The Origami Forum

So lately, I've been buying more and more origami books, and unfortunately for my wallet, they've also been getting more and more expensive.

With the cheaper books, I have not issues with pushing them down until the pages will stay open on their own while I work on whatever model I'm making, that's all fine and good, but when it comes to more expensive books, (for example, some of the origami house ones), I really don't want to damage them too badly.

Hence my question for all you experts, what do you do to keep the pages on your origami books open while keeping any potential damage to it at a minimal? So far, my only solution is to take a photo, and use my computer to view the pages, but its really defeating the purpose of having a book in the first place I think...

For diagrams books, I just open the book, look at an individual diagram, then close the book. And fold that individual step. But when I'm feeling lazy, I just stack up two stacks of books and place the origami book between the two stacks, with book binding touching desk surface. Open the origami book and it will stay open as long as the two stacks can support the origami book.

Haven't tried it yet, but I guess it should be possible to clip the two sides of the book onto a board with big paper clips. Main problem on this method would be that you would need differently sized boards for differently sized books, but the good thing would be that the middle spine of the book wouldn't get a lot of pressure.

Book collectors often use a book weight / weighted book mark, like so: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Leather-Book ... ook+weight

Use a cookbook holder. You can find them cheap, and basically you can't go wrong with any of them.
They do come in many shapes and forms, so find one that suits your needs.

Yep, I've got one almost exactly the same as the one pictures above. Does the job pretty well!

Use the same black clips that people use for holding their models in place.
Mine are perfect size for OI2.

I don't support piracy, but I use PDF files to work. That way I do not damage my books and it is easier (for me) to go back and forth in the diagrams sequence in stead of turning the pages many times.

I use hacky sacks. they work pretty well haha

Thanks for the input guys, I'll have to look into the cookbook holder, strangely enough they don't sell that around here, or maybe I just didn't look hard enough...

Yep, cookbook holders work awesome. I use that for WOSK2 when I fold a model

I use my two pet rocks to weight down the books.

Ahahaha what are their names?

I found some holders that could be used. but I normal just use an other book to hold it in place

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Magic-Clip-M ... _cp_3_5A70
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Stand-Bookst ... y_hg_img_z
http://www.amazon.com/Fellowes-Wire-Stu ... y_hg_img_y