Programmer Musings

Review of Book Darts

Although it's not a book and not directly related to programming, I am going to review one of the best reading tools I've ever seen, Book Darts.

If you read or deal with a lot of reference books, you need to look at these little wonders.

Several years ago, my wife bought me a pack of these little page markers on a lark. My reading has not been the same since. Basically, a Book Dart is just a thin piece of folded over bronze with one side shaped like a pointer. It slides onto a page in a book and point to an exact location on the page.

I have used them in two different modes. I keep a few for bookmarks in whatever book I'm currently reading. The main advantage over normal bookmarks is that I don't lose them. But, that is not the use that really makes them shine.

When you find a passage in a book that you want to come back to, place a book dart in position pointing exactly to the information you are interested in. Later, the passage is easy to find and the book dart is thin enough that you can close the book and not mar the paper. When I was in college, people used post-it notes with arrows drawn on them to point to an exact passage. But, the post-its looked ratty, didn't stay where you wanted them, and were not appropriate for long-term marking.

Book darts solve all of these problems. They are also inexpensive (Ten cents each in bulk). One warning, they are addictive. I have a large number of programming reference books with dozens of useful passages marked. (They also now come in different colors.)