The percussive snap of a stapler. The crisp peeling of a Post-it note. The ruffling flip of an old Rolodex chock-full of cards. James Ward loves office supplies beyond reason — and he's written about the history of everything from the pencil to the glue stick in his new book, The Perfection of the Paper Clip.
Ward tells NPR's Melissa Block that his interest in office supplies goes all the way back to his childhood. "There is this sort of nostalgic element where it reminds you of going to school, and times when your life seems a lot less complicated and a lot less terrifying."
Interview Highlight(er)s
On big-box office supply stores versus dusty little mom-and-pops
I do like those big kind of stores. They're very good if you know what you want to get, and you want to get it at a decent price. But the stores that I kind of really love, every so often you find this strange little store, and they haven't updated their stock in however many years — there's this little shop called Fowlers in Worcester Park, which is the town in England where I grew up. And I went in there as a grownup, and there was this dusty old box, and it was a Velos 1377 revolving desk tidy. And it had obviously been tucked away on the back of these shelves.
On Bette Nesmith Graham, inventor of Liquid Paper
She was a typist, but she wasn't a very good typist ... And she was doing overtime one Christmas, and she was looking at the guy in the bank, painting a sign in the window, and she realized that every time he made a mistake, he just painted over it with the background color. And she thought, well, what if we just did the same thing with paper? So you basically create a paint which is paper-color, and then you can paint over your mistakes and go back and type over them.
[Her son Michael] would later go on to become one of The Monkees, and when his mother died he inherited half the fortune from Liquid Paper and invested that in what then became sort of the precursor to MTV.
On the Post-it note
The Post-it note came about by accident, really. There was a guy called Spencer Silver, who was working at 3M. He was trying to come up with a really strong glue. Unfortunately, he got the formula wrong and created a very, very weak glue, which is not much use if you're a company that sells glue. There was another colleague there called Art Fry, who as well as working for 3M, he was in a choir, and he used to use little pieces of paper to mark the pages in his hymn book. And those bits of paper would keep falling out, and he thought, oh, if only there was some kind of weak glue that I could use to stick these bits of paper in the book ... and that's how the Post-it note was born.
9(MDE1MTIxMDg0MDE0MDQ3NTY3MzkzMzY1NA001))
Transcript
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
These everyday sounds are music to the ears of our next guest, James Ward.
(SOUNDBITE OF STAPLER)
BLOCK: The percussive snap of a stapler.
(SOUNDBITE OF POST-IT NOTE BEING PEELED)
BLOCK: The crisp peeling of a Post-it note. And I'm guessing he loves this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROLODEX)
BLOCK: James Wards, I'm going ask you if you can identify that sound.
JAMES WARD: That sounds like some sort of roller-type.
BLOCK: Ah. You're on the right path. It's my rolodex - my 30-year-old rolodex.
WARD: Yeah, I thought that the whir sounded familiar, but I haven't heard one for a while.
BLOCK: (Laughter) It is a bit obsolete, but it is something that I'm very fond of. James Ward, we should say that I'm playing these for you because you love office supplies beyond all reason, and you've written about the history of everything from the pencil to the glue stick to the correction fluid liquid paper in your new book titled "The Perfection Of The Paper Clip." And your love of office supplies, I gather, goes way, way back. Why? How did it start?
WARD: Well, it's something that I've always been really interested in, I guess, ever since being a child. I think lots of people have a sort of similar affection for stationery or office supplies because there is this sort of nostalgic element where it reminds you of going to school and times when your life seemed a lot less complicated and a lot less terrifying.
BLOCK: And there was that big moment in the fall when you'd be buying all new supplies - the pencil case, the pencil sharpener.
WARD: Yeah. You'd get fully kitted out, and then you'd go back on the first day of term and you had all these pristine items, which would stay pristine for about the first sort of hour or so.
BLOCK: (Laughter) Right.
WARD: But there was that little, brief window of just pristine order, and I think it's that that I've been trying to re-create ever since.
BLOCK: (Laughter) Is it the same effect for you if you go to sort of a generic, big office supply box store - here in the States it would be like a Staples or an Office Depot - the same effect if you go there as if you go to, you know, an old, dusty stationery store with a lot of history behind it?
WARD: Well, I mean, I do like those kind of big stores. They're very good if you know what you want to get and you want to get it at decent price, you know? But the stores that I kind of really love - every so often you find just some strange, little store, and they haven't updated their stock in however many years. There's this little shop called Fowlers in Worcester Park, which is the town in England where I grew up. And I went in there as a grown-up. There was this dusty, old box. And it was a Velos 1377 revolving desk tidy. And it had obviously just been tucked away on the back of these shelves.
BLOCK: And you have that desk tidy, right, on your desk? It's very tidy. It holds - it's compartments, right? It spins around. It's got compartments in it.
WARD: Yeah, six different compartments, and it revolves. It's got a little lid. So it keeps everything nice and tidy and dust-free.
BLOCK: I want to talk to you about your chapter, which I have, appropriately enough, flagged with a Post-it note, your chapter about the Post-it note. How did the Post-it note come to be?
WARD: Well, the Post-it note came about by accident really. There was a guy called Spence Silver who was working at 3M. He was working in their adhesives department, trying to come up with a really strong glue. And unfortunately he got the formula wrong and created a very, very weak glue, which is not much use if you're a company that sells glue. There was another colleague there called Art Fry, who as well as working for 3M, he was in a choir. And he used to use little bits of paper to mark the pages in his hymn book. And those bits of paper would keep falling out, and he kind of thought, oh, if only there was some weak glue that I could use to stick these bits of paper in the book. And then he was like, oh, what was that thing that Spence came up with? And that's how the Post-it note was born.
BLOCK: You know, it's one of those things that's so invaluable, the Post-it note. We use them all the time. You sort of feel like they have always been around, but they were only launched nationally here in the States in 1980.
WARD: Yeah. They're surprisingly young. And what's kind of interesting about it is there was a bit of resistance within 3M because people didn't really see the value of it. People in offices everywhere around the world have got them all, you know, stuck around their monitors, on bits of paper. You can't imagine life without a Post-it note now.
BLOCK: James Ward, I've read that you co-founded something called the Boring Conference, which is described as a celebration of the mundane, the ordinary, the obvious and the overlooked.
WARD: Well, I always say that the theme is boring, but the content shouldn't be. We've had people talking about electric hand dryers, the noises made by vending machines, concrete, milk. We had a guy called Peter Fletcher who counts his sneezes.
BLOCK: (Laughter) Counts his sneezes?
WARD: Every time for the last seven years that Peter has sneezed, he's written down in a notebook the time, the date, where he was, what he was doing and a measure of strength from mild, moderate, moderate to strong, strong and very strong.
BLOCK: Wow.
WARD: Yes, wow indeed. They're really poetic actually because they're just really brief lines. So there's one - I think it's sneeze 42 or something, which says Marquee, Norfolk, moderate, looking at quiche.
BLOCK: (Laughter) I can't imagine a better ending than that right there. James Ward, author of "The Perfection Of The Paper Clip: Curious Tales Of Invention, Accidental Genius, and Stationery Obsession." James Ward, thanks so much.
WARD: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED SONG)
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing) Office supplies, yeah, office supplies. I close my eyes, I see office supplies.
BLOCK: And we bet there's some office supply obsessives listening right now. So send us a story about one desktop item you absolutely love, and let us know why you love it so much. You reach us on Twitter and Facebook. We are @npratc.
(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED SONG)
SINGER: (Singing) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mechanical pencils, mechanical pencils. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
300x250 Ad
300x250 Ad