Blue Books and Related Colorless Green Ideas: Survivalists, Revivalists, Evangelists, and Surrealists

Do you know why colleges started using blue-book exams? Read on, in epistemic fellowship and humility...

TL;DR: Blue books—long considered old-school test booklets—are seeing a major comeback at universities as a response to AI and academic integrity concerns. This shift isn't really about fighting cheating. It’s grasping at deeper questions about how and why we assess knowledge.

A spectrum of colored books has anchored a universal code of special knowledge by well-considered, if unconscious, chromatic choices over centuries, each color singing distinct semantic melodies across discursive boundaries. Discourse boundaries are always already drawn by power. What sort of figure would use a red book? Do black books contain the names of the authors of White Papers?

Red Books: Discursive Authority

Red books signal power. Mao's "Little Red Book" became history's most printed book after the Bible. Covered in red plastic and shrunk to fit the pocket of an army uniform, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, has all but disappeared from the world’s stage today. Jung's "Red Book" remained locked in a Swiss bank vault for decades, containing his journey into the unconscious.

For C.G. Jung, the pivotal years 1912-1913 were painful. Having published his book Transformations and Symbols of the Libido, Jung cut ties with his mentor Sigmund Freud. Jung had his own understanding of the libido and its relevance to sexuality and spirituality, plus his own ‘big idea,’ namely, the collective unconscious, archetypes and myths.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government's "Red Book" details federal budget proposals. For example, President Biden wrote the following in his “Red Book” about his administration:

“Our work started with the American Rescue Plan, which vaccinated the Nation, delivered immediate economic relief to people who badly needed it, and sent funding to States and cities to keep key services going. It continued with the biggest investment in our Nation’s infrastructure since the 1950s. More than 46,000 new projects have been announced to date, rebuilding our roads, bridges, railroads, ports, airports, public transit, water systems, high-speed internet and more…”

“Red Books” are written by powerful people who can revise the world. A red book explosive enough to separate Jung and Freud is surely “red” in the sense of setting fire to an ontologically concrete paradigm. A red book from a revolutionary figure whose quotations were taught in every classroom is surely “red” in the sense that it filters and fibers the blood, to borrow a phrase from Walt Whitman. A red book from a President who intended to restore the infrastructure of the United States is “red” in the sense that roses bloom as a token of agape’s restoration.

Black Books: Dark and Ghostly Debacles

Black books, in turn, record prohibition and its consequence, secrecy—Bob Dylan’s “beyond the twisted reach of crazy sorrow,” following the Ragged Clown. Medieval universities kept "Black Books" to record the names of malefactors—those found guilty of offenses like violence, cheating, theft, disruptive behavior, or breaches of academic statutes.

Being listed in the Black Book (i.e., blacklisted) could lead to penalties like fines and public censure, to suspension, expulsion and banishment from university privileges. There was no Dean of Student Services on medieval campuses, no student government:

"Each college typically had its own statutes governing the expectations, behaviors, and obligations of its members. In return for adherence with these statutes, colleges very often provided lodging and meals (usually eaten communally), and sometimes, as was the case with Merton College at Oxford, provided an annual stipend for living expenses."
— The Heart of Academia: Medieval Universities, Textbooks, and the Birth of Academic Libraries

The modern "little black book" catalogs illicit sex partners. Corporations maintain black books of trade secrets; aviation uses them to record accidents, though with slightly different semantics (a black box). The pattern is clear: black designates information hidden, knowledge that carries consequences.

Green Books: Go

Green books indicate permission and safe passage. The Negro Motorist Green Book (1936-1967) provided safe travel routes for Black Americans during Jim Crow—literally green-lighting movement through hostile territory. The State Department's "Green Book" outlines diplomatic protocols, essentially sanctioning international conduct to smooth interactions. Various industries publish green books for environmental standards. Where black conceals, green reveals pathways forward.

White Papers: Colorless Ideas

White papers occupy a peculiar position, claiming neutrality through colorlessness. Originally British government documents, they now proliferate across industries as reputedly objective reports. Their whiteness echos a purity of motive, a clarity of analysis, a freedom from coercion. Yet this chromatic claim to objectivity is often itself little more than a rhetorical strategy.

Yellow Books: The Right Person for the Right Job

Yellow books carry the most complicated semiotics. The Yellow Pages revolutionized commercial directories through total visibility. Need a plumber? Check the yellow pages. An entire set of genres for local entrepreneurial visual advertisements paid for analog yellow pages. France's "Livre Jaune" served as a diplomatic archive, selectively public to control the narrative, the right person at the right time. The Victorian "Yellow Book" quarterly scandalized with decadent content, deliberately transgressive¹. What happens when the wrong people meet at the right time? Yellow thus oscillates between exposure and shadow, between advertising presence and signals of danger or scandal.

Blue Books: Integrity, Collaboration, Cooperation

Blue books first came into use in England in the early 17th century to circulate diplomatic correspondence and reports, so named for their blue cover. Gradually repurposed under the stewardship of Foreign Secretaries like George Canning (1807–1809), blue books became tools of political propaganda. During Canning’s tenure blue books were systematically used to shape narratives and garner public support.

All the other colors kept semantic stability over the centuries. Red establishes immanent, broad, and permanent change spearheaded by a powerful authority. Black conceals private information and records violations leading to punishment. Green enables the reader and grants permission. White denotes objectivity. Yellow alerts through visibility. Each color marks a book's cover while each cover means under color of authority, access, or truth.

Before we transition into the specific topic of the history of the blue book let me set a few sign posts to orient you to the upcoming material. My intent is to establish the symbolic discursive significance of color-coded books writ large as a portable, noticeable, standardized physical nexus to bring together raw, pertinent, timely information and a particular and pressing need. I have accomplished that. In the present time, blue books have made headlines because universities are using them as a bulwark against intellectual corruption by artificial intelligence.

To get to the point of readiness to address blue books and the modern university, we first must understand blue books in the modern world.

Blue Book Services

Blue Book Services, aka the ‘Produce Reporter,’ was founded in 1901 on a great idea: to document and disseminate trading information in real time in order to help producers in the food supply chain better manage perishable vegetables and fruits by making timely decisions to get produce to market before it goes bad.

A.L. Baker was a young man who had been shipping potatoes for a living, who thought he could make a business out of collecting credit and trade data and use it in an exchange in order to facilitate shipment of produce more quickly to market to prevent spoilage.

Baker made himself crazy collecting data by riding horseback all over tarnation gathering information from growers and sending telegrams. Today, Baker’s idea interpenetrates data and risk management across the produce and lumber supply chains. It’s somewhat amazing. “Blue Book has helped drive the produce industry forward for more than a hundred years,” boasts the company website. “But we’re just getting started.”

Indeed.

In 2023 BB Services launched Farm-AI, a multipurpose digital toolkit with functions like Automated Order Processing. Companies, e.g., Krystal Fruits & Vegetables, have partnered with AI platforms, e.g., Choco AI, to automate capturing, logging, and entering orders directly into inventory systems. This slashing of processing time reduces manual errors, lowering labor requirements for these functions by 80%, and improving accuracy. Just getting started. The AI learns from order corrections and continuously optimizes its performance.

Tiffany’s Blue Book

Tiffany & Co.’s Blue Book publication in 1845 marked the birth of the nation’s premier fine jewelry catalog, introducing U.S. consumers to global trade before global became U.S. consumers. Each annual edition, bound in signature robin’s-egg blue, doubled as a coffee-table book and a royal statement that earned company founder Charles Lewis Tiffany the moniker “The King of Diamonds.”

Like A.L. Baker, Tiffany’s unyielding respect for reliable service requiring expert knowledge brought credibility to another blue book bible. He helped set the U.S. standard for sterling silver at 92.5% purity in 1851. By buying diamonds from French aristocrats during Europe's 1848 upheavals and later acquiring a third of the French Crown Jewels in 1887, he amassed the wherewithal to become a philanthropist and advocate for high culture.

Today?

According to accounts, Tiffany & Co.’s uses of AI personalize and elevate luxury experience across its Blue Book collection and broader operations. In 2025, AI-driven engines tailor make online and in-store product recommendations. The company uses generative AI for collaborative jewelry design with both artists and clients, and AI powers virtual try-on tools for immersive shopping.

AI optimizes inventory forecasting by analyzing social trends and real-time sales, while designers use AI assistants to iterate on new pieces, accelerating time to market and maintaining brand heritage. Increases in conversion rates, improved customer retention, and inspired creative breakthroughs give Tiffanys the right to the words just getting started, keeping Tiffany’s legacy at the forefront of tech-enabled luxury.

Kelley Blue Book and Trade-In Value

Kelley Blue Book appeared in 1918 when Les Kelley, a Los Angeles car dealer with three Model T Fords and a personal need for clarity in used-car valuation, started keeping a list of car prices he was willing to pay. Soon, other dealers began using his list. In 1926, this list became the first Kelley Blue Book, another blue bible still used today for determining used car values.

Kelley of the Kelley Kar Company came from humble beginnings in Ash Flat, Arkansas, where he was born the son of a Methodist minister in 1897. His arrival in Los Angeles as a young adult with little more than an old car brought quick improvements to his life as word got around. He sold a good car at a fair price and took in trades.

His reputation for honesty and authority in the used-car business under the policy “Every Customer a Friend” was forged from guaranteeing his cars and providing attentive service. According to contemporaneous reports and his own company’s records, his actions won him the trust of both customers and fellow dealers.

Now?

KBB uses AI to modernize automotive valuation and streamline both consumer and dealer experiences. As part of Cox Automotive, KBB, taps into real-time market data and web activity, using machine learning to power everything from up-to-the-minute fair-market pricing to predictive buyer insights.

AI tools analyze consumer browsing patterns and local market conditions to recommend optimal pricing and inventory decisions while chatbots answer vehicle queries and deliver KBB price checks instantly (I can’t vouch for this having never used it but you can check the web). The AI-driven Instant Cash Offer program automates lead evaluation and dealer outreach, improving sales conversion. Overall, KBB has evolved from a printed guide to an adaptive, AI-powered pricing and research authority.

So What?

From vegetables to jewelry to Chevrolets, blue books represent fairness in dealing with clients. Objects of fairness range from doing right by the vital and perishable turnip to the precious and durable diamond. Credible blue books transform disputed matters into objective facts within a specific domain of expertise. They function as mechanisms for reliability in contexts where there is information asymmetry between two parties in an exchange. Blue books fill in the gap.

The circumstances demanding blue books differ across time and place. Vegetables can wither and lose marketability but grow back again in good weather. The ‘perish’ in perishable is temporary. Automobiles can be bought and traded with profit and loss smoothing out between buyer and dealer over time, only to be rebalanced in the next round. Diamonds are different. They aren’t valuable for eating. They aren’t prized for their smooth ride. Usually, we don’t trade them in. They have intrinsic value, much like, well, intrinsic cognition.

What about the blue books university professors are insisting on in this fast-moving, risky AI era? What do they mean in light of their cultural significance? Our top-tier graduates must be the freshest fruits in the produce blue book analogy, the most exquisite jewels in the Tiffany analogy, the cherry ‘57 Chevy in the Kelley BB analogy. The question of how to certify top-tier expertise has not been raised with such urgency since Arum and Roksa’s publication of Academically Adrift in the early 21st century.

It is argued in the media that UC Berkeley is among the biggest consumers of blue books in the country. Evidence comes from business transactions between campus bookstores and blue book suppliers. What can that mean for the rest of us?

The Return of the Blue Book: Universities and a Measure of Integrity

At UC Berkeley's Cal Student Store, one item has seen extraordinary growth over the past few years: sales of blue books. These sales have jumped 80-83% depending on who you read since 2022. After searching unsuccessfully for a reliable source for this statistic, I called the Cal State Student Store and asked to speak to the manager.

Yes, I learned, the blue book, a simple booklet used primarily for handwritten essay exams, has increased as an inventory item. In fact, blue book sales have increased even as sales of other exam materials have stayed the same. Typical exam and classroom supplies at the Cal Student Store—such as scantrons, engineering pads, legal pads, index cards, and notebooks—suggest a variety of assessment practices, including multiple-choice testing, quantitative problem sets, and short-answer assignments. The blue book, however, is most directly connected with in-person, long-form, and essay-based assessments.

Medieval Echoes

Today's blue book surge could be twisted to argue they’ve become the modern version of medieval university practices in unexpected ways—a strategy to inspire compliance by fear. Medieval institutions kept Black Books listing student violators of academic codes. These documents controlled access to knowledge through exclusion and shame. They marked who didn't belong.

Modern blue books, however, do nothing of the sort. In truth, they invert this function. Rather than excluding students from knowledge, they include them in controlled environments where they must make knowledge without assistance. In what sense is this return to the blue book a return to a black book? Please enlighten me.

The medieval black book documented unworthiness; the modern blue book documents worth. Both create permanent, uneditable records—medieval ink on parchment, modern pen on paper—that stand as artifacts of institutional judgment about academic integrity.

What Professors See

I’ve been reading what I can find online about Berkeley’s response to AI. As near as I can tell, Berkeley is a thriving, vibrant, mega-center for interesting and potentially life-changing advances in AI. Faculty aren't acting from abstract AI anxiety. They're responding to concrete classroom observations that unsettle them.

I’ve noticed a reluctance among professors who aren’t living and breathing AI to attach their names to comments about AI, though anonymous comments do show up. An anonymous humanities professor describes a recent experience: "Half my class submitted papers with remarkably similar thesis statements about a Victorian novel. Competently argued but hollow. When I asked these students to elaborate in person, many couldn't explain their own reasoning. They'd become strangers to their own arguments."

Another reports citations to non-existent sources, bibliographic ghosts that AI conjured from pattern recognition. Writing quality spikes overnight. Students who struggled with paragraph structure suddenly produce fluid prose. The tells are subtle but consistent—standardized argumentative structures appearing across multiple submissions, sophisticated vocabulary misapplied in telling ways, confident assertions about texts the students can’t talk about.

Notably, scantron sales haven't budged. Multiple-choice tests don't seem to face the same AI threat in proctored settings. I’ve got a raft of questions about this phenomenon. The surge is specific to essay assignments and assessment that are done out of class where large language models excel.

The Pedagogical Case

Blue books are not inherently defensive tools; they serve instructive purposes AI cannot replicate. I would be the first to argue for handwriting, note-taking, quick writing, doodling, bubbling, diagramming in class. My students wrote in class all the time.

Blue books have inherent advantages. They are compact and portable. They are distinctive. They stack nicely. They have staples. The blue book practice makes the difference in their cognitive import. An exam or a writing assignment calling for a knowledge dump recalled from an overstuffed memory wouldn’t qualify for meaningful work whether it was assigned for a blue book or a tape recorder.

When the practice demands real-time bona fide synthesis as in “no right answer” under heavy cognitive load after considerable study and preparation—organizing thoughts quickly, prioritizing arguments, writing coherently without external assistance—I am all for it. This mirrors professional settings: seminar discussions, client meetings, conference Q&As where immediate articulate response matters.

Students engage differently when they know blue books await. Again, however, the devil is in the details. As an undergraduate, I took blue book exams routinely. In literature courses, for example, I was required to identify and discuss references within the work under study from memory. In the end, I stopped my work as an English major after the Masters degree because I no longer wanted to read literature like that. I was trained to read literature as though I were reading a science or a history text.

In Dr. Norton Crowell’s courses—an internationally renowned scholar of Robert Browning—blue book exams weren’t the type you could study for. You had to read beforehand and attend class ready to focus and be clear to yourself about what you were reading and thinking. His students were free to refer to any poem we liked during the test. It wasn’t a test of rote memory, but a test of developed, coherent webs of meaning that came alive and reconnected during the test. His questions were magic. It was a test I learned from very time.

The blue book also provides unique opportunities for pedagogical feedback that polished papers cannot. Crossed-out sentences reveal thought processes. Arrows reorganizing paragraphs show real-time priority shifts. Marginal notes capture sudden insights. These traces of thinking-in-progress offer instructors windows into student cognition that AI-smoothed submissions close.

What I do appreciate about UCB’s blue book response is the practical, dynamic, clear-eyed work the Academic Senate has planned for this upcoming semester. Having worked for a year on loan to UC Berkeley as a visiting professor during a period of change in policy in teacher preparation over twenty years ago, I recall attending meetings of the Graduate School of Education faculty where little time was wasted on irrelevance or soap boxing or philosophical jousting.

The following list of questions maps their agenda:

1. What are the opportunities and challenges related to generative AI in teaching and learning (both broadly and more specifically for instructors at Berkeley)?

2. What does generative AI mean for a new age of teaching and learning (e.g., what does it mean epistemologically?, how does it help or hinder essential educational skills for future Berkeley grads?)

3. What are the greatest needs for instructors in using generative AI in teaching and learning?

4. Do the AI resources available on campus (e.g., via CTL) meet the needs of Berkeley instructors and best position them for the effective and responsible use of generative AI in teaching and learning?

5. What are the resource gaps/needs to support Berkeley instructors and students for a range of options related to the use of AI in the classroom?

6. How can gen AI be leveraged to support student learning outcomes?

7. What are the next steps for meeting any resource/guidance/policy needs to support the effective and responsible use of generative AI in teaching and learning?

Uncomfortable Questions

Students who can think and learn but can’t write comfortably face genuine disadvantage. Those with visual and/or auditory processing differences struggle with handwritten time constraints. Non-native English speakers lose spell-check and grammar support that levels playing fields. The blue book's resurgence risks celebrating a system that historically excluded many learners—not through malice but through single-mode assessment that assumes uniform abilities.

There's also the digital literacy paradox. If students will work with AI throughout their careers, are handwritten exams teaching obsolete skills? What do we really know about the value of writing under such pressure, both temporally and socially? We might be measuring performance in artificial conditions that bear little resemblance to deep learning or even future professional reality. This tension—between assessing "authentic" individual capability and preparing students for AI-assisted futures—remains unresolved.

Beyond Berkeley

Similar patterns emerge nationally, though comprehensive data remains scarce. MIT uses handwritten calculus exams, but this is a continuing practice. Princeton uses oral examinations as always but has a heightened interest in exploring the strategy. Small liberal arts colleges report increased in-class writing assignments, again difficult to attribute to AI but under theorized as learning tools. The trend appears widespread but unevenly documented. We lack the systematic data to distinguish anecdote from pattern. Note well: Systematic data is often interpreted as measurement. We need qualitative studies to begin to penetrate the mysteries of Human-AI interaction.

Pragmatism, Not Panic

The blue book resurgence reflects tactical adaptation more than wholesale rejection of technology as the yellow press is pushing. Universities aren't abandoning digital tools. Learning management systems remain central. Digital libraries expand. Online collaboration platforms proliferate. Instead, institutions selectively employ analog methods where digital vulnerabilities are greatest—a scalpel approach, not a sledgehammer. By the same token, professors need not forbid nor exclude uses of AI in classroom assignments. There is no obvious reason that use of AI during in-class blue book exams is inherently bad.

The Deeper Question

Perhaps this moment reveals less about AI than about assessment itself. If artificial intelligence can replicate much of what we traditionally test, what were we actually measuring? The blue book surge might signal a need for fundamental reconsideration—not just tactical adaptation but a philosophical reckoning about education's purpose. Division or department meetings where practical work must get hashed out and planned is not the venue for these philosophical discussions, but they must be structured, conducted, reflected upon, and responded to.

A successful future likely isn't analog versus digital but hybrid models with clear pedagogical reasoning for each choice, human only, human-AI. AI-assisted projects for research skills are going to be normal and routine. Oral exams for dynamic thinking are going to be celebrated and respected. Each mode will be selected for what it uniquely reveals about student capability.

Berkeley's blue book surge suggests universities are navigating the AI revolution through selective adaptation rather than wholesale transformation. They're discovering that progress doesn't always mean more technology. Sometimes it means knowing when to reach for the deliberately simple tool—one handwritten essay at a time.

When Progress Becomes Regression

Professors aren’t the only agents with a stake in this matter. Top student concerns documented in 2024 and again in 2025 in the age of AI are risk of academic misconduct accusations, fears over false or biased results from AI, and confusion about institutional policies . I plan to publish an exploration of survey data in the near future focused strictly on students. As near as I can see from preliminary work, across surveys roughly a third of students feel supported by their school in developing AI skills. Less than a third say their institution encourages AI use, and nearly as many report outright bans.

The irony in the eye’s of a young student is unmistakable. In an era when students carry more computing power in their pockets than NASA used to reach the moon, universities are asking them to pick up pencils. For the most progressive student, the brightest and most plugged in, it isn’t technological Luddism at bottom. It’s institutional panic. Faculty members who spent decades embracing digital tools now watch helplessly as AI systems produce work indistinguishable from their top students.

The Unintended Neuroscience Experiment

Universities have inadvertently created a massive experiment in cognitive processing. When students are forced to slow down and think while handwriting, they’re not just avoiding AI assistance, according to some research; they’re engaging different neural pathways.

The theory is that the physical act of forming letters, the inability to easily revise, the linear progression of thought—these constraints appear to restore deliberative thinking processes seamless digital interfaces may have undermined.

This suggests something profound researchers missed about how our tools shape our minds. For years, we celebrated the efficiency of digital writing: instant revision, spell-check, the ability to move paragraphs with a click. Were we fooled?

Has the answer to the charges against an academically adrift university system launched by Arum and Roksa in the early 2000s the result of too much keyboarding and not enough cursive?

Perhaps more troubling is the revelation that many college students struggle with basic handwriting. When professors report difficulty deciphering what they’ve written, we’re seeing the educational equivalent of a lost civilization’s artifacts. Students who can code complex programs cannot legibly write a paragraph by hand.

Emergency Triage, Not Educational Reform

The rapid return of blue books reveals that many institutions are practicing emergency educational triage, the loudest voices winning their say, rather than careful reform. Faculty without a collective focus could be implementing immediate solutions to acute problems with longstanding causation without addressing the underlying instructional failures that made assessment so vulnerable to gaming.

This reactive approach raises critical questions about educational leadership. Are leaders going to follow Berkeley’s example and develop consciously a practical bridge from here to there?

Can we find evidence that more authentic assessments like blue books and oral discussions/defenses scheduled in the mix of learning activities will create counterforces to mitigate cognitive atrophy?

Are universities thinking strategically about assessment in an AI world, or are they simply retreating to familiar territory?

Are the most highly educated among us taking a defensive crouch rather than a stance of innovative adaptation?

What This Means for Society

The implications extend far beyond university campuses. If our educational system cannot reliably assess learning except through handwriting and blue books, how do we maintain professional standards in world with AI? How do we ensure that doctors, engineers, lawyers, and teachers actually possess the knowledge their degrees claim to represent?

Can blue books do that work? Can AI help?

The blue book phenomenon reflects broader societal tensions about human agency in an algorithmic age. When students can outsource thinking to AI systems, what does it mean to be educated? What skills and capabilities should we be developing? What forms of human intelligence remain uniquely valuable?

Are we capable of taking a collective deep breath and regrouping intelligently?

The Path Forward

The blue book revival offers temporary breathing room, but it’s not a sustainable long-term solution. Handwritten exams can’t assess complex intellectual growth of the magnitude universities aim to stimulate. What’s more unfortunate, the blue book solution ignores the reality that graduates will work in AI-augmented environments.

The real challenge lies in redesigning instruction and assessment to work with, rather than against, technological reality. This might mean focusing on AI-resistant skills. It might mean developing new forms of evaluation that evoke deep understanding rather than information recall.

Most importantly, it requires acknowledging that the blue book revival is a symptom, not a cure. The underlying problem isn’t AI—it’s an educational system that was unprepared for the rapid transformation in how information is processed and knowledge is created.

The return of blue books tells us something important about institutional resilience and adaptation. When faced with existential challenges, organizations may try to retreat to their most basic, proven methods. Universities are choosing the certainty of 1920s assessment technology over the uncertainty of 2020s innovation.

Whether this represents wisdom or failure may depend on what happens next. If blue books provide space for thoughtful redesign of education for an AI age, they serve a valuable transitional purpose.

If they become permanent fixtures amid AI bans—a nostalgic rejection of technological reality—they may accelerate higher education’s decline. The blue book revival is ultimately a mirror, reflecting our deeper anxieties about institutional control of human agency, institutional mistrust, and the pace of technological change.

How we respond to this moment may determine whether universities remain relevant institutions for learning or become expensive museums of pre-digital pedagogy.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Can blue books save the university? What do you think?

1. “The striking yellow cloth covers blocked in black, first proposed by Beardsley, were widely thought to anticipate salacious content within, recalling the yellow covers of French and European novels of an erotic or illicit nature. For Oscar Wilde, Beardsley’s design for the first volume’s cover depicted ‘a terrible naked harlot smiling through a mask− and with Elkin Matthews written on one breast and John Lane on the other……’“ [excerpted from the URL cited above]