creativity, Links, Other People's Notebooks

Handwritten AC/DC Lyrics Notebooks Sell For $35,000

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Here’s one for all you hard-rockin’ notebook fans:

A pair of handwritten lyric notebooks (see photo below) by late AC/DC frontman Bon Scott, dating from the late 1970s, was among an array of 300 musical items that went under the hammer at a Christie’s pop memorabilia auction on June 22 in New York.

A description of the item reads as follows: “A pair of notebooks containing handwritten lyrics by AC/DC lead singer and lyricist Bon Scott, composed by Scott during his time with the band from 1974 through his death in 1980. The notebooks contain 25 handwritten song lyrics, comprising songs found on the band’s first three albums, including ‘High Voltage’, ‘T.N.T.’ and ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’. Written in various colored marker, it also includes a drawing of a woman and humorous notes, including on the inside cover of one of the notebooks.”

ac dc notebook

From BLABBERMOUTH.NET.

Journal, Links, Organization, productivity

Paper vs. Electronic

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There was an interesting article a few weeks ago in the New York Times, about electronic tools for note-taking: Bringing Order to the Chaos of Notes:

MODERN life is a mess of notes, a tangle of countless scraps of information that we accumulate during our waking hours. In the morning, you attend a meeting with the boss and jot down everything she says. Later, you get a call from the vet and transcribe results from your dog’s lab tests. At lunch, a friend gives you the name of a Mexican place he says you’ve got to try. And then there are the to-do lists, grocery lists, recipes and all those brilliant ideas for screenplays you get while taking a shower.

The piles of notes are even more ungainly if you’re in a profession that demands constant transcription — if you’re a student, lawyer, journalist or executive assistant, a job in which every utterance should be recorded, archived and made searchable.

The puzzle is where to write all this stuff down. Computers have revolutionized how we manage information, but for many years they’ve offered meager help for that most pedestrian of paper-based tasks — saving all the ephemeral data that streams into your life.

Most people reading this blog are probably quite happy to solve this problem by buying more notebooks to stick those paper bits in! But if you are interested in using electronic solutions too, here are some programs mentioned in the article.

Evernote
OneNote
NoteBook
Yojimbo
Together

The writer does acknowledge that pen and paper still win sometimes:

…physical notebooks have their advantages. They’re highly portable and extremely flexible; they let you draw, scribble in shorthand and you can curl up the corner of a page to remember something important.

But pen and paper have their limitations. You can’t search paper, and you can’t easily organize a stack of notes into a meaningful collection without retyping them first. Most important, pen and paper don’t last. Notebooks are hard to keep safe and secure, and if you move apartments or offices, you’re bound to lose something important. Paper notes have a habit of going through the wash and coming out as papier-mâché.

Your electronic data, meanwhile, is replicated on the Web and on all your machines, and will probably be safe for years. This can make all the difference: With computerized notes, your daily musings are permanent. In time, they could add up to something grand.

Like most people, I’ve found that a combination of electronic and paper makes the most sense for me. I love keeping my calendar and contacts in Outlook, and I use it for to-dos and many notes related to my work and personal life also. But I still keep a paper journal and use my notebook to jot down personal to-dos, ideas, lists, doodles, etc., and I can’t imagine any electronic invention that would change that.

My Collection, new products, Nostalgia, Notebook Reviews, Places to Buy Notebooks

Review and Contest: Old Style School Quaderno from Vickerey

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I think I stumbled across Vickerey’s website while looking for retailers that stocked Cavallini journals– but all else was forgotten when I caught a glimpse of these:

quadnerni vickery

Here’s Vickerey’s description:

Old Style School Quaderno Notebooks (set of 3)
These old-school Italian journals are reminiscent of classic academic exercise notebooks (quaderno in Italian). Replete with European flair, they have sturdy, vintage-feeling paperboard covers and lined pages made from recycled paper – edged with red for extra style. Three sizes are included in the set – the handy blank labels on the front make it easy to customize, whether with the title of your latest work or the names of your various projects. Sleek and fun!

These are sold as a set of 3 notebooks tied with raffia, including: 1 pocket size (3.5 x 5), 1 medium size (4.75 x 6.5) and 1 large size (5.75 x 8).
• Sold as a set of 3 notebooks
• 3.5 x 5, 4.75 x 6.5, and 5.75 x 8
• Euro school-style notebooks
• Each books has 80 lined pages (40 sheets)
• Red edge
• Cream-colored, recycled paper

I was immediately smitten with the retro look– the labels, the texture, the red edges. I haven’t seen anything quite like these elsewhere. So of course I had to email them and beg for a sample to review, which their marketing department was kind enough to send!

The notebooks arrive attractively packaged in brown paper, with Vickery’s business cards. Inside, the set of 3 different sizes is held together with rough brown twine.

Someone really paid attention to detail when they designed these. The crocodile texture covers look great with the labels, and the red edges really make these feel special. The lines inside are nicely spaced and consistently straight.

The covers are a little lighter than I would prefer– they’re very flexible and I’m afraid they wouldn’t stand up to a lot of wear and tear. The pages are held together with staples.

The first page in the notebook is unlined, which is a nice touch.

The paper is a little rougher than a Moleskine– it still worked well with most of my rollerball pens, and show-through wasn’t too bad. (Those dots are the Super Sharpie.)

The small notebook is slightly shorter than a Moleskine Volant, but of similar thickness. Also below is a comparison shot with a Moleskine Volant and a Kikkerland Writersblok:

The large notebook is my favorite– I literally squealed when I opened it up to find these extra touches, to make you feel like a little Italian kid in grammar school!

At $24 for the set, these are a little pricey, but I think the quality and great design make up for it. This is something you could proudly give as a gift without the recipient thinking “ho hum, I could have bought that at Staples.”

I’ve never seen these in any other store, so if you want them, buy them online at Vickerey. Or you can throw your hat in the ring to win one! I’ll be picking random winners to receive samples of these notebooks, one winner each day on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week (July 14, 15, 16, 2009). Here’s how you enter:

  • Follow me on Twitter @notebookstories AND post this message as a Twitter update: Win a cool notebook this week @notebookstories https://www.notebookstories.com

I’ll pick a winner each day so Tweet each day to increase your chances. I’ll announce all the winners at the end of the week. Good luck! Or should I say buona fortuna?

Personal

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-07-11

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  • @awelfle according to @kikkerland, the three sizes are 3.5×6, 5.75×8.25 and 8.75×12.5" in reply to awelfle #
  • Uniball Style-Fit arrived from @Jetpens NICE! #
  • @dowdyism @DIYSara I got a silver barrel, w/ black, blue-black, violet, green and red inks. It looks like a little rocket! in reply to dowdyism #
  • Question: are we living in a golden age of notebooks? Or do you think the good days were in the past? #
  • upgrading wordpress was scary! At one point I thought I'd blown it… #
  • please look at new blog design– still a work in progress, but do you like the direction? #
  • Hopefully things are loading faster now? And photo is definitely a placeholder. thanks for the feedback all! #
  • @Okami0731 you are linked now! in reply to Okami0731 #
  • @journalingarts I upgraded from version 2.6 to 2.8. It's much better! in reply to journalingarts #
  • RT @ jafferty I'm looking for pen and notebook enthusiasts to take a quick survey for a new magazine. http://tiny.cc/recHe #
  • Just joined a twibe. Visit http://twibes.com/Paper?v=0 to join #

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Book Factory, Journal, Links, Places to Buy Notebooks, record-keeping, Scientific

A Retired Colonel Makes Great Notebooks

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An interesting story I stumbled across:

Retired colonel sees a rich future in hardbound print: The Book Factory produces custom books, lab notebooks, log books, journals.

DAYTON — Don’t tell Andrew Gilmore that print and high-tech can’t be married. As president of the Book Factory, Gilmore presided over the wedding ceremony.
Gilmore, 54, is a former B-52 navigator, a retired colonel once in charge of the Air Force’s e-business and paperless efforts. Today, he’s in charge of an Edwin C. Moses Boulevard manufacturing operation that designs, prints, binds and distributes custom books, lab notebooks and log books, journals and more….

A good chunk of his business lies in hardbound lab books used by pharmacists, scientists and inventors to track and document research and experiments. Handwritten notes in such books are used to defend intellectual property worth billions, Gilmore said.
“You’ll have one company that says, ‘We invented it on this day,’ and another company that says, ‘We invented it on this day,’” Gilmore said, pointing to one of his archival-quality lab books. “Here’s your evidence.”
“The book could be worth a billion dollars,” he added with a smile.
The written notes are “far superior” to electronic records that can be lost or disturbed, he contends.

You don’t have to be a scientist to buy their notebooks– anyone can order online from their website. Black Cover reviewed one of their lined pocket journals here, but the ones that most appeal to me are the pocket sized blank and gridded laboratory notebooks:
book factory

It’s nice to know that notebooks like this are available, and that they’re made by a US-based company with an interesting back story!

Diary, Fun & Weird, Links, record-keeping

Logging Lentil Leftovers

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This has to be the strangest, most specific use of a notebook I’ve ever heard about:

Clément Gaujal, a customer quality representative for Nissan who grew up in Paris, recalled that his mother had a tenuous grasp of batch size when it came to lentils, and often ended up serving their leftovers for three or four days in a row. So, after buying a small notebook filled with graph paper, Mrs. Gaujal started a lentils diary: she and her husband and four sons would chronicle how the lentils were prepared at each meal, how much was eaten by various members of the family, what was discussed during the meal, and, of course, what percentage of the offerings were left uneaten. Any family member not in attendance at any given meal was the subject of mild, legume-based ridicule.

From What to Do About the Leftovers? – NYTimes.com.

Notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, diaries: in search of the perfect page…