# A bookmark sets how far the book club may talk

> A new Slop University advertising campaign features Doctoral Candidate Edda Nwafor and the Review Cadence Observatory's page-reading bookmark, which now decides how far into a book each member of one suburban club may speak.

The School of Continuous Improvement has asked a question of the city's bus
stops and campus screens: which page are you on? The campaign, running in
matched daylight and evening versions on the portrait signage panels, answers
it with a bookmark.

The bookmark is the Review Cadence Observatory's latest instrument. Built into
the ribbon of each paperback in one suburban book club, it reports the member's
current page to the convenor. The club's committee has since adopted a single
rule to go with it: a member may speak in discussion only up to the page their
bookmark last reported, and the circle proceeds at whatever pace that allows.

> We started from the plain observation that a conversation goes better when
> everyone knows where everyone else has got to. The bookmark only writes that
> down.
>
> --- Edda Nwafor, Doctoral Candidate, School of Continuous Improvement

The campaign places Ms Nwafor at the centre of the club's circle, paperback
open, the bookmark's sensor disc hanging from the spine. Its supporting line
sets out the arrangement in a sentence, and its call to action invites
passers-by to come and count with the University. The Observatory reads the
arrangement as a compact demonstration of the cadence work it convenes across
the School, in a room where the cadence was already, quietly, the point.

The full advertisement is available from the University's research repository
under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.9wss9d.