/0845731378.jpg

http://cg.scs.carleton.ca/~luc/CommonplaceBook-PlimptonMs276-England16thCentury.jpg

http://www.vahistorical.org/img/research/tacl_keckley2b.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ZjXej0Sek_Y/SUHYDLIobUI/AAAAAAAAAhE/MRz3p7wmrMg/s400/MS+84+Girdle+Book-15th+Cent-England-cropped-resized.jpg

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/medieval/jpegs/lat/misc/c/1500/06600883.jpg

http://www.library.yale.edu/beinecke/images/book5.jpg

covers:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_aFpp_BDRDyc/Std2E3LJezI/AAAAAAAAAg8/1zx4vBmLvi4/s400/Commonplace+book+3.jpg

http://heylucy.typepad.com/heylucy/images/2008/09/29/translations3.jpg

http://www.americanantiquarian.org/images/adopt/2009/tk001.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3192/3119261848_2abac1531c.jpg

http://heylucy.typepad.com/heylucy/images/2007/06/20/cherrybook2.jpg