Care and Feeding

From BBCi:

"Tips for Using the Moleskine Notebook

      Although the book will fit in a back trouser pocket, if you're going to carry it on your person, it's less damaging to the book to put it in your jacket pocket. (Although the book is light, placing it in a shirt pocket is not recommended.)

      Always use the elastic to keep the pages closed. The pages may be acid-free, but they are not waterproof. Keeping the book closed tightly with the elastic will limit any rain damage to the page edges.

      The ideal writing instrument for the standard size notebook will have a fine point (ie a maximum of 0.7mm). Either pen or pencil will work nicely.
 
      If you're using the notebook as a creative writing aid, Bruce Chatwin recommended numbering each page for use as a reference guide.
 
      Chatwin also suggested placing your mailing address in the inside cover, along with notice of a reward for recovery in the event the book gets lost. (The Modo and Modo version provides a space in the inside front cover for this information.)"
...
Burning sands, reticulated pythons, coffee grounds and crayons often take their toll on our little black books. What to do? Martha is busy taking notes from her courtroom seat so let's take the cudgels.

- I keep mine in Ziploc® when traveling.

[BBCi excerpt added 3.4.04]

Update 5.12.06

Alexia has a photoset on FLICKR about Moleskine repair.

Comments

[bryan]

i like the armour all idea!

[Jaron Shaddix]

well I have been writing off and on and have finnally gotten around to writing a good length story and i am quite proud. i also have joined a writing club at my school called the inklings in memory of J.R.R Tolkien and C.S Lewis. we have alot of fun and i have made a few writing friends through that. off to write more things instead of what i am supposed to do.

[Tom]

in my current moleskine, i write my thoughts on the left page, and on the right page, i add diagrams, lists, ect. in my second one, i plan to ahve a completely seperate moleskine for the diagrams and lists. this will let me journal on both sides of each page in my moleskine. the ruled, pocket notebook is my personal favorite. i also love the pilot g2 07 black. on my second, i plan to use Tul pens, 05, black. they don't smear like the g2's. in my current journal, i have to write sideways, which is a slight nuisance. i have gotten good at it though, being a compulsive journal writer. =)

[AND...]

I was converted to moleskines from my usual 'any old notebook' i have been using the natural cahier pocket sized plain ones and have discovered i have an alarming array of habits.
*i only ever use the righthand page yet i have no idea why
*i start at the 2nd page every time
*i always start a new page at the start of a new day, even if i only wrote 1 thing in the last page
*i always write contact details for my imediate family in the back page
*i only ever write in pencil
*i write recipies in the back, (i like to cook alot)

all of these habits have only come about since using moleskines, all my other noteboooks are just jumbled up mess. i think the moleskine has a lifeforce of its own that just makes us love them more but makes us all a bit geeky about them in the proccess.

i have fo the new year gone all the way and upgraded. i will still use the cahier's for work but i am compiling all my food recipies in a large lined notebook, and i have got a red weekly planner & notrbook for day to day life and for jotting down the random stuff that my imagination and deep thought throw into my head from time to time.

[ahdlm]

I've been using Moleskine grid notebooks for a while. my only problem is that they run out too fast.
I love the small ones, but I do tend to pocket them which eventually destroys the spine. Ideally, I'd like to get one of the larger sized books, but about 4 or 5 times the number of pages. that would be a stout book that would last me about a year.

[Dave]

Like many users of Moleskine notebooks, I am thoroughly pleased with the quality and utility of the product. I use mine on a daily while traveling internationally on business. As a result, they endure some significant abuse and end up fairly tattered by the time they get labeled and filed for reference. Many months ago, I began considering the potential of buying a cover for the notebook with a preference for leather if it could be found. Sure enough, I found several suppliers of leather covers ranging in price from reasonable, to pretty expensive.

During this search, I ran across a site that mentioned a "prototype" cover that had been made by a firm located in Idaho - Gfeller Casemakers. Gfeller is a manufacturer of very high quality leather cases for geologist, and other field-carried instruments. I had worked with a scientist in Nevada many years ago, and he had a Gfeller belt case that was his pride and joy. I dug a little deeper and eventually called Steve Dericott @ Gfeller and he filled me in on the details (you can read about the Moleskine covers at their website: gfellercasemakers.com).

Well, by this time I was hooked. Knowing the quality of the products they produced, I ordered a cover for my large Moleskine notebook. They offer the covers in three leather variations: Natural English Kip, Chocolate Cow (dark brown) and Black. I chose the Kip, as I determined that this would be the thinest and probably the longest wearing. It takes a little while to receive your cover after ordering (each one is handmade and numbered) - I had mine in about three weeks. However, the wait was well worth every day! The cover is an incredible piece of workmanship. The leather is beautiful, the stitching is fine and uniform, and the feature which allows the use of the Moleskine elastic is ingenious.

If you are truly interested in keeping your notebook in good condition throughout constant use, you might seriously consider one of these covers.

[Matthew Bodycombe]

Hallo,

Love the site but unfortunately my comments are negative. I have started using a Moleskine Diary and as a user of a fountain pen have been appalled by the amount of seepage through and feathering there is with the paper. For a supposedly quality and premium priced product, one would think that certain users would use a fountain pen rather than a ball/roller point. I think the fountain pen test is a good judge of paper quality and Moleskine fails. CIAK notebooks and journals are also from Italy are bound in lovely supple leather and have much better quaity paper. The only thing they don't have is the marketing. I can live with that for a better quaity product though and have jus ordered a CIAK jounal. Will still return to this site though as it is interesting!

[Israel Zenteno]

Weird, I use a fountain pen all the time on my moleskine and have had no problem so far. I use a very inexpensive pen by INOXCROM and use their ink as well. I love this pen because it is little and fits in any pocket. I am planning on buying another pen, something better than my inoxcrom and I am looking into inks, what pen and ink do you use? by the way I use reporter and scketch moleskines, the reporter has thin pages while the scketch has very thick pages, on this last one I draw with my fountain pen all the time...

[Rufus]

I bought a small moleskine plain notebook about 2 years ago and put it in a envelope for safekeeping. Just found out recently that the endpapers have some slight mould-like stuff, and the side of the journal plus endpapers also have a few splotches of brownish 'age spots' :( I'm really upset as I thought Moleskine should be higher quality than that, given the exhorbitant price tag. Does anyone know whether I can remove the mould and age spots? Sorry I had to ask here as I couldn't find anywhere else to post this. Thanks.

[Bill]

What you have there is mildew, Rufus, and the quality of the Moleskine has nothing to do with it. Storing the envelope in a humid area is the culprit. You'll look far and wide to find paper that's got mildewcide in it, although the military might have some -- or one of those all-weather notebooks you get at the wannabee military and birdwatching sites.

Most of us call that "character," and tend to think it adds to the charm of our notebooks. You could try putting it in bright sun for a while, but that probably won't work. Dabbing the spots with a weak bleach solution might work, too, but test it someplace inconspicuous first.

[Rufus]

Bill, thank you! I didn't know it's mildew and I'm a little paranoid about it spreading or having some kind of health effects :p Will rubbing alcohol work as well? I'm not very fond of bleach.

[Johnny]

Rubbing alcohol will probably kill the mildew, but watch your ink! It dissolves some, like ballpoint:)

A hair-dryer might work for killing the mildew also, but don't heat the PVC/vinyl ("moleskin") cover! That stuff is mad toxic when it's burned.

I don't mean to be so negative :^)

[Rufus]

Thanks, Johnny! I'm not worried about dissolving ink because I haven't used the notebook yet! :)

[Jo-Ann]

I would like to put some photographs in my Moleskines. What is the best way to attach them -- tape? Glue? And if you've done this, please give your recommendations for the type of tape or glue.

[erisraven]

As far as calendaring goes, I don't have a lot of daily appointments to track, just travel days or specific stuff. So, I got a medium sized square ruled, and did something most folks think is... odd.
Instead of ruling it off into weekly sets, I just squared off the top
of the left-hand page into a monthly calendar, with each day being 4
squares. I penned in the dates tiny in each corner, added holidays,
and then I have the remainder of the left page and all of the right-
hand page for notes. This works perfectly for me, since it's not too
structured, but gives me a vague structure that makes it all easier to
reference later. I also set aside 4 pages at the end of this section,
the first facing pair are 2009 advance planning, the second two are
2010 advance planning. This gives me a space to drop things that I
might need later without taking up a huge chunk of pages to do it in.

The rest of the notebook is then free for data capture, with sections
for each of my major projects tabbed off with adhesive tabs and the
largest part simply open. I started this back in March, and I've
absolutely adored it.

I also did a few other things that I've figured out are good tricks
over the years. Since the sections are permananetly tabbed, I've
numbered each page. The first four pages of my Moleskine are left
blank. The first two are sticky-note capture, the second two are
indexed using the page numbers above. The last ten pages of the
Moleskine are set aside for important specific or repeating
information. I went thru the pages of my last moleskine before I
archived it, typed in all the bits I needed to keep, and printed that
on labels, which I pasted inside that section. So not only do I still
have it on computer and at hand, I can add to it and paste it in the
next.
The page numbering is also useful to refer to other pages simply by
number, to advance tasks from one page to the next without recopying
(by for example listing 12A as a task, and the unfinished tasks on my lists are given letter designations, so the first undone task in page 12 is the one I would refer to as 12A), and for indicating preceding and following pages
when things get scattered (14|23|71 - 14 is the last page I've used
for this, 23 is the current page, and 71 is the next page).

Other lists I keep are things like gift ideas (both to give and
receive - I'm a terrible person to ask what I want. I stare at you and
stammer, and give no useful ideas if I haven't sat down and thought
about it.), movies I want to see, cool ideas on how to spend time,
pretty much anything you'd think of as a good list. Maybe we should
start a thread on lists?

I also use page darts on important pages to make them easy to find.

I add an adhesive CD holder in the back cover, and inside the front
cover I have a small self-adhesive pack of dispensing post-its, a self-
adhesive pack of page flags, and two self-adhesive business card holders. The
business card holders function as catchalls for the random loose bits
that I need to keep around. On the facing page under the reward blank,
there is a note that in the back pocket there is a shipping label with
postage enough to get my 'secondary brain' home should it ever get
lost. (My reward offer is a dozen homemade cookies of any type you
choose.) The front usually gets a cool sticker of some kind or a embossed leather stamp design, and I sometimes have to reinforce the spine with black duct tape. Works like a charm.

Since as you can guess by all this, I keep my used 'skines close at
hand for reference, I also spine and front label them, with a code for
type (Blank is an open box, lined is a box with lines, etc), and a
Color. That way if I really need to refer to something in a prior
'skine that I don't photocopy and stick in the pocket :) I can refer
to the book and page as yellow 13.

I'm diabetic, so I also have to be concerned with my medications. Part
of the capture section in the back catches prescription labels off the
bottles as they're finished, and I note any changes beneath. My family
and friends know where this is in the event of an emergency, so they
can hand it to a doctor. Other important health info here are recent
test results, and of course the contact information for my doctor,
nutritionist, etc.

I sat down one day when a friend's apartment caught fire, and realized
how heartbroken I'd be if they all disappeared. So I have a new
fidget. When I travel for work, my portable scanner (Canon N1240U -
thin, portable, powers off its USB cable, works like a breeze) goes in
my suitcase, and an older Moleskine or two go in my briefcase. When
I'm bored and surfing the web in the hotel, I scan them in and zip
them. I burn all the files, zipped and unzipped, to DVD and vault it,
and upload the zips to my backup site on the web. I leave the zips on
my hard drive, passworded just-in-case. This has saved my bacon once
or twice when I needed some obscure bit from a few years back (like
the VIN of a car I no longer have... )

All right, that's enough nattering on. I've picked up these ideas all
over the web, so most aren't original. I'm pretty sure the calandaring
system and the health info tracking are my bits. Hope you've enjoyed
this edition of Pimp my Write! :D

erisraven
-who puts too much thought into simple stuff. :)

[joey]

in the reward bit i put ill send fair trade chocolate

[audiofreedom]

i've been reading these comments for a while now and i suppose i should write one too! :)
i've noticed that everyone here uses the traditional back Moleskines. however i use the cahiers.
i have a large squared one that i use a journal and a pocketsized one that i use to write down anything that comes to mind. I love the Cahiers because i can draw on the covers.
in the pocket sized i used a regular ball pen but in the larger notebook i use a Pilot Precise V5 rolling ball pen. These are my favorite pens ever!! :-D
i intend to upgrade to the Moleskine with the elastic next. so far i love them though!
i've had lots of notebooks over the years and these dont compare to any of them. they're definitely worth the cost.
my ultimate goal is to buy a whole bunch and use them for class notes...we'll see!
btw i'm so glad that other people are obsessed with these notebooks too!!

[Maree Clarkson]

For some unknown reason I also keep my sleeves in the back pocket, maybe to remind me of the typ of paper. And I also keep the information pamphlet that comes with each book! How silly is that. Check out a post on my blog regarding my Moleskine addiction : http://afrikastreetjewelry.blogspot.com/2009/04/my-moleskine-and-parker-addiction.html

Regards to all

Maree

[Tanya Mulkidzhanova]

I don't use sleeves for my Moleskines, for one simple reason: it's too much of a tactile pleasure to get the Moleskine out of the bag.

Just make sure that your Moleskine is in a safe place in your bag (if you don't carry it in your pockets).

[danny aka zipmix]

are the moleskine pocketbooks refillable?