Project: Thesaurus linguae Latinae<br /> from Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften

The Chicago Demotic Dictionary compiled by the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago was facilitated by computers compared with the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary which relied on index cards.

The Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache was an international collaborative zettelkasten project begun in 1897 and finally published as five volumes in 1926.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%B6rterbuch_der_%C3%A4gyptischen_Sprache

Google translation:

The sheer quantity exceeds the possibilities of book publication, the complex, multidimensional structure of a networked information base cannot be reproduced in print, and finally the dynamic of a constantly growing and constantly correcting material does not fit into the rigid rhythm of book production, in which each expanded and corrected new edition is associated with an incalculable amount of effort. A book publication could only offer a snapshot of such a database, reduced to a specific perspective. This too can be very useful from time to time, but it does not solve the problem of publishing the entire material.

While the writing criticism of "dumping out one's zettelkasten" into a paper, journal article, chapter, book, etc. has been reasonably frequent in the 20th century, often as a means of attempting to create a linear book-bound context in a local neighborhood of ideas, are there other more complex networks of ideas which we're not communicating because they don't neatly fit into linear narrative forms? Is it possible that there is a non-linear form(s) based on network theory in which more complex ideas ought to better be embedded for understanding?

Some of Niklas Luhmann's writing may show some of this complexity and local or even regional circularity, but perhaps it's a necessary means of communication to get these ideas across as they can't be placed into linear forms.

One can analogize this to Lie groups and algebras in which our reading and thinking experiences are limited only to local regions which appear on smaller scales to be Euclidean, when, in fact, looking at larger portions of the region become dramatically non-Euclidean. How are we to appropriately relate these more complex ideas?

What are the second and third order effects of this phenomenon?

An example of this sort of non-linear examination can be seen in attempting to translate the complexity inherent in the Wb (Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache) into a simple, linear dictionary of the Egyptian language. While the simplicity can be handy on one level, the complexity of transforming the entirety of the complexity of the network of potential meanings is tremendously difficult.

Once made, the initial note excerpts were copied 40 times using a lithography process. Then each word in the original slip was underlined in red on respective copies to be filed away alphabetically. At the top right corner of each slip was written down the phonetic sound of the rubricated word's Egyptian transcription. Within the collection certain special words were also separated for the names of people, kings, gods, and places to allow for additional study.

Talk about a problem of multiple storage!!

u/zleonska in discussing their paper notebook commonplace practice reports that finding their material within multiple notebooks isn't difficult but that, like W. Ross Ashby, they use index cards to index their commonplaces.

Stroebe, Lilian L. “Die Stellung Des Mittelhochdeutschen Im College-Lehrplan.” Monatshefte Für Deutsche Sprache Und Pädagogik, 1924, 27–36. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44327729

The place of Middle High German in the college curriculum<br /> Lilian L. Stroebe<br /> Monthly magazines for German language and pedagogy (1924), pp. 27-36

... of course to the reading material. Especially in the field of etymology it is easy to stimulate the pupils' independence. For years I have had each of my students create an etymological card dictionary with good success, and I see that at the end of the course they have this card box ...

Wigent, William David, Burton David William Housel, and Edward Harry Gilman. Modern Filing and How to File: A Textbook on Office System. Rochester, N.Y.: Yawman & Erbe Mfg. Co., 1916. http://archive.org/details/modernfilingate02compgoog.

Original .pdf converted with docdrop.org for OCR annotation on 2023-03-24.

annotation target: urn:x-pdf:3c1f14d64c91cf4b513efa16df4ed90d

Annotations: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=url%3Aurn%3Ax-pdf%3A3c1f14d64c91cf4b513efa16df4ed90d

Wigent, William David, Burton David William Housel, and Edward Harry Gilman. Modern Filing and How to File: A Textbook on Office System. Rochester, N.Y.: Yawman & Erbe Mfg. Co., 1916. http://archive.org/details/modernfilingate02compgoog.

Shaw-Walker. Flexowriter File-Desks. Accessed March 24, 2023. http://archive.org/details/TNM_Flexowriter_File-Desks_-_Shaw-Walker_20171021_0001.

An interesting in-desk filing system for punched cards. Interesting I've not seen anything like this prior for a mini card index maintained in an office desk drawer.

Perhaps such a system wouldn't have been as easily accessible for use on a daily basis versus potentially more portable small systems that could have been transferred from desk to desk (person to person).

Seems like from a historical perspective hierarchical databases were more prevalent in the 1960s and relational databases didn't exist until the 1970s. (check references for this historically)

Of course one must consider that within a card index or zettelkasten the ideas of both could have co-existed in essence even if they weren't named as such. Some of the business use cases as early as 1903 (earlier?) would have shown the idea of multiple storage and relational database usage. Beatrice Webb's usage of her notes in a database-like way may have indicated this as well.

The researchers at the Niklas Luhmann-Archive studying Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten consider that "the collection can be understood as an intellectual autobiography" (translation mine) even though his slips were generally undated.

https://twitter.com/raulpacheco/status/1068651482331979776

https://www.pikeschool.org/uploaded/Library/Files/takingnotesusingnotecards.pdf

found via:

Here are a few links to resources (in PDF format) to different models, strategies and techniques to take notes in index cards: https://t.co/tIVaeRA5nS and https://t.co/1CLkiyekzq

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) November 26, 2018

Pacheco-Vega stores his card with plastic tabs labeled by the references rather than by keyword or topic.

He does recommend consistency in filing though.

Interesting to see a passing mention of Hawk Sugano's Pile of Index Cards here in a note taking context rather than a productivity one.

Professor Raul Pacheco-Vega calls his note taking process the "Index Cards Method" and only subtly differentiates it from Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten method.

Since Luhmann’s system of the slip box is well-known, Ahrens’ valuable contribution lies less in providing an innovative technique of note-taking and the organization of academic writing, but more in reflecting critically on the very nature of writing as a medium of knowledge generation.

I think that by saying "Luhmann's system of the slip box is well-known", Stephanie Schiller is not talking about his specific box or his specific method, but the broader rhetorical method of the ars excerpendi and note taking in general. There isn't a whole lot of evidence to indicate that, except for a small segment of sociologists who may have know his work, that Luhmann's slip box was specifically well known at all up to the point of Ahrens' book.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/115727768658

The Shaw=Walker Card Systems catalogue from circa 1899.

I love the fact that the image for "Research & History" here is a six drawer card index!

http://www.shopbrodart.com/Library-School-Furniture/Adult-and-Teen-Furniture/Computer-Furniture/Card-Catalog-Trays-and-Cabinets/_/Brodart-Wood-Charging-Trays2/

Brodart Full-Length Single Charging Tray<br /> Full- length charging tray with 1,000-card capacity<br /> Price: $96.32

• Adjustable steel follower block with automatic lock
• Felt pads on tray bottom protect desktop
• Full-length charging tray for countertop use
• 4"H x 4"W x 16"D
• Holds 1,000 5"H x 3"W cards
• Includes antimicrobial finish
• Made in the USA

See also: https://hypothes.is/a/ao89RMQmEe2zIvsu3lf6kw for a smaller version

http://www.shopbrodart.com/Library-School-Furniture/Adult-and-Teen-Furniture/Computer-Furniture/Card-Catalog-Trays-and-Cabinets/_/Brodart-Wood-Charging-Trays/?q=tray&s=MToyNTY6NDo6Ojo6OjA6

Brodart Mini Single Charging Tray Mini single charging tray with 600-card capacity More Info Price: $76.76

• Adjustable steel follower block with automatic lock
• Felt pads on tray bottom protect desktop
• Mini charging tray fits on your lap
• 4"H x 4"W x 8"D
• Holds 600 5"H x 3"W cards
• Includes antimicrobial finish
• Made in the USA

This could be used for a modern day Memindex box for portrait oriented 3 x 5" index cards.

The Great Vaccinator

https://waaa.wnyc.org/radiolab_podcast/radiolab_podcast20greatvaccinator.mp3/radiolab_podcast20greatvaccinator.mp3_ywr3ahjkcgo_7d3105f4ceea640a7c9df376fa60ffce_43057055.mp3?hash_redirect=1&x-total-bytes=43057055&x-ais-classified=streaming&listeningSessionID=0CD_382_72__176a88639f0d9f459a1123b260a07f59e7746372

Listened to on 2023-03-11

Much like Richard Feynman kept a list of his 12 favorite problems, Maurice Hilleman kept a running list of diseases for which he was working on developing vaccines to remedy.

Stationery vending machine in the headquarters on the university campus

Pens, highighters, index cards, and other small sundries available on a German university campus at the library.

Seen in a Hoskins business equipment advertisement in Business magazine (1903) for card index:

YOUR BUSINESS AT YOUR FINGER ENDS

Close to the phrase "at your finger tips". Would it have appeared before or after this?

Business: The Magazine for Office, Store and Factory. Vol. 16. Business Man’s Publishing Company, 1903. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Business/QKaxezfHjL0C?hl=en&gbpv=0.

General instructions for using a Memindex

HOW IT IS USED <br /> Things to be done today, jot on face card. Things to be done tomorrow or next Friday, jot on card for that day. Things to keep before you until done, jot on opposite front card. A matter for January 10th jot on a short card put under the band till you return to your desk, then file next to card for January 10th when it will come out and refresh your memory.

Things to be done when in New York or Chicago jot on card "N" or "C." The new address of Mr. Jones, under "J." Ideas on advertising jot on card tabbed "adv." Things for your clerk to do, on his card , etc., etc. Retire today's card tonight, carrying forward things not completed and put next card in the file in has proved that almost back of pocket case. The alphabet enables one to index all jottings for instant reference. This system is very comprehensive yet perfectly simple. You soon the learn to depend on it every hour of every day.

Within the general instructions in a 1904 Memindex advertisement (next to an ad for "Genuine Edison Incandescent Lamps") we see the general ideas of indexing things into the future and carrying undone tasks forward, just as is done in the bullet journal method.

Memindex dimensions mentioned in a 1904 advertisement<br /> cards: 2 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches<br /> case: 2 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches

Geyers Stationer. “Memindex Advertisement.” Geyer’s Stationer: Devoted to the Interests of the Stationery, Fancy Goods and Notion Trades, September 15, 1904. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Geyer_s_Stationer/L507AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Howard L. Wilson of Rochester, NY named his vest pocket card index system the Memindex.

Poem from the inside back cover of a 1913 Memindex Catalog:

JUST JOT IT DOWN.

If you’re going to meet a man<br /> Jot it down<br /> If you’ve got a little plan<br /> Jot it down<br /> If you never can remember<br /> Your requirements for September<br /> ’Till October or November<br /> Jot ’em down.

If you’ve got a note to pay<br /> Jot it down<br /> If its due the first of May<br /> Jot it down<br /> If collections are so slow<br /> That to meet the note you know<br /> You must dun old Richard Roe<br /> Jot it down

If you have a happy thought<br /> Jot it down<br /> If there’s something to be bought<br /> Jot it down<br /> Whether duty calls or pleasure<br /> If you’re busy or at leisure<br /> It will help you beyond measure<br /> Jot it down

If there’re facts that you’d retain<br /> Jot ’em down<br /> If you’ve got to meet a train<br /> Jot it down<br /> If at work or only play<br /> If at home or far away<br /> In the night or in the day<br /> Jot it down

c.1913 Wilson Memindex Desk Organzier Catalog Price List Booklet Rolodex Prequel

In a 1913 catalog for the Wilson Memindex, the company suggested putting to do items and one's schedule on one side of the card and potentially keeping one's accounts or a diary on the reverse side.

Noticing that while other filing companies have smaller half or quarter page ads in System, Globe-Wernicke Co. has a full page add for their filing cabinets.

Fascinating to see the 8 various types of hole punches different card index systems may have used on their index card filing cabinets.

Advertisement from System, December 1906:

CARD INDEX SYSTEM <br /> If you are using Card Systems, as manufacturers we are in a position to save money for you on these supplies. We make suggestions to anyone desiring to install labor-saving-money- making Card Systems.<br /> Cards supplied for all makes of cabinets.<br /> Write for prices and estimates.<br /> STANDARD INDEX CARD CO.,<br /> 707-09 Arch St., Phila., Pa.

Beyond having people make direct copies of cards by hand or using carbon paper, The Calculagraph Company manufactured a copying machine for duplicating data.

There is an accompanying picture (which I haven't copied here). Advertisement from 1906 System Magazine:

The Calculagraph<br /> Makes individual records of actual<br /> working time on separate cards<br /> which may be used interchangeably<br /> for Cost Accounting, for Pay-rolls and<br /> for a number of other purposes with-<br /> out copying or transcribing a single<br /> figure, by simply assorting the cards<br /> and adding the records directly from<br /> their faces.<br /> A card containing all the work<br /> records of one man for a week may<br /> be useful for pay-roll purposes, but it<br /> is utterly worthless for learning the<br /> cost of products, until all the items<br /> have been copied or transcribed for<br /> classification.<br /> The Calculagraph requires a large<br /> number of cards in a factory employ-<br /> ing several hundred persons, but it<br /> Saves Clerical Labor. (In one<br /> factory it saves $150.00 per week).<br /> Cards Are Cheaper Than Labor<br /> The Calculagraph Makes No<br /> Clerical Errors.<br /> Let us send you our printed matter.<br /> CALCULAGRAPH COMPANY<br /> 1414 JEWELERS BUILDING, NEW YORK CITY

INDEX CARDS CAN BE USED IN SOME BRANCH OF YOUR BUSINESS<br /> We have eight very useful forms. You can use one or more to good advantage and profit. Let us send you the Samples?<br /> UNITED STATES CARD INDEX CO.<br /> Office and Factory: 112 Liberty Street, NEW YORK<br /> Also send for our Priced Sample Set 'E' which includes all rulings, grades and weights of Index Cards and Guides.'

Federal Steel Fixture Company manufactured a variety of steel office furniture including desks, cabinets, lockers, filing cabinets, shelving, and card cabinets.

A fascinating combination of office furniture types in 1906!

The Adjustable Table Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan manufactured a combination table for both telephones and index cards. It was designed as an accessory to be stood next to one's desk to accommodate a telephone at the beginning of the telephone era and also served as storage for one's card index.

Given the broad business-based use of the card index at the time and the newness of the telephone, this piece of furniture likely was not designed as an early proto-rolodex, though it certainly could have been (and very well may have likely been) used as such in practice.

I totally want one of these as a side table for my couch/reading chair for both storing index cards and as a temporary writing surface while reading!

This could also be an early precursor to Twitter!

Folks have certainly mentioned other incarnations: - annotations in books (person to self), - postcards (person to person), - the telegraph (person to person and possibly to others by personal communication or newspaper distribution)

but this is the first version of short note user interface for both creation, storage, and distribution by means of electrical transmission (via telephone) with a bigger network (still person to person, but with potential for easy/cheap distribution to more than a single person)

Let YOUR MIND GO FREE Do not tax your brain trying to re- member. Get the MEMINDEX HABIT and you can FORGET WITH IMPUNITY. An ideal reminder and handy system for keeping all memoranda where they will appear at the right time. Saves time, money, opportunity. A brain saver. No other device answers its purpose. A Great Help for Busy Men, Used and recommended by Bankers, Man- ufacturers, Salesmen, Lawyers, Doctors, Merchants, Insurance Men, Architects, Ed- ucators, Contractors, Railway Managers Engineers, Ministers, etc., all over the world. Order now and get ready to Begin the New Year Right. Rest of '06 free with each outfit. Express prepaid on receipt of price. Personal checks accepted

Also a valuable card index for desk use. Dated cards from tray are carried in the handy pocket case, 2 to 4 weeks at a time. To-day's card always at the front. No leaves to turn. Helps you to PLAN YOUR WORK WORK YOUR PLAN ACCOMPLISH MORE You need it. Three years' sales show that most all business and professional men need it. GET IT NOW. WILSON MEMINDEX CO. 93 Mills St., Rochester, N. Y.

Interesting that the use of the portmanteau memindex (as memory + index) for a card index being used to supplement one's memory. It can't go unnoticed that the Wilson Memindex Co. was manufacturing and selling these as early as 1906, several decades before Vannevar Bush's use of the word Memex which seems derivative and removes more of the traces of index from the root.

Note the use of card sizes 2 3/4 x 4 1/2" and 3 x 5 1/2" for this system.

Notice the 1 1/4" x 3" cards, 2 1/4 x 4" cards in addition to the 3 x 5" and 4 x 6".

And Mr. H. Beebe of Chicago, using but one drawer, says: "It has made me keep appointments and lay out my work to increase the things I can do in a day. "

In the December 1906 issue of System, a magazine which would eventually become Bloomberg Business Week), W. K. Kellogg, the President of the Toasted Corn Flake Company is quoted touting the invaluable nature of the Shaw-Walker filing system at a time when his company was using 640 drawers of their system.

Example of sales touting productivity in a filing system.

Note also the specific gendering of the clerk here in 1906.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/293124175605

For advertisement from 1906, see: https://hypothes.is/a/OGREvL98Ee2mYVO2Fqim6Q

1930s Wilson Memindex Co Index Card Organizer Pre Rolodex Ad Price List Brochure

archived page: https://web.archive.org/web/20230310010450/https://www.ebay.com/itm/165910049390

Includes price lists

List of cards includes: - Dated tab cards for a year from any desired. - Blank tab cards for jottings arranged by subject. - These were sold in 1/2 or 1/3 cut formats - Pocket Alphabets for jottings arranged by letter. - Cash Account Cards [without tabs]. - Extra Record Cards for permanent memoranda. - Monthly Guides for quick reference to future dates. - Blank Guides for filing records by subject.. - Alphabet Guides for filing alphabetically.

Memindex sales brochures recommended the 3 x 5" cards (which had apparently been standardized by 1930 compared to the 5 1/2" width from earlier versions around 1906) because they could be used with other 3 x 5" index card systems.

In the 1930s Wilson Memindex Company sold more of their vest pocket sized 2 1/4 x 4 1/2" systems than 3 x 5" systems.

Some of the difference between the vest sized and regular sized systems choice was based on the size of the particular user's handwriting. It was recommended that those with larger handwriting use the larger cards.

By the 1930's at least the Memindex tag line "An Automatic Memory" was being used, which also gave an indication of the ubiquity of automatization of industrialized life.

The Memindex has proved its success in more than one hundred kinds of business. Highly recommended by men in executive positions, merchants, manufacturers, managers, .... etc.

Notice the gendering of users specifically as men here.

Features: - Sunday cards were sold separately and by my reading were full length tabs rather than 1/6 tabs like the other six days of the week - Lids were custom fit to the bases and needed to be ordered together - The Memindex Jr. held 400 cards versus the larger 9 inch standard trays which had space for 800 cards and block (presumably a block to hold them up or at an angle when partially empty).

The Memindex Jr., according to a price sheet in the 1930s, was used "extensively as an advertising gift".

The Memindex system had cards available in bundles of 100 that were labeled with the heading "Things to Keep in Sight".

Vintage Memindex Wilson Wood Box 1937-38 Diary Planner Date Keeper Ephemera

Includes particularly good image of the individual day cards:

Notice that the tabs are done as 1/6th as most of these systems were manufactured/sold with out including Sunday.

Getting Things Done with Index Cards<br /> by Jazz DiMauro

referenced in Lifehacker article as early as 2005

Note the use of envelopes for separation. Did this predate the Noguchi Filing System, inspired by it or wholly separate?

The Hipster PDA<br /> by Gina Trapani

The width of the drawers of both McDowell & Craig and Steelcase desks is just wide enough to accommodate two rows of 4 x 6" index cards side by side with enough space that one might insert a sizeable, but thin divider between them

I suspect that this is a specific design choice in a world in which card indexes often featured in the office environment of the mid-twenty first century.

Were other manufacturers so inclined to do this? Is there any evidence that this was by design? Did people use it for this? Was there a standard drawer width?

The metal inserts to section off the desk drawer area could have also been used for this sort of purpose and had cut outs to allow for expanding and contracting the interior space.

Keep in mind that some of these tanker desks were also manufactured with specific spaces or areas intended for typewriters or for storing them.

Vintage 1900 Macey Card Business System Fred Macey Company Original Ad 1021 A2<br />

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275147213477

Copy in notes folder as backup

Copy in Notes folder.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275144504113

https://sharegpt.com/c/0mrnsgg

Not a half bad answer...

https://shareg.pt/th2DNz0

Q: Can I use a card index for note taking?

Compare with: https://hypothes.is/a/HTqQPrksEe2XdQcSVvzXLQ

Q: Can I use a card index for note taking?

ChatGPT does a reasonable bit of advice on how one would use a card index for note taking.

Translation:

In the current episode "research_tv" of Bielefeld University, Professor Dr. André Kieserling, Johannes Schmidt and Martin Löning how they approach Luhmann's so-called “intellectual autobiography”.

!!

I should mention that the Stockroom Plus 4 x 6" cards I got a while back are great with even my juiciest fountain pens. They're some of the least expensive gridded cards I've been able to find and are a fraction of the cost of the Exacompta.

u/abbienormal, u/Alan_Shutko, u/CynTut all recommend Exacompta cards for fountain pen friendly use.

4x6": - Goulet Pens - White Graph $9.00 - White lined $9.00 - White blank $9.00 - Pastel graph $13.50 - Flotsam and Fork Pastel graph $9.50 - Anderson Pens $13.50 (multi-color) - JetPens Pastel graph $14.50 - Amazon White(?) grid $19.96

• Kokuyo
  • may be close in size but A or B style sizing

https://www.levenger.com/products/nantucket-bamboo-compact-bleacher?variant=42489708773525

This sort of reminds me about the way Rick Nicita kept his to do list on index cards spread out all over his desk.

Perhaps he might have benefitted from an index card bleacher?

What screenwriting books recommend note cards for drafting/outlining? Do any go beyond the general outlining advice?

What is the overlap of this sort of writing practice with comedians who had a practice of writing jokes on index cards? (Ronald Reagan, Phyllis Diller, etc.?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwKjuBvNi40

Ben Rowland uses index cards to outline the plot of his screenplays. This is a common practice among screenwriters. Interestingly he only uses it for plot outlining and not for actual writing the way other writers like Vladimir Nabokov may have. Both Benjamin Rowland and Duston Lance Black use cards for outlining but not at the actual writing stage.

<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>Billy Oppenheimer</span> in The Notecard System: Capture, Organize, and Use Everything You Read, Watch, and Listen To (<time class='dt-published'>11/03/2022 16:53:44</time>)</cite></small>

Nothing stupendous here. Mostly notes on cards and then laid out to outline. Most of the writing sounds like it happens at the transfer stage rather than the card and outline stage.

This process seems more akin to that of Victor Margolin than Vladimir Nabokov.

NOW I SAY, "OKAY, THIS IS DONE." I READ IT. IT FEELS LIKE A MOVIE. AND I'M GONNA PUT IT IN THE BOX. AND I'M GONNA PUT IT IN THE BOX IN THIS ORDER, AND THIS IS THE ORDER THAT I'M GONNA WRITE IT IN IN MY FIRST DRAFT. OVER THE NEXT NUMBER OF WEEKS, I START WRITING. WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING, I'VE BEEN SEEING THE SCENES IN MY HEAD FOR SO LONG AT THIS POINT THAT IT'S ALMOST LIKE JUST REGURGITATION. LIKE, I'M JUST GETTING OUT. AND I CALL IT MY VOMIT DRAFT. #

Dustin Lance Black's "vomit draft" is similar to Mozart's peeing his music out like a cow. His method is also similar to Victor Margolin who's gone over the material several times by the time he's finally writing out his draft.

Example of someone who says most of their best flashes of thought or creativity come when they're out walking or doing something else #

Most veteran note takers will advise against importing old notes into a new digital space for the extra amount of administrative overhead and refactoring it can create.

Often old notes may be: - well assimilated into your memory already - poorly sourced or require lots of work and refactoring to use or reuse them - become a time suck trying to make them "perfect"

Better advice is potentially pull them into your system in a different spot so they're searchable and potentially linkable/usable as you need them. If this seems like excessive work, and it very well may be, then just pull in individual notes as you need or remember them.

With any luck the old notes are easily searchable/findable in whichever old system they happen to be in, so they're still accessible.

I'll note here the conflicting definitions of multiple storage in my tags to mean: - storing a single note under multiple subject headings or index terms - storing notes in various different (uncentralized locations), so having multiple different zettelkasten at home/office, storing some notes in social media locations, in various notebooks, etc. This means you have to search across multiple different interfaces to find the thing you're looking at.

I should create a new term to distinguish these two, but for now they're reasonably different within their own contexts that it's not a big problem unless one or the other scales.

A partial answer to note taking why.

Interesting to see a somewhat out of place link to Pile of Index Cards system here.

Given the 2015 date of the post this could be a part of the small distribution of the 2006 idea into the conversation a decade later.

Reagan’s Note Card Treasures<br /> by John H. Fund <br /> at August 10, 2011, 12:00 AM<br /> (accessed:: 2023-02-23 12:25:06)

archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20151017020314/http://spectator.org/articles/37399/reagans-note-card-treasures

John H. Fund wrote that while he was a a 15-year old high school student, Reagan taught him how he arranged his index card-based notes to tailor-make a speech for almost any audience. In 2011, Fund said he still used a variation of Reagan's system for his own speeches.

On many quote-based cards, Reagan was careful to cite his sources.

Ronald Reagan compiled hundreds of index card-based notes over his career. Some were lost or given away as souvenirs, but 91 we discovered at the Reagan library (circa 2011). They were discovered among boxes which contained the contents of his Los Angeles office desk after his death in June 2004,

Though other sources like the CBS News article look like 3 x 5" index cards, John Hunt indicates that Ronald Reagan used 4 x 6" inch cards for his notes.

Ronald Reagan's index cards of one-liners at 2014-07-20 <br /> (accessed:: 2023-02-23 11:41:42)

archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20200305070906/https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/ronald-reagans-index-cards-of-one-liners/12/

ᔥ Manfred Kuehn in Ronald Reagan's Notecards at 2015-01-25<br /> (accessed:: 2023-02-23 11:34:10)

One of Ronald Reagan's Index cards with four bullet-pointed one-liners has the annotation "(over)" written on the bottom which indicates that he wrote on both sides of his cards.

If he was keeping these in clear plastic sheets in a binder, this would have been easy to see the opposite sides.

Were all of his cards double-sided? This particular example seems to be a list of one liners which may have been used in the same speech (or timeframe) and thus served solely as a reminder of the jokes to be told.

Ronald Reagan used 3 x 5" index cards.

Manfred Kuehn in Ronald Reagan's Notecards at 2015-01-25<br /> (accessed:: 2023-02-23 11:34:10)

Kuehn felt that Ronald Regan's note taking "does not seem like a good system. In fact, it's hardly any system at all..."

Lustig, Jason. “‘Mere Chips from His Workshop’: Gotthard Deutsch’s Monumental Card Index of Jewish History.” History of the Human Sciences, vol. 32, no. 3, July 2019, pp. 49–75. SAGE Journals, https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695119830900

Cross reference preliminary notes from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0952695119830900

Finished reading 2023-02-21 13:04:00

urn:x-pdf:6053dd751da0fa870cad9a71a28882ba

Example of a student who saw/learned/new a zettelkasten note taking method from a teacher.

Döring, T. and Beckhaus, S. (2007) ‘The Card Box at Hand: Exploring the Potentials of a Paper-Based Tangible Interface for Education and Research in Art History’. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, February 15-17, 2007. New York, ACM, pp. 87–90.

Did they have a working system the way Ludeke did?

from<br /> Fling, F. M. (1920) The Writing of History: An Introduction to Historical Method. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Great example of a historian implying the benefit of not only a card index, but of potentially how commonplace it was to not only have one, but to have stenographers or secretaries to help manage them.

Link this to the reference in Heyde about historians and others who were pushed to employ stenographers or copyists to keep their card indexes in order.

Given the cost of employing secretaries to manage our information, one of the affordances that computers might focus on as tools for thought is lowering the barrier for management and maintenance. If they can't make this easier/simpler, then what are they really doing beyond their shininess? Search is obviously important in this context.

What was the reference to employing one person full time to manage every 11 or 12 filing cabinets' worth of documents? Perhaps Duguid in the paper piece?

Some useful and solid advice here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/zb4okr/map_of_18237_files_more_than_22_years_of_writing/

u/jwhco has ~5,000 index cards and 18,237 files (presumably mostly note-based text files, though some mentioned are papers, articles, etc.) over the span of 22 years.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/jc25p4/going_from_obsidian_notes_to_a_finished_piece_of/

Nothing remarkable here other than a reference for someone who uses Zettlr for writing

!!!

syndication link

In addition to "critical thinking, resourcefulness, creativity, attention to detail, and academic pride and humility", the ability to use a note card-based research system like Umberto Eco's is the key to overcoming information overload.

Esparmer is correct that research and writing did change with the advent of word processors and the internet in the 1990s and early 2000s (p xi), but these were primarily changes to the front and the back of the process. Esparmer and far too many others seem to miss the difference in which affordances were shifting here. The note taking and organization portions still remained the same, so Eco's advice is still tremendously important. Even if one were to do long form notes in notebook format or in digital documents, they would profitably advised to still properly cross-index their notes or have them in a form that allows them to rearrange them most simply with respect to the structuring and creative processes.

Losing the ability to move ideas around easily, restructure them, link them together and outline them was a tremendous blow in going from the old methods to the new digital ones.

Did we accidentally become enamored of the new technologies and forget that their affordances didn't completely replace those of the old methods?

Instead of using pre-made stiff index cards, Luhmann used standard paper which he cut up into DIN A6 sized slips which he packed into his drawers. Schmidt had trouble removing slips from some of the boxes because they were packed so tightly.

Exactly how much space would be saved writing on standard paper versus index cards in a collection as large as Luhmann's?

Eugenia Triantafyllou is talking about crutches for creativity and inspiration, but seems to miss the value of collecting interesting tidbits along the road of life that one can use later. Instead, the emphasis here becomes one of relying on an artificial intelligence doing it for you at the "hit of a button". If this is the case, then why not just let the artificial intelligence do all the work for you?

This is the area where the cultural loss of mnemonics used in orality or even the simple commonplace book will make us easier prey for (over-)reliance on technology.

Is serendipity really serendipity if it's programmed for you?

Just as using a text for writing generative annotations (having a conversation with a text) is a useful exercise for writers and thinkers, creative writers can stand to have similar textual creativity prompts.

Compare Wordcraft affordances with tools like Nabokov's card index (zettelkasten) method, Twyla Tharp's boxes, MadLibs, cadavre exquis, et al.

The key is to have some sort of creativity catalyst so that one isn't working in a vacuum or facing the dreaded blank page.

The sense of writing partner here is similar to that mentioned by Niklas Luhmann in Communicating with Slip Boxes: An Empirical Account (1981), though in his case his writing partner was a carefully constructed database archive of his past notes.

see: Luhmann, Niklas. “Kommunikation mit Zettelkästen: Ein Erfahrungsbericht.” In Öffentliche Meinung und sozialer Wandel / Public Opinion and Social Change, edited by Horst Baier, Hans Mathias Kepplinger, and Kurt Reumann, 222–28. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1981. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-87749-9_19.<br /> translation at https://web.archive.org/web/20150825031821/http://scriptogr.am/kuehnm.

http://www.verzetteln.de/synapsen/<br /> Markus Krajewski's digital zettelkasten product.

ᔥ[[Frank Berzbach]] in Künstliche Intelligenz aus Holz - sciencegarden - Magazin für junge Forschung at 2001-06-30 (accessed:: 2023-02-10 06:53:55)

Stettler, Lucia. “Geheime Gästekartei überlebt Hotelbrand – und birgt Zündstoff.” Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF), April 8, 2021, sec. Kultur. https://www.srf.ch/kultur/gesellschaft-religion/brisanter-fund-geheime-gaestekartei-ueberlebt-hotelbrand-und-birgt-zuendstoff.

<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>ManuelRodriguez331</span> in Advantages of Analog note taking : Zettelkasten (<time class='dt-published'>02/07/2023 08:33:25</time>)</cite></small>

srf.ch/kultur/gesellschaft-religion/brisanter-fund-geheime-gaestekartei-ueberlebt-hotelbrand-und-birgt-zuendstoff

Google translate:

four wooden boxes with highly explosive contents were spared. They were stored in a different building at the time of the inferno. They contained 20,000 guest cards that concierges and receptionists had kept secretly between 1920 and 1960.

The Grandhotel Waldhaus burned down in 1989, but saved from the inferno were 20,000 guest cards with annotations about them that were compiled between 1920 and 1960.

At the Grandhotel Waldhaus in Vulpera, Switzerland concierges and receptionists maintained a business-focused zettelkasten of cards. In addition to the typical business function these cards served denoting names, addresses, and rooms, the staff also made annotations commenting on the guests and their proclivities.

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

6:

Google translate:

The clientele moved among their own kind and had no idea the polite concierge at the front desk was secretly venting his anger with venomous comments: 'Very rude fellow; does it badly with the women", "Big Protz à la Neureich", "Rappensplitter", "Stupid Goat" or "Tongs".

reply to u/FastSascha at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/10nolg3/comment/j6naobz/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Let those who have not folded an index card to use it as a fork for eating food (vegan or otherwise), throw the first pack of index cards.

Is this the correct zettelkasten translation of John 8:7? Should I number this ZKII, 9/8k?🗃️😉

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roud_Folk_Song_Index

This seems to have an interesting relation to the tradition of wassailers and "luck visitors" traditions or The Christmas Mummers (1858). The song We Wish You a Merry Christmas (Roud Folk Song Index #230 and #9681) from the English West Country (Cornwall) was popularized by Arthur Warrell (1883-1939) in 1935. It contains lyrics "We won't go until we get some" in relation to figgy pudding and seems very similar in form to Mari Lwyd songs used to gain access to people's homes and hospitality. An 1830's version of the song had a "cellar full of beer" within the lyrics.

I'm curious if the Roud Folk Song Index includes any Welsh songs or translations that have similar links? Perhaps other folk song indices (Child Ballads?) may provide clues as well?

Manfred Kuehn indicates that keeping track of information on note cards was "not unusual during the 1970s".

Manfred Kuehn's index card commonplace from 1974 - 1985

At 5 - 6,000 cards in 11 years from 1974 to 1985, Kuehn would have made somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.25 - 1.49 note per day.

His description of paragraphs from 150 to 350 words is interesting with respect to the amount of material that will fit on a 3x5" inch card during the note taking process.

reply to u/stjeromeslibido at https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/10lqfsn/comment/j63y2k9/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Every card has holes pre-punched into it in exactly the same place (see the photo in the original post at the top) so that one might put a knitting needle (or other thin instrument) through the whole deck in each of the positions. Then one should decide on what each hole's meaning will be by position.

As an example, imagine you're using your cards in a rolodex fashion and you want to distinguish the six categories: family, friends, service providers, neighbors, co-workers, and organizations/businesses. For family members you cut/remove the additional paper between the first hole (representing "family") and the edge of the paper. You do the same thing for all the other cards based on their respective categories. So, for example, your brother Joe who lives across the street from you and works with you at the office in the family business would have cuts removed for positions 1, 4, and 5. For an entity that fits all six categories, cuts would be made such that the sheet would no longer stay in u/I-love-teal (the original poster's) six ring binder notebook.

At the end of the year you want to send Christmas cards to your friends, family and neighbors, so you put the knitting needles into position 1 and pull up separating your family out, then you repeat for positions 4 and 5 until you have your full list. (Pro tip: you probably wouldn't want to pull them out of the deck completely, but might rather pull them up and set them at a 90 degree angle thus preventing you from needing to do the work of refiling them all in a particular order.)

Obviously if you have multi-row edge punches or dozens of edge notches you can discern a lot more categories or data types using basic logic. Just abstract this to your particular note card system. Herman Hollerith used this in early versions of the U.S. Census in the late 1800s and it and variations were used heavily in early computer programming applications.

A variation of this sort of trick can also be done by coloring in (or not) the edges of parts of your cards as well. See for example the general suggestions in these photos which help to layout the idea of the "Pile of Index Card" system used back in 2006 with respect to Getting Things Done (GTD) philosophy:

• https://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/189967397/
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/aki_oda/2684257358
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/189972896

On my mathematics specific notes which I generally put on graph paper cards, I use colored edge "notches" like these to represent broad categories like theorems, proofs, definitions, corollaries, etc. or method of proof (induction, direct, contradiction, contraposition, construction, exhaustion, probabilistic, combinatorial, etc.) This makes finding specific cards a bit easier as I tip through various sections.

A historian might use colored edges to visually label dates by decades or centuries depending on the timespan of their studies. The uses can be endless and can be specific to your field of study or needs.

Some might also attach the idea of tags/categories to the colors of their cards, so you might use white cards for ideas which are your own, yellow cards which are quotes of others' material, blue cards which represent synopses of other's ideas, etc. One might also profitably use a multi-pen with different colored inks to represent these sorts of meta-data as well.

The variations are endless...

The index is the place for categorization. Now the questions is how deep is good enough to categorize.

I came here looking for the glycemic index for bananas to see if this might explain a friends delayed reaction to consuming high amounts of salicylate. That is, the pain they experienced as a burn in the mouth/tongue only occurred after consuming a banana. A prior search tentatively suggested that spikes in insulin (which occur with foods high in glycemic index and glycemic load) can cause inflammation to the affected region which sends white blood cells as a response and can cause swelling and increased sensitivity to pain.

Worry about dropping a tray of slips and needing to reorganize them.

This sounds somewhat similar to Mark Robertson's method of "live Roaming" (using Roam Research during his history classes) as a teaching tool on top of other prior methods.

link to: Roland Barthes' card collection for teaching: https://hypothes.is/a/wELPGLhaEeywRnsyCfVmXQ

https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/10fn1vb/i_made_a_script_to_turn_obsidian_files_into_tiny/

reply to IvanFerrero at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/1740/anybody-using-this-approach-to-manage-contacts-how#latest

Many of the digital note taking tools that run off of text allow you to add metadata to your basic text files (as YAML headers, inline with a key:: value pair, or via #tags). Many of them have search functionality or use other programmatic means like query blocks, DataView, DataViewJS, etc. for doing queries on your files to get back lists, tables, charts, etc. of the data you're looking for.

The DataView repository has some good examples of how this works with something like Obsidian. Fortunately if you're using simple text files you can usually put them into one or more platforms to get the data and affordances you want out of them individually.

As an example, I have a script block in my daily note in Obsidian for birthdays in my notes that fall on today's date:

```dataview LIST birthday FROM "Lists/People" WHERE birthday.day = date(2023-01-18).day ```

If I put the text birthday:: 1927-12-08 into a note about Niklas Luhmann, his name and birthday would appear in my daily note on his birthday. One can use similar functionality to create tables of books they read with titles, authors, ratings, dates read, etc. or a variety of other data input which parses through your plaintext files. Services like Obsidian, Logseq, et al. are getting better about allowing these types of programmatic searches for users without backgrounds in programming and various communities usually provide help for pre-made little snippets like the one above that one can cut and paste into their notes to get the outputs that they need. Another Obsidian based example that uses text files for tracking academic journal articles can be found at https://nataliekraneiss.com/your-academic-reading-list-in-obsidian/; I'm sure there are similar versions for other text-based platforms.

In pre-digital times, for a manual version of a rolodex like this in paper, one could use different color cards as pseudo-tags (doctors are on yellow cards, family members on blue cards, friends on green cards, etc.) or adding edge notches or even tabs to represent different types of metadata. See for example the edge colored cards in Hawkexpress' Pile of Index Cards: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/albums/72157594200490122

As humans we're good at separating things based on categories. The Dewey Decimal System systematically separates mathematics and history into disparate locations, but your zettelkasten shouldn't force this by overthinking categories. Perhaps the overlap of math and history is exactly the interdisciplinary topic you're working toward? If this is the case, just put cards into the slip box closest to their nearest related intellectual neighbor—and by this I mean nearest related to you, not to Melvil Dewey or anyone else. Over time, through growth and branching, ideas will fill in the interstitial spaces and neighboring ideas will slowly percolate and intermix. Your interests will slowly emerge into various bunches of cards in your box. Things you may have thought were important can separate away and end up on sparse branches while other areas flourish.

If you make the (false) choice to separate math and history into different "sections" it will be much harder for them to grow and intertwine in an organic and truly disciplinary way. Universities have done this sort of separation for hundreds of years and as a result, their engineering faculty can be buildings or even entire campuses away from their medical faculty who now want to work together in new interdisciplinary ways. This creates a physical barrier to more efficient and productive innovation and creativity. It's your zettelkasten, so put those ideas right next to each other from the start so they can do the work of serendipity and surprise for you. Do not artificially separate your favorite ideas. Let them mix and mingle and see what comes out of them.

If you feel the need to categorize and separate them in such a surgical fashion, then let your index be the place where this happens. This is what indices are for! Put the locations into the index to create the semantic separation. Math related material gets indexed under "M" and history under "H". Now those ideas can be mixed up in your box, but they're still findable. DO NOT USE OR CONSIDER YOUR NUMBERS AS TOPICAL HEADINGS!!! Don't make the fatal mistake of thinking this. The numbers are just that, numbers. They are there solely for you to be able to easily find the geographic location of individual cards quickly or perhaps recreate an order if you remove and mix a bunch for fun or (heaven forfend) accidentally tip your box out onto the floor. Each part has of the system has its job: the numbers allow you to find things where you expect them to be and the index does the work of tracking and separating topics if you need that.

The broader zettelkasten, tools for thought, and creativity community does a terrible job of explaining the "why" portion of what is going on here with respect to Luhmann's set up. Your zettelkasten is a crucible of ideas placed in juxtaposition with each other. Traversing through them and allowing them to collide in interesting and random ways is part of what will create a pre-programmed serendipity, surprise, and combinatorial creativity for your ideas. They help you to become more fruitful, inventive, and creative.

Broadly the same thing is happening with respect to the structure of commonplace books. There one needs to do more work of randomly reading through and revisiting portions to cause the work or serendipity and admixture, but the end results are roughly the same. With the zettelkasten, it's a bit easier for your favorite ideas to accumulate into one place (or neighborhood) for easier growth because you can move them around and juxtapose them as you add them rather than traversing from page 57 in one notebook to page 532 in another.

If you use your numbers as topical or category headings you'll artificially create dreadful neighborhoods for your ideas to live in. You want a diversity of ideas mixing together to create new ideas. To get a sense of this visually, play the game Parable of the Polygons in which one categorizes and separates (or doesn't) triangles and squares. The game created by Vi Hart and Nicky Case based on the research of Thomas Schelling provides a solid example of the sort of statistical mechanics going on with ideas in your zettelkasten when they're categorized rigidly. If you rigidly categorize ideas and separate them, you'll drastically minimize the chance of creating the sort of useful serendipity of intermixed and innovative ideas.

It's much harder to know what happens when you mix anthropology with complexity theory if they're in separate parts of your mental library, but if those are the things that get you going, then definitely put them right next to each other in your slip box. See what happens. If they're interesting and useful, they've got explicit numerical locators and are cross referenced in your index, so they're unlikely to get lost. Be experimental occasionally. Don't put that card on Henry David Thoreau in the section on writers, nature, or Concord, Massachusetts if those aren't interesting to you. Besides everyone has already done that. Instead put him next to your work on innovation and pencils because it's much easier to become a writer, philosopher, and intellectual when your family's successful pencil manufacturing business can pay for you to attend Harvard and your house is always full of writing instruments from a young age. Now you've got something interesting and creative. (And if you must, you can always link the card numerically to the other transcendentalists across the way.)

In case they didn't hear it in the back, I'll shout it again: ACTIVELY WORK AGAINST YOUR NATURAL URGE TO USE YOUR ZETTELKASTEN NUMBERS AS TOPICAL HEADINGS!!!

Here again he comes close to some of the methods and ideas of having flashcards for spaced repetition, but isn't explicitly aware of the words or techniques. Note that he also doesn't use the word flashcard. When was the word first used?

Rewriting things as flashcards also tends to be a part of the spaced repetition itself.

By cutting the notes up he's specifically decontextualizing them so as to make one's memory be better tested in coming up with the solutions/answers as they are more likely to appear on a test, decontextualized from the original lecture.

Apparently Aby Warburg "obsessively kept" notes on antisemitic incidents on the Eastern front in his zettelkasten.

This piece looks at Warburg's Jewish identity as supported or not by the contents of his zettelkasten, thus placing it in the use of zettelkasten or card index as autobiography.

Might one's notes reflect who they were as a means of creating both their identity while alive as well as revealing it once they've passed on? Might the use of historical method provide its own historical method to be taken up on a meta basis after one's death?

Arthur introduces the topic of Robert Pirsig and slips into the GTD conversation on 2004-05-19.

Was this a precursor link to the Pile of Index Cards in 2006?

Note that there doesn't seem to be any discussion of any of the methods with respect to direct knowledge management until the very end in which arthur returns almost four months later to describe a 4 x 6" card index with various topics he's using for filing away his knowledge on cards. He's essentially recreated the index card based commonplace book suggested by Robert Pirsig in Lila.