In Zettel, the editors indicate that many of Wittgenstein's zettels "were for the most part cut from extensive typescripts of his, other copies of which still exist." Perhaps not knowing of the commonplace book or zettelkasten traditions, they may have mistook the notes in his zettelkasten as having originated in his typescripts rather than them having originated as notes which then later made it into his typescripts!

What in particular about the originals may have made them think it was typescript to zettel?

In 1967, G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright published a collection of notes from Ludwig Wittgenstein's zettelkasten which they aptly titled Zettel.

https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/charging-tray-for-library-readers-tickets-14436111112.html

A wooden 5 tray charging tray with lid! This could make a fascinating portable zettelkasten. It has options for both 2"x3" and 3"x5"Cards.

https://www.carrmclean.ca/charging-trays-and-guides.html

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.

Einblicke in das System der Zettel - Geheimnis um Niklas Luhmanns Zettelkasten, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4veq2i3teVk.

Watched 2023-03-13

Mentioned elsewhere, but there's a segment here that he used whatever paper he happened to have around including the receipts from a brewery, tax papers, and even his children's art papers.

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”.

!!

The issue is that most of times it is states like this, but almost every writer in the PKM and zettelkasten world do not provide a example as a model, so no one knows for sure if it is well commented or not.

The AdlerNet Guide, Part III<br /> by Amy Hunt

It's not just me who's noticed this.

Interesting that for someone propounding Luhmann's zettelkasten system that Scheper has done this. Was it because he did it himself and then didn't want to change (likely) or because he spent time seeing others' problems with Luhmann's numbering system and designed a better way (less likely)?

Interesting method of finding example sentences in words.

This is fundamental. No research project has no quotes. Sometimes the words of the author is just better than anything that one could say.

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.

https://www.garten-des-gedenkens.de/?page_id=118&lang=EN

Example of a zettelkasten as an Holocaust rememberance/momument installation in Marburg in 2012

http://tamaroszettelkasten.blogspot.com/

Example of a blog being kept as a zettelkasten....

Altfranzösisches etymologisches Wörterbuch : AGATE

I recall that the Oxford English Dictionary was also compiled using a slip box method of sorts, and more interestingly it was a group effort.

Similarly Wordnik is using Hypothes.is to recreate these sorts of patterns for collecting words in context on digital cards.

Many encyclopedias followed this pattern as did Adler's Syntopicon.

Not sure why Manfred Kuehn removed this website from Blogger, but it's sure to be chock full of interesting discussions and details on his note taking process and practice. Definitely worth delving back several years and mining his repository of articles here.

http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/<br /> archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/

Gunn Desks and filing cabinets

Example advertisement of a wooden office desk with pigeonholes and a small card index box on the desktop as well as a drawer pull with a typewriter sitting on it.

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)

A new identifier system for Zettelkasten

This is a major drawback to this method and the affordance of sparse indexing using Luhmann's method.

Example of someone who doesn't seem to understand that the / or . are primarily for readability.

The problem here is equating the "top level" number with category in the first place. It's just an idea and the number is a location. Start by separating the two.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/364064561931 Vintage The CE Ward Co. Wood Index Card File Box HTF

There's a danger to using digital tools to help with Higher Order Thinking; namely, it offloads precious cognitive load, optimized intrinsic load, which is used to build schemas and structural knowledge which is essential for mastery. Another danger is that digital tools often make falling for the collector's fallacy easier, meaning that you horde and horde information, which makes you think you have knowledge, while in fact, you simply have (maybe related) information, not mastery. The analog way prevents this, as it forces you to carefully evaluate the value of an idea and decide whether or not it's worth it to spend time on writing it and integrating it into a line of thought. Evaluation/Analysis is forced in an analog networked thinking tool, which is a form of Higher Order Learning/Thinking, as they are in the higher orders of Bloom's Taxonomy/Hierarchy.

This is also true for AI. Always carefully evaluate whether or not a tool is worth using, like a farmer. (Deep Work, Cal Newport).

Instead, use a tool like mindmapping, the GRINDE way, which is digital, for learning... Or the Antinet Zettelkasten by Scott Scheper, which is analog, for research.

The power of an Antinet Zettelkasten. Use this principle both in research and learning.

While I love a great notebook as much as (more than?) the next person, a lot of the notes I take are specifically for filing into either my zettelkasten or index card-based commonplace book for later re-use. Sadly there's not a lot out there in the 4 x 6" format, so I've been able to use some book binder's glue to fashion my own "index card notebooks" which are dissemble-able for filing into my card files for cross indexing. The best part is that I can choose the paper and what's printed on it (blank, lined, grid, etc.) for use with my favorite writing media including fountain pens. I've been doing this for a while and it's working out pretty well. More details: https://boffosocko.com/2022/12/01/index-card-accessories-for-note-taking-on-the-go/

Custom made notebook comprised of 4 x 6" index cards glued at the top with book adhesive surrounded by the binder clips and Lineco glue and paint brush used to make/bind the notebook. Arrayed around the "notebook" are a Lochby pen wallet and carrying case.

I've recently begun adding a chipboard backing to have a firmer writing surface while on the go as well as for inserting into a custom made journal cover/case/wallet in the future, though I've yet to find something off-the-shelf for this. Maybe an A6 cover with some extra margin for error in the size difference?

Has anyone else done this? Suggestions for improvement?

Understanding Zettelkasten notes <br /> by Mitch (@sacredkarailee@me.dm) 2022-02-11

Quick one pager overview which actually presumes you've got some experience with the general idea. Interestingly it completely leaves out the idea of having an index!

Otherwise, generally: meh. Takes a very Ahrens-esque viewpoint and phraseology.

reply to u/OldSkoolVFX at https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/11jiein/comment/jb6np3f/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

I've studied (and used) Luhmann and other related systems more closely than most, so I'm aware of zettelkasten.de and the variety of numbering systems available including how Luhmann's likely grew out of governmental conscription numbers in 1770s Vienna. As a result your answer comes close to a generic answer, but not to the level of specificity I was hoping for. (Others who use a timestamp should feel free to chime in here as well.)

How specifically does the anonymity of the notes identified this way create surprise for you? Can you give me an example and how it worked for you? As an example in my own practice using unique titles in Obsidian, when I type [[ and begin typing a word, I'll often get a list of other notes which are often closely related. This provides a variety of potential links and additional context to which I can write the current note in light of. I also get this same sort of serendipity in the autocomplete functionality of my tagging system which has been incredibly useful and generative to me in the past. This helps me to resurface past notes I hadn't thought of recently and can provide new avenues of growth and expansion.

I've tried the datetime stamp in the past, but without aliasing them all with other titles, things tend to get lost in a massive list of generally useless numbers in an Obsidian folder—i.e. looking at the list gives me absolutely no information without other actions. Further the aliasing to remedy this just becomes extra administrative work. I've also never experienced the sort of surprise you mention when using datetime stamps, or at least not as the result of the timestamps themselves. As a separate concrete example in this video https://share.tube/w/4ad929jjNYMLc6eRppVQmc?start=49s using Denote, there is a clever naming method which simultaneously uses timestamps, Luhmann IDs, titles, and tags. However in this scheme the timestamps is one of the least useful (other than for simply searching by creation date/time, as in "I remember doing this on my birthday last year", or "it was sometime in Winter 2015"...) compared with the Luhmann identifiers, the title, or the tag for search and discovery within the search functionality. Consequently, I'm looking for concrete reasons why people would use datetime stamps and affordances they provide other than to simply have an identifier.

I'm curious what benefit, if any, you get out of the YYYYMMDDhhmm title format other than a simple date ordered listing of files?

Beyond having "notes", what are you really trying to accomplish by doing this?

How are you defining "zettelkasten"? Is your conceptualization closer to that of a commonplace book/wiki/linked notes or a Luhmann-esque structure? If you're going the Luhmann route, then it really helps to have a specific reason, output, or a goal in mind for what you're doing and then keep it as simple as possible. I'd recommend you keep it separate (perhaps using folders) from your to do lists/productivity/projects type material or you'll risk the issue of zettelkasten overreach.

If you don't need the "full Luhmann", then perhaps ease your way in?

Some useful resources/thinking that go beyond the hundreds of one-page zettelkasten blog post intros:

• https://writing.bobdoto.computer/zettelkasten/
• https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/
• https://boffosocko.com/research/zettelkasten-commonplace-books-and-note-taking-collection/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJVHhwyx-Cg

An overly complex method of commonplacing, though oddly with absolutely no mention of indexing of any sort.

reply: <br /> If academia doesn't work out, then perhaps you could shill for "Big Notebook"? Seriously though, this is a pretty heavy/complex method of commonplacing. Do you index any/all of it somehow so you can find the pieces you know you've worked through in the past? A card index perhaps? John Locke's commonplacing method? I do something similar, but use slips or index cards the way Wittgenstein or Walter Benjamin did.... Perhaps one day I'll go more visual like https://www.denizcemonduygu.com/philo/browse/ ?

https://www.antinet.org/wooden-antinet-waitlist

2023-03-06: Noting that the list price on this has now dropped to $495 including shipping. He's also closed the wait list, which I'm guessing was set up to both collect email addresses as well as to test market the demand for such a box at his various price points.

One can make links between ideas more explicit using words like x ["supports", "contradicts", "supports", "challenges", "extends", "contradicts", etc] y. However it can be even more useful and beneficial to not only state the connection in the loosest of terms, but to explore and develop what that connection is and how it works. The more explicit one can be, the better.

If it's a metaphor, analogy, or abstraction, how far can one push those relationships before they collapse? Can the abstraction be encompassed in a mathematical sense that one case completely consumes another?

Little Machines in Your Zettelkasten<br /> by Sascha Fast

Structure notes can take a variety of forms including lists, diagrams, mind maps, tables, and tables of contents.

Niklas Luhmann-Archiv

Tutorial: https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/tutorial

Note search: https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/suche

Table of contents for ZKI and ZKII: https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/inhaltsuebersicht

Since it seems more natural, I'm switching tags from "Roland Barthes' zettelkasten" to "Roland Barthes' fichier boîte". Future me will have to cross-correlate these.

Scheper, Scott. Antinet Zettelkasten: A Knowledge System That Will Turn You Into a Prolific Reader, Researcher and Writer. Greenlamp, LLC, 2022.

annotation target: url: urn:x-pdf:614d5b6d353f410da4a46e5eddde997e

After you've read a bit you may have some idea of some of the topics you'd like to cover and can begin creating an outline of what you'd like to express. Create a blank page and start the shape of the outline. As you proceed, you'll have an idea of a few specific notes that will fit under individual areas. What are those notes linked to? Perhaps add them as well if appropriate. As you outline you can add markup like ![[noteA]] to your outline which, in preview mode, will render or transclude the contents of that note and any others similarly formatted. Once you've done this with lots of notes you can copy/paste the contents into a draft which you can massage into finished form. Perhaps Obsidian's Canvas functionality might be helpful for you as well for mapping out the ideas/outline? It's at this point that many people realize how useful physical paper cards are for doing this process. The user interface and affordances in this last mile of output with respect to a digital tool is definitely a general drawback. This short video may be somewhat helpful for some of the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxyy0THLfuI

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

Not a half bad answer...

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.

reply to u/laystitcher at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/11ay28d/how_did_you_teach_yourself_zettelkasten/

Roughly in order: - Sixth grade social studies class assignment that used a "traditional" index card-based note taking system. - Years of annotating books - Years of blogging - Havens, Earle. Commonplace Books: A History of Manuscripts and Printed Books from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century. New Haven, CT: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 2001. - Locke, John, 1632-1704. A New Method of Making Common-Place-Books. 1685. Reprint, London, 1706. https://archive.org/details/gu_newmethodmaki00lock/mode/2up. - Erasmus, Desiderius. Literary and Educational Writings, 1 and 2. Edited by Craig R. Thompson. Vol. 23 & 24. Collected Works of Erasmus. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1978. https://utorontopress.com/9781487520731/collected-works-of-erasmus. - Kuehn, Manfred. Taking Note, A blog on the nature of note-taking. December 2007 - December 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181224085859/http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/ - Ahrens, Sönke. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. Create Space, 2017. - Sertillanges, Antonin Gilbert, and Mary Ryan. The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. First English Edition, Fifth printing. 1921. Reprint, Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1960. http://archive.org/details/a.d.sertillangestheintellectuallife. - Webb, Beatrice Potter. Appendix C of My Apprenticeship. First Edition. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1926. - Schmidt, Johannes F. K. “Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index: The Fabrication of Serendipity.” Sociologica 12, no. 1 (July 26, 2018): 53–60. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/8350. - Hollier, Denis. “Notes (On the Index Card).” October 112, no. Spring (2005): 35–44. - Wilken, Rowan. “The Card Index as Creativity Machine.” Culture Machine 11 (2010): 7–30. - Blair, Ann M. Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age. Yale University Press, 2010. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300165395/too-much-know. - Krajewski, Markus. Paper Machines: About Cards & Catalogs, 1548-1929. Translated by Peter Krapp. History and Foundations of Information Science. MIT Press, 2011. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/paper-machines. - Goutor, Jacques. The Card-File System of Note-Taking. Approaching Ontario’s Past 3. Toronto: Ontario Historical Society, 1980. http://archive.org/details/cardfilesystemof0000gout.

And many, many others as I'm a student of intellectual history.... If you want to go spelunking on some of my public notes, perhaps this is an interesting place to start: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=tag%3A%22note+taking%22 I also keep a reasonable public bibliography on this and related areas: https://www.zotero.org/groups/4676190/tools_for_thought

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.

• The Ultimate Guide to Zettelkasten Index Card Storage
• Index Card Accessories for Note Taking on the Go
• Be sure to check the comments for other options; I ended up binding my own using glue and chipboard which is both easy and inexpensive.
• For cost, custom made/printed slips may be the way to go for great paper if you're all-in. Many stationery/paper shops can help you custom design something.
• I've heard good things about Exacompa/Bristol index cards for fountain pens, but not tried them personally. They can tend toward the expensive side.
• Card bleachers and desk-based display options
• This playing card set is what I ultimately opted for

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?

I have a separate theory here...

I'm not the only one to think of zettelkasten as "living"...

what is the meaning of "the" here (which is italicized for emphasis)?!?

As I began to work at the 1969 founded faculty of sociology of the University of Bielefeld, I was confronted with the request to name research projects I work on. My project was: a theory of society; Duration: 30 years; Costs: none.(1)

I don't think I buy any of this argument even on the surface level...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991930646?mkevt=1&mkpid=0&emsid=e11021.m43.l1120&mkcid=7&ch=osgood&euid=0f6517c566d94de08c6b921ab3252194&bu=45618614899&ut=RU&exe=0&ext=0&osub=-1%7E1&crd=20230226034744&segname=11021

I do like the framing of folgezettel as a benefit with respect to user experience.

There is a lot of mention of the idea of trees within the note taking and zettelkasten space, but we really ought to be looking more closely at other living systems models like rhizomes and things which have a network-like structure.

Do folgezettel in combination with an index help to prevent over-indexing behaviors? Or the scaling problem of categorization in a personal knowledge management space?

Where do subject headings within a zettelkasten dovetail with the index? Where do they help relieve the idea of heavy indexing or tagging? How are the neighborhoods of ideas involved in keeping a sense of closeness while still allowing density of ideas and information?

Having digital search views into small portions of neighborhoods like gxabbo suggested can be a fantastic affordance. see: https://hypothes.is/a/W2vqGLYxEe2qredYNyNu1A

For example, consider an anthropology student who intends to spend a lifetime in the subject and its many sub-areas. If they begin smartly tagging things with anthropology as they start, eventually the value of the category, any tags, or ideas within their index will eventually grow without bound to the point that the meaning or value as a search affordance within their zettelkasten (digital or analog) will be utterly useless. Let's say they fix part of the issue by sub-categorizing pieces into cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, etc. This problem is fine while they're in undergraduate or graduate school for a bit, but eventually as they specialize, these areas too will become overwhelming in terms of search and the search results. This problem can continue ad-infinitum for areas and sub areas. So how can one solve it?

Is a living and concatenating index the solution? The index can have anthropology with sub-areas listed with pointers to the beginnings of threads of thought in these areas which will eventually create neighborhoods of these related ideas.

The solution is far easier when the ideas are done top-down after-the-fact like in the Dewey Decimal System when the broad areas are preknown and pre-delineated. But in a Luhmann-esque zettelkasten, things grow from the bottom up and thus present different difficulties from a scaling up perspective.

How do we classify first, second, and third order effects which emerge out of the complexity of a zettelkasten? - Sparse indexing can be a useful long term affordance in the second or third order space. - Combinatorial creativity and ideas of serendipity emerge out of at least the third order. - Using ZK for writing is a second order affordance - Storage is a first order affordance - Memory is a first order affordance (related to storage) - Productivity is a second+ order (because solely spending the time to save and store ideas is a drag at the first order and doesn't show value until retrieval at a later date). - Poor organization can be non-affordance or deterrent which results in a scrap heap - lack of a reason why can be a non-affordance or deterrence as well - cross reference this list and continue on with other pieces and affordances

Many long time practitioners of note taking methods, particularly in the present environment enamored with shiny object syndrome, will advise to keep one's system as simple as possible. Sascha Fast has specifically said, "I got rid of most of the features after I realized that they are redundant or a (sic) just plain harmful when they slowed me down."

Seems like he's saying he developed the Zettelkasten Method... perhaps his version of the method based on Luhmann's? Commodifying the version "created" by Luhmann?

Credit here for native German speaker writing in English....

Part 2: Search & Inspect. Denote as a Zettelkasten, 2023. https://share.tube/w/4ad929jjNYMLc6eRppVQmc.

His file naming convention and search operation in this is really fantastic:

20230226155400==51a3b--note-title__tag1_tag2.org

This allows one to search the file by date/time, signature, title or tags, by using the =, - or _ along with text.

Beyond this however, there's a fair amount of context to build to use this system including using regex search.

Part 1: What Do We Need? Denote as a Zettelkasten, 2023. https://share.tube/w/mu7fMr5RWMqetcZRXutSGF.

It starts and ends with Denote, but has an excellent overview of the folgezettel debate (or should one use Luhmann-esque identifiers within their digital zettelkasten system?)

Some of the tension within the folgezettel debate comes down to those who might prefer more refined evergreen (reusable) notes in many contexts, or those who have potentially shorter notes that fit within a train of thought (folgezettel) which helps to add some of the added context.

The difference is putting in additional up-front work to more heavily decontextualize excerpts and make them reusable in more contexts, which has an uncertain future payoff versus doing a bit less contextualization as the note will speak to it's neighbors as a means of providing some of this context. With respect to reusing a note in a written work, one is likely to remove their notes and their neighbors to provide this context when needed for writing.

(apparently I didn't save this note when I watched it prior to number 2, blech....)

https://strengejacke.wordpress.com/2015/11/01/you-underestimate-the-power-of-the-dark-folgezettel/

Some in the current zettelkasten space come close to this (Bob Doto comes to mind) while others seem to be more dogmatic. I think people generally ultimately do this in practice, but there is still a lingering sense of orthodoxy.

So nice to see a blog post specifically talk about "Luhmann's Zettelkasten method" rather than a more generic zettelkasten method as being Luhmann's. Notice the 2015 date before the "fame" had caught on in the blogosphere's productivity porn space closer to 2018.

—u/theinvertedform

It's an "industry" now! long live the zettelkasten capitalists!

antecedent: research on Walter Benjamin's Archive

reply to u/m_t_rv_s__n at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/11bxjms/am_i_taking_too_long_to_finish_notes/

Some of it depends on what you're reading for and what you're trying to get out of the reading. On a recent 26 page journal article, I spent several hours over a couple of days (months apart) reading and taking notes in a relatively thorough fashion. I spent another hour or so refining them further and filing them and another 15 minutes noting out references for follow up. It was in an area I'm generally very familiar with, so it wasn't difficult or dense, but has lots of material I specifically know I'll be using in the near future for some very specific writing. Because I know it's something of specific interest to me and several overlapping projects, I had a much deeper "conversation with the text" than I otherwise might have.

Because it was done digitally, you can see the actual highlights and annotations and even check the timestamps if you like (you'll have to click through individual notes to get these timestamps): https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=url%3Aurn%3Ax-pdf%3A6053dd751da0fa870cad9a71a28882ba Some of it is basic data I'll use for a variety of purposes on several already well-defined projects. A few are for more slowly developing projects further out on the horizon. It's relatively easy to see the 10 or 15 permanent notes that I'll pull out of this group of about 74 notes. Since writing them, I've already referenced two of the more fleeting notes/highlights by searching for related tags on other reading which look like they may actually develop further.

Had this been something less targeted to my specific area, say for a master's level course of general interest, I'd probably have spent far less time on it and likely not gone over about 15 or so notes. Sometimes for these, I'll just read the abstract and conclusions and scan the references. Reading lots of these in your area of interest gives you some idea of the space and types of questions you might be asking. As you hone in on a thesis, you'll begin asking more and more questions and delve more deeply into material, and if something you read in the past becomes more specific to your project then you'll likely go back to re-read it at a deeper level, but you'll still have your prior work at your fingertips as a potential guide.

Once you know what your particular thesis is going to be your reading becomes more dense and targeted. Some things you'll read several times and go through with fine-toothed combs while others you'll skim to get the gist/context and only excerpt small specific pieces which you need and then move on.

(If you need it, remember that you only need one or two good permanent notes per day to make some serious progress.)

• ~ 90,000 notes
• 1,250 index entries
• 600 notes as manuscript outlines
• ~15,000 Literature notes

(10:35)

Ahrens had started out using his method in an analog process using shoe boxes, but in 2018 was using a small program based on Luhmann's process, but it was a one man show and wasn't an open source project.

(I'm pretty sure this is Daniel Lüdecke's ZKN3, but should double check.)

Ahrens' 6 notes per day calculation doesn't include Saturdays or Sundays

Sönke Ahrens used to use Daniel Lüdecke's ZKN3, but currently uses Roam Research, though he's said he might choose Obsidian if he were starting over again today.

Link to: https://hypothes.is/a/2XZdmLWhEe2_lg8caDPWMw

https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/11awtrx/whats_something_you_do_with_your_zettelkasten/

Who made up this supposed rule against quotes! Are they not aware that quotes, particularly of sententiae, are some of the most excerpted and transmitted bits of knowledge in the entire Western canon? Without quotes, the entire tradition of note taking would probably not exist. Of course properly quoting is a sub-art in and of itself within rhetoric and the ars excerpendi.

A zettelkasten with no quotes— by definition— shouldn't carry the name.

Should You Read Antinet Zettelkasten by Scott P Scheper<br /> by Curtis McHale

Generally mirrors most of my opinion.

Odd that there haven't been many reviews of this...

amen

Kathryn Greenhill in PhD notetaking workflow – PDF to Zotero to Zotfile to Dropbox to GoodNotes to Zotero to Scrivener. Blogjune 2019/7 at 2019-06-07 (accessed:: 2023-02-24 10:18:56)

Regina Martínez Ponciano aka u/NomadMimi in r/ObsidianMD - PhD workflow: Obsidian, Zettelkasten, Zotero, Pandoc, and more at 2021-03-15 (accessed:: 2023-02-24 10:10:11)

Broadly similar to my own workflow though I use Hypothes.is for fleeting notes rather than Zotero.

Original copy at: https://martinezponciano.es/2021/04/05/research-workflow-as-a-phd-student-in-the-humanities/

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.

Living with a Zettelkasten | Blay <br /> by Magnus Eriksson at 2015-06-21 <br /> (accessed:: 2023-02-23 06:40:39)

a zettelkasten method one pager based generally on Luhmann's example and broadly drawn from material only on zettelkasten.de up to the date of writing in 2015.

Interesting to see the result of a single source without any influence from Ahrens, Eco, or any others from what I can tell. Perhaps some influence from Kuehn, but only from the overlap of zettelkasten.de and Kuehn's blog.

Note that it's not as breathless as many one page examples and doesn't focus on Luhmann's massive output, but it's still also broadly devoid of any other history or examples.

I would have hoped for more on the "living with" portion that was promised.

There's some truth and falsity here...

link to related: https://hypothes.is/a/whBvKrLnEe2OvPOgSd_4zg

Factors that will cause one to lose interest in the maintenance of their card index...

Has the author accidentally included a zettelkasten identification number here?

anecdotal definition/summary of zettelkasten.

I like the "shorter notes" idea here which would have arisen before the "atomic notes" or "evergreen notes" ideas.

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.

At least they don't say he invented it...

I've always disliked the idea of "work" involved in "making" notes and "processing" them. Framing zettelkasten and knowledge creation in terms of capitalism is a painful mistake.

the quote is from https://blay.se/2015-06-21-living-with-a-zettelkasten.html

On Ahrens' shipping container analogy to the zettelkasten

@ZettelDistraction said Perhaps the shipping hub is a better analogy for the Zettelkasten than the shipping container (Ahrens, 40).

We should be careful to separate the ideas of analogy and metaphor. Analogies are usually more direct and well-defined in scope.

While there's an apt and direct correlation between shipping containers and zettelkasten as boxes, Ahrens was making the analogy with respect to the shift that shipping containers made to the overall system:

shipping containers : shipping industry and globalism :: zettelkasten : thinking and writing/content creation

As with many analogies, stretching it the way one might stretch metaphors isn't usually fruitful or even possible.

In hindsight, we know why they failed: The ship owners tried to integrate the container into their usual way of working without changing the infrastructure and their routines. They tried to benefit from the obvious simplicity of loading containers onto ships without letting go of what they were used to.

He's saying one needs to consider how one's note taking method fits into their work in a more integrative way. Without properly integrating it into one's workflow seamlessly the system will fail. This is also one of the most difficult problems many zettelkasten aspirants have. In addition to creating a zettelkasten, they're often also simultaneously trying to integrate new (digital) tools into their process at the same time and they get distracted by them rather than focusing on the move to increasing writing/creating and creativity overall (globalism).

To focus on Ahrens' analogy a bit, if Obsidian, for example, is your "ship", is it as custom built for your specific purpose the way a container ship would be for a cargo container? Might you be better off with something like The Archive, ZKN3, or simple index cards that help to limit you to only do the function you want rather than all the other possible functions (wiki, blog, to do list, calendar, journal, kanban, etc.)? Obsidian and many other applications can be a proverbial row boat, a yacht, a tugboat, a steamer, a cruise ship, and even a warship in addition to a container ship, so one has to be extra careful how they choose to use it.

Misreading of Ahrens. The shipping container wasn't a direct analogy to the zk. It was an analogy about process of building a system from the ground up to better effectuate a result.

—Ronald Reagan

—Will via https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/2519/ideas-im-grappling-with-february-23-2023#latest

Journal and zettelkasten.<br /> by flin

One of the benefits of journaling on an index card is that the small space is much less intimidating than a large blank sheet, particularly when one isn't in the mood but feels like they ought to write. This is similar to the idea that many people find that microblogs (Twitter, Mastodon, Tumblr) are much easier to maintain than a long form blog.

I keep a wholly separate section of one of my boxes as a journal/diary as well, but it's less significant and is ordered only by date with very sparse indexing and an almost non-existent amount of linking. I have a bit of @Sascha's practice going on there, though certainly not as deep as his excellent description. I would caution newcomers to the practice of ZK to be very conscious of what, how, and why they're integrating a journaling practice into their workflow so that they don't risk what I call "zettelkasten overreach". Guarding against this sort of overreach can very easily be seen in my separate/distinct "journal on index cards" versus Sascha's more explicitly thought out "journal within a zettelkasten".

One might have considered some of this part of his (Roland Barthes') fichier boîte (French for zettelkasten) as a journal/diary or what some might today consider a private microblog of thoughts and observations.

reply lifted from my notes:

Henry David Thoreau kept both a commonplace book (essentially a traditional (non-Luhmann-esque) zettelkasten in notebook form) and a separate writing journal where he did what most would consider typical 'journaling', but where he also tried out phrasing, writing, and other experimental work that would ultimately become part of his published written output. This may be a useful model for some. His journals ran to multiple volumes, but a good edited version with a nice introduction to some of his work and methods can be found in:

• Thoreau, Henry David. The Journal: 1837-1861. Edited by Damion Searls. Original edition. New York: NYRB Classics, 2009.

Similarly Roland Barthes used his card index as more than the traditional bibliographical, excerpting, and note taking tool that many had before him. He also used it to accumulate notes on what he had seen and heard in his daily life, phrases he liked, and plans. It came to serve the function, particularly in the last two years of his life, of a diary or what biographer Tiphaine Samoyault came to call his fichierjournal or index-card diary. Published posthumously on October 12, 2010, Mourning Diary is a collection from Roland Barthes' 330 index cards focusing on his mourning following the death of his mother in 1977.

• Barthes, Roland. Mourning Diary. Macmillan, 2010. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374533113/mourningdiary.
• Budelis, Kristina. “Barthes’s Hand.” The New Yorker, September 8, 2010. http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/barthess-hand.
• Samoyault, Tiphaine, and Jonathan Culler. Barthes: A Biography. Translated by Andrew Brown. 1st edition. Cambridge ; Malden, MA: Polity, 2017.

—Sasha Fast https://forum.zettelkasten.de/profile/Sascha

I love the deeper definition and distinction of self-care here.

via Will

zettler is another common one used by Chritian Tietze

https://petersmith.org/webmentions/replies/2023/reply-202320230217-134119/

https://www.reddit.com/r/qnnnp/comments/115iwjj/%D1%81%D1%81%D1%8B%D0%BB%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5_%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%83%D1%80%D1%81%D1%8B_%D0%BE_%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B8/

translation:

https://boffosocko.com

Chris Aldrich's blog with many articles on knowledge management. Aldrich is an incredibly meticulous researcher. If you are interested in a serious study of the history of the issue, you are here.

reply to Share the ideas dancing in your ZK with us. February 17, 2023

Congratulations @Will on the milestone! @ctietze's analogy with smithwork is fantastic. I might also liken it to the point in acquiring a new language when one begins dreaming in their new target language. So many talk about the idea of increased productivity associated with having a zk, but most spend an inordinate amount of time on shiny object syndrome or over complicating it and never get to the point of quickly writing things out, filing them, and being able to trust that their system will just work™. When you no longer notice it anymore and it has become second nature is when the real fun (and magic) begins to happen. It also seems easier and more natural to break the "rules" once you've internalized the basics. We should spend more time talking about the value of 'zettelkasten fluency'.

I'm excited this week to be doing some work in areas of the history of misinformation, cultural myths, and 'American exceptionalism' in preparation for Dan Allosso's upcoming book club on Kruse and Zelizer's new edited book. I suspect he'll announce it shortly at https://danallosso.substack.com/ if folks are interested in joining in the discussion/sensemaking.

Kruse, Kevin M., and Julian E. Zelizer. Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past. Basic Books, 2023.

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

Can zettelkasten be used for other than positivitistic methodologies?

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

Did he write about his zettelkasten in this article?! Deutsch, G. (1917b) ‘Siyum’, American Israelite, 8 March, 15 March.

Gotthard Deutsch celebrated his fifty thousandth card in 1917. ᔥ

An example of a zettelkasten, meant for productivity in most settings, being called unproductive in Gotthard Deutsch's case.

Of course this calls to mind the definition of productivity and from who's perspective. From Deutsch's written output perspective it may have been exceptionally low in comparison to the outputs of others like Niklas Luhmann, S.D. Goitein, or Roland Barthes. But when viewed from the perspective of a teaching instrument and influence on his students, perhaps it was monumentally productive?

Beyond their epistemological utility do zettelkasten also "embody a moral value"? Jason Lustig argues that they may have in the teaching context of Gotthard Deutsch where the reliance on facts was of extreme importance for historical research.

Some of this is also seen in Scott Scheper's religious framing of zettelkasten method though here the aim has a different focus.

Not sure that I agree with the framing of "algorithmic processing" here as it was done manually by a person pulling out facts. But it does bring out the idea of where collecting ends and synthesis of a broader thesis out of one's collection begins. Where does historical method end? What was the purpose of the collection? Teaching, writing, learning, all, none?

In contrast to the sort of mixing of personal life and professional life suggested by C. Wright Mills' On Intellectual Craftsmanship (1952), a half century earlier Gotthard Deutsch's zettelkasten method showed what Lorraine Datson would term 'mechanical objectivity'. This is an interesting shift in philosophical perspective of note taking practice. It can also be compared and contrasted with a 21st century perspective of "personal" knowledge management.

https://7079.sydneyplus.com/archive/final/Theme.aspx?r=529915&f=FindingAids%2fms0123.pdf&m=resource

Some systems require a unique identifier, but the people who are using a datetime stamp or random number anywhere in their (Luhmann-esque) zettelkasten title (here's a good example) are leading you astray. [...] The point of a zettelkasten is to provide one help in ordering and building their knowledge, not in ordering their notes by time created.

Cytat: https://hypothes.is/a/uDIE9q70Ee2xxiszhAZGOQ Cytat w kontekście: https://hyp.is/uDIE9q70Ee2xxiszhAZGOQ/www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX2p-1afdRA

Nadrzędny cel robienia notatek metodą Zettelkasten jest organizacja wiedzy, a nie organizacja notatek, stąd potrzeba odpowiedniego systemu łączenia informacji, a nie poszczególnych notatek.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX2p-1afdRA

wrt: https://hypothes.is/a/uDIE9q70Ee2xxiszhAZGOQ<br /> I'll give him a little credit that he's at least aliasing his notes as he "files" them, but I suspect that over time he's making more work for himself than not. This seems unsustainable over time.

It also seems like he's doing a lot more make-work here than he otherwise ought to?

Notice that he's making this to sell a course: https://joshduffney.gumroad.com/l/take-smart-notes-obsidian

He doesn't directly link the GitHub repo as he indicated, but it can be found here: https://github.com/Duffney/smart-notes. In looking at it, the timestamped notes will become problematic.

This was from 2021-10-17. I'm curious what his "system" looks like today? Has it changed through time and experience?

Some systems require a unique identifier, but the people who are using a datetime stamp or random number anywhere in their (Luhmann-esque) zettelkasten title (here's a good example) are leading you astray. Doubly so if it occurs at the beginning of the title. There are no affordances in this practice and it's more likely to cause problems at scale. Just say no! (Note this is not the same as using a Luhmann-esque identifier at the start of a title as a means of providing a sort order of one's notes held in an individual folder.)

Are there any reasons for someone to do this?! - perhaps for file name conflicts when digitally inserting notes into a system using third party clients with titles which may cause conflicts (though these could/should be removed later for easier reading); - counterexample: https://hypothes.is/a/Jux0pq7yEe2Uqj9mFXS3nQ - Another potential issue is in shared or collaborative note taking spaces where collision is more likely because others don't have the shared context. - perhaps for forcing sort orders on daily notes or recurring meetings MeetingA YYYY-MM-DD, etc., though these are probably in a separate area of one's box and not in their zettelkasten section.

The point of a zettelkasten is to provide one help in ordering and building their knowledge, not in ordering their notes by time created. This will rarely (sans database-related use cases perhaps) provide any insight and digital systems have other easier and better ways of doing this if you need it.

Worse, some systems may not do autocompletion on words in the middle of titles, so starting a card with a datetime can hamper this functionality. One should check this against their particular system.

https://www.amazon.com/Container-OakRidge-Products-Mailbox-style-Certified/dp/B00X6L1HFW/

Finally a physical zettelkasten box for your sharpest and most dangerous ideas!

https://joshduffney.gumroad.com/l/take-smart-notes-obsidian

$2.99 for "How to Take Smart Notes in Obsidian"

(not a recommendation)

https://kmltkc.medium.com/should-i-use-zettelkasten-ids-obsidian-2f6b1733e562

meh...

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.

Digital Smart Notes Part 4: Creating Permanent Notes In Roam Research<br /> by Harley Stanger

Part 1: https://harleystagner.com/digital-smart-notes-part-1-the-capture-toolkit/ - Part 2: https://harleystagner.com/digital-smart-notes-part-2-exporting-highlights-to-roam-research-with-readwise/ - Part 3: https://harleystagner.com/digital-smart-notes-part-3-creating-literature-notes-in-roam-research/ - Part 4: Digital Smart Notes Part 4: Creating Permanent Notes In Roam Research

synopsis of Ahrens

reply to u/Turbulent-Focus-1389 at https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/1132e2r/your_antinet_walkthrough/

Examples like this would certainly be useful/helpful, but you may be waiting a while. Until then some extant (if possibly longer or even written) examples are always helpful. Some may be a bit less Antinet in shape, but the examples are useful none-the-less: - See comment thread here: https://boffosocko.com/2022/07/12/call-for-model-examples-of-zettelkasten-output-processes/ - https://boffosocko.com/research/zettelkasten-commonplace-books-and-note-taking-collection/#historical-examples - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGcs4tyey18 with notes at https://notes.andymatuschak.org/ (though perhaps a deeper view into them is more illustrative: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z4AX7pHAu5uUfmrq4K4zig9x8jmmF62XgaMXm?stackedNotes=z4KZ9973AoHhvM9Pj5Qrds48JXNbMEwVJmVRw&stackedNotes=z8RTzukqNLKFXzqLwx25HrUrg5E5jiziGznWB&stackedNotes=z6UDDkom8Aifg6mLdjT1sPtbMBweCmpyTwmJT - Scott Scheper has a LOT here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSofW8L-FnU-Z8BFXqv8JZt5Cp0mj2_Eb - Ryan Holiday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU7efgGEOgk - Robert Greene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ueMHkGljK0

There's a catalog for this exhibition available:

Meschede, Friedrich, ed. Serendipity. Vom Glück des Findens. Snoeck Verlagsges, 2015. https://www.buecher.de/shop/buecher/serendipity-vom-glueck-des-findens/broschiertes-buch/products_products/detail/prod_id/43762021/.

Serendipity - Vom Glück des Findens Niklas Luhmann Ulrich Rückriem Jörg Sasse 11 07 15 11 10 15 - Kunsthalle Bielefeld

ᔥ[[Andreas Fasel]] in Niklas Luhmann: Ein Zettelkasten als zweites Gehirn at 2015-06-28<br /> (accessed:: 2023-02-13 11:45:39)

Fasel, Andreas. “Niklas Luhmann: Ein Zettelkasten als zweites Gehirn.” Die Welt, June 28, 2015, web edition, sec. North Rhine-Westphalia. (https://www.welt.de/regionales/nrw/article143147819/Ein-Zettelkasten-war-Luhmanns-zweites-Gehirn.html.

google translate:

The Zettelkasten will be shown in the exhibition “ Serendipity – From the Luck of Finding ” at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, July 11 to October 11

In addition to having appeared in the Marbach zettelkasten exhibition in 2013, Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten also appeared in the exhibition "Serendipity: From the Luck of Finding" at Kunsthalle Bielefeld from July 11 - October 11, 2015.

link to: https://hypothes.is/a/lNF9RKvTEe28Rqcr9qzi8w

Coincidence that Schmidt shows a journalist Luhmann's zettelkasten in 2015 and asks if they're disappointed?

It's reasonably likely that he'd already read ZKII 9/8,3.

see: https://hypothes.is/a/GFj15IcbEe21OIMwT2TOJA

in the article which follows below, there's an explicit mention of this specific zettel, so the question on priority here is closed.

google translate:

It's a pity that Schmidt shouldn't be interested in such private matters. Because the aim of his research project, which is funded by the NRW Academy of Sciences and Arts, is to prepare Niklas Luhmann's scientific estate for his scientific descendants.

When everything is scanned, note by note must be transferred from handwriting to typescript. Then all cross-references with which Luhmann has networked his slips of paper should also be linked digitally. "And in the end, individual sections of the box could perhaps also be published in book form," explains Schmidt. Duration of the project: 16 years.

Schmidt's work on Niklas Luhmann's scientific estate is funded by the NRW Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the project is expected to last 16 years. The careful observer will notice that this duration is over half of Luhmann's own expected project length of 30 years. The cost of which is also significantly more than the "cost: none" that Luhmann projected at the time.

link to https://hypothes.is/a/zUjEIvfWEeykOiO1E8YAYw

Researchers ought to account for the non-insignificant archival cost of their work once it's done.

google translate:

The world of Niklas Luhmann – Schmidt now sometimes finds it on the back of the slip. Because Luhmann apparently recycled every scrap of paper he could find for his box. So it can happen that on the front of the note there are condensed reflections on the concept of autopoiesis or summaries of unknown treatises from earlier centuries, while on the back you can find the first arithmetic exercises by Luhmann's children. Or check statements. Or instructions to the household help: “Sweep and wipe the basement stairs thoroughly”, for example.

Luhmann adhered to the standard advice to write only on one side of his cards, though perhaps not just for the usual reasons, but in part because he recycled the papers he had at hand to make his slips. On the backs of his notes one can find instructions he'd made to his household help, his children's homework papers, bank statements, and other papers he happened to have at hand.

Schmidt estimated in 2015 that it would take at least a year to scan in the entire corpus of Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten, imaging 50 cards at a time.

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?

google translate:

And yet he never found what he was actually looking for, but something new and surprising.

While you'll only find in your zettelkasten exactly what you placed there, you may be surprised to find more than you expected.

google translate:

The curiosity of his students and colleagues, who wanted to analyze the box, was correspondingly high. For years, however, Luhmann's children fought in court about the scientific legacy, and for a long time there was no question of a reappraisal. It was not until 2011 that the University of Bielefeld was able to buy Luhmann's intellectual legacies. And now, since the beginning of the year, research has actually been going on into what this box, which sociologists have sometimes referred to as the Holy Grail, is all about.

Bielefeld University sued Luhmann's estate (his children) over his intellectual legacy. In 2011 they were finally able to purchase his papers, but research on his papers and zettelkasten didn't begin until early 2015.

google translate:

When the universal scholar, who was as lovable as he was odd, died in 1998, he not only left behind a work of world renown, but also that box of papers that was already the subject of legends during his lifetime.

This article indicates that Luhmann's zettelkasten was legendary during his lifetime, but was this really the case? Luhmann indicated people's disappointment in his own writing (ZKII 9/8,3), but is there other anecdotal evidence that this wasn't the case?

What does the lawsuit between the family and the Bielefeld over his papers indicate?

Hennemann, Alexa. “Ausstellungseröffnung am 4. März: »Zettelkästen. Maschinen der Phantasie« Mit Navid Kermani, Norbert Miller und Meike Werner. Zum 250. Geburtstag von Jean Paul.” Deutches Literatur Archiv Marbach, February 13, 2013. https://www.dla-marbach.de/presse/presse-details/news/pm-11-2013/.

http://www.pearltrees.com/barockschloss/knowledge-management-germany/id12863560

Knowledge Management in Germany by Barockschloss

Example of someone using the social bookmarking application Pearltrees as a form of digital zettelkasten. They've created a collection of cards about zettelkasten.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/r6nzos/niklas_luhmanns_daily_work_routine/