Effective and Appropriate Pagination – a showcase

Pagination is the system by which the information on a newspaper, bookpage, manuscript, or otherwise handwritten, printed or displayed document is laid out.  In a strict sense of the word, it can mean the consecutive numbering to indicate the proper order of the pages, which was rarely found in documents pre-dating 1500, and only became common practice circa 1550, when it replaced foliation, which numbered only the front sides of folios. Pagination can also refer to the process of organizing information on web pages. For instance, threads on a bulletin board might be paginated such that 50 appear on each page. wikipedia

Pagination can be a minefield for a web designer.  Decisions need to be made whether pagination is actually needed or not; and if it is then whether to use numbers, or dates, or any other quantitative or sequential measure.  Once you've ironed out the details of exactly whats needed you then need to make it look good, flow with the sight and ultimately provide a functional navigation tool for your users.  Sounds easy huh?