reply to u/Lauchpferd at https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1c6ydzp/how_much_googleable_information_do_you_have_in/

This is the wrong question to be asking. If it were useful, then Google has everything already, so why bother? Let them do all the work for you.

Most note taking methods were evolved to not only aid in sensemaking, but to help people with the exponentially growing "information overload" problem. Sure you can Google many things, but doing so usually provides "facts" and rarely ever actual insight. Thus: discover, collect, index, link, build.

If you had to search every time to use a thing, you'd lose out most of your effort to the scourge of time when you've probably seen it before and could find it internally among your own collection of millions of things (with greater accuracy as well as reliability of the information you've previously vetted) versus Google's quadrillions of things which would all need to be vetted for relevancy, accuracy, and then placement among the thread of ideas you were attempting to potentially build toward. And once you've found it to place where you need it to make an argument or complete an argument, where will you put it? in your notes? And now you've come full circle.

Save yourself the time and only do the job once.

No piece of information is superior to any other. Power lies in having them all on file and then finding the connections. There are always connections; you have only to want to find them. —Umberto Eco

reply to https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1c4kaps/giving_you_notes_a_unique_id_the_debate_continues/kzop2yh/

I'm with you on some of this, but let me play devil's advocate for a moment, so that we might hew closer to the question u/atomicnotes has posed:

If a Dewey Decimal Number is equivalent to a topic heading or subject, then what is the difference between using these subject/category/tag headings and forgoing the work of translating into a DC number (a task which is far less straightforward for those without a library science). If there is a onto to one and onto correspondence there should mathematically be no difference.

And how does one treat insightful material on geometry (516), for example, which comes from a book classified about political science (320-329)?

In a similar vein, why not use Otlet's Universal Decimal Classification which more easily allows for the admixture of topics as well as time periods?

Separately, I'll echo your valuable statement:

"I think everyone stumbles into a system of their own. I suspect the best practice here is the one that works for you!"

This is the first time I've seen a mention of a Cutter number in the zettelkasten space.

https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Obsidian-Beginner-Advance-Techniques-ebook/dp/B0BZ11C7KY

What is their specific definition of a digital zettelkasten? (Is it more Luhmann-artig or commonplace book?)

A sequence of notes, also known as a "folgezettel", is a train of thought. A hierarchical structure like a folgezettel can help establish a sequence of notes by placing similar notes close together. It can also provide a quick view of first-level connections between notes.

I am not sure what "topics" or "categories" means here and why they should be decided first. I thought Zettelkasten by design accommodates any number of subject matter.

you write the notes on it and you're faced with a dilemma because you don't know which folder to use it's problems like these that makes the use of the system cumbersome and makes the users eventually abandon their system altogether. On the contrary zedl casting is bottom up you start with a hodgepodge of nodes each indicating an idea and you link them with each other there are no folders nothing but as you keep adding more and more notes into the system into this primary soup you can see the emergent structure you'll see that some nodes form clusters like they become the central hubs around which many other ideas and concepts revolve so they must be crucial and over time the system becomes more structured despite the initial thought that it will just turn into a confusing hairball of notes

I should start collecting quotes about Luhmann's prodigiousness. I've read variously that he published 40 books, 50 books, 60 books, 70+ books, as well as 400, 600 articles. I'm just curious to know 1) what the real number is, and 2) why so many people are using different numbers.

Fascinating that within a section or prose about indexing within MiddleMarch (set in 1829 to 1832 and published in 1871-1872), George Eliot compares a character's distinguished appearance to that of John Locke!

Mr. Brooke asks for advice about arranging notes as he has tried pigeon holes but has the common issue of multiple storage and can't remember under which letter he's filed his particular note. Mr. Casaubon indicates that he uses pigeon-holes.

Dorothea Brooke mentions that she knows how to properly index papers so that they might be searched for and found later. She is likely aware of John Locke's indexing method from 1685 (or in English in 1706) and in the same scene compares Mr. Casaubon's appearance to Locke.

RE: Thinking about Luhmann's ZKI and ZKII at https://hypothes.is/a/nEPjVPN3Ee6EheNfkl3DfA

I have to wonder if there's an explicit nod to both ZKI and ZKII in Daniel Lüdecke's naming of ZKN3 here? or had he simply gone through prior iterations of the software himself?

Given his experience in the space, the work of creating a second index (card index/zettelkasten), marks an important change or shift in perspective.

This may shed light on Niklas Luhmann's practices between ZKI and ZKII. What were the important differences between the two? Presumably closer focus was important for ZKII.

Substituting what Kaiser calls "superior for inferior control" which he defines as "reorganization" is a path which allows for the ideas behind the progressive enhancement of raw (fleeting) notes to commonplacing, to indexing, to a Luhmann-artig zettelkasten to work for a broad variety of people. Not everyone will require the same level of organization.

This is the reasoning for why we'll want an indexed system. The vast wealth of information may be overwhelming, but with the ability to organize and control it (by writing it down and indexing it) we can turn it into something useful.

Even in writing his book, which takes the form of a numbered and indexed card index, he's making explicit links to the similar card index which he made in volume 1 of the book. It's as if he's created his own hypertext of linked material between the two volumes.

Julius Kaiser built a card index (zettelkasten) of 50,000 index cards based on a system he says he worked out between 1896-7 when he was Librarian of the Philadelphia Commercial Museum. In following years he applied the system to three additional card indexes (of unmentioned sizes).

His experience in doing this provides significant ethos for his coming arguments and discussion.

Part of Luhmann's practice in looking up ideas to place in his zettelkasten first was a means of preventing duplication of ideas. If an idea is repeated, that can be noted on the extant card as evidence that others see the idea too or one can compare the potential subtle differences as a means of expanding the space.

Eliminating duplication also assists in the ratchet effect of collecting information and connecting it.

I appreciate his emphasis on "always" here. Though given our current rise of artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, this is obviously a problem which people are attempting to overcome.

Sadly, AI seem to be designed for the commercial masses in the same way that Google Search is (cross reference: https://hypothes.is/a/jx6MYvETEe6Ip2OnCJnJbg), so without a large enough model of your own interests, can AI solve your personal problems? And if this is the case, how much data will it really need? To solve this problem, you need your own storehouse of personally curated data to teach an AI. Even if you have such a store for an AI, will the AI still proceed in the direction you would in reality or will it represent some stochastic or random process from the point it leaves your personal data set?

How do we get around the chicken-and-egg problem here? What else might the solution space look like outside of this sketch?

Kaiser's argument for why building a personal index of notes is more valuable than relying on the indexes of others.

Note that this is answer still stands firmly even after the advent of both the Mundaneum, Google, and other digital search methods (not to mention his statement about ignoring advertising, which obviously had irksome aspects even in 1911.) Our needs and desires are idiosyncratic, so our personal indexes are going to be imminently more valuable to us over time because of these idiosyncrasies. Sure, you could just Google it, but Google answers stand alone and don't build you toward insight without the added work of creating your own index.

Some of this is bound up in the idea that your own personal notes are far more valuable than the notes someone else may have taken and passed along to you.

https://fromm-online.org/mediathek-und-download/exzerpte-sammlung-erich-fromms/<br /> Exzerpte Sammlung Erich Fromms

Excerpts as .pdf: https://fromm-online.org/wp-content/uploads/lists/4.04%20Excerpts%20collection%20of%20Erich%20Fromm.pdf

What great advice this is in general, but especially for those who are attempting to copy or recreate Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten for themselves.

Regular note taking practice will be the best indicator of when potential improvements are worthwhile. Though you may see someone else's advice, workflows, or potential improvements, they may be just as likely not to work for you and your particular needs. Adopting changes without thinking them through or even practicing them for a while are more likely to cause harm, regret, or additional work without any value added to the system.

While many will be interested in improving, expanding, or constantly changing their note taking systems, centuries of practice and experience indicate as Julius Kaiser says that they "must eventually prove fatal" (¶361). Allow simplicity, consistency, and continuity to be your watchwords and put your creativity into your reading and writing rather than into the system and workflows themselves. Additional rules and workflows will result in extra work which doesn't produce results in the long term. These will make your work more complicated, less likely to be consistent, and generally will destroy your ability to create continuity.

This advice also generally applies to one's one personal zettelkasten, much less a group version.

we have forbidden what we wish to enforce in another in however small a degree it may be ; or very probably we shall find that cases or conditions arise, when our rules are inapplicable, our wording is faulty or our meaning ambiguous.

Placing call numbers or location numbers on items to be filed allows them to be separated from other items while placing cross-references or links allows them to be brought back together again. These two affordances allow for divergence as well as convergence of items or ideas.

While some sources (which? Kaiser implies that there are some, though they may have been based on anecdotal evidence) apparently recommend to use one number for each firm, Kaiser admonishes users to stay away from this rule as not all firms will also take up space within each particular category. He recommends using consecutive numbering within each category so that there are no gaps. This lack of any gaps will reveal in the future when things may be missing from one's system.

In describing classification schemes for card index-based business uses, Julius Kaiser indicated in 1908 that "elaborate library classifications were either inapplicable or much too complicated and therefore unmanageable." This is in part because of the standardization of the Dewey Decimal System, which may have provided efficiencies for library systems, but proved too rigid for the idiosyncrasies of a variety of businesses. Instead he describes an alpha-numeric system in which numbers provide simple means of finding while the initial alphabetic codes assign specific office-related classes (correspondence, press cuttings, catalogs, etc.) to the indexed materials.

This quote is broadly recognized in economic settings as true, but few in the knowledge management space place emphasis or focus on designing both simple systems which are easy to master and use on a regular, ongoing basis. This allows the knowledge worker the ability to more quickly (almost blindly) handle their indexing and filing operations so that things are precisely where they need them when required for use.

Poor design will not only decrease the ease of use, but also discourage the user from both efficiently using and benefiting from their systems.

Even simple and efficient filing systems require familiarity and expertise for them to effect useful gains to their users, and prove their effectiveness over time. If a user can't get to a basic level of functionality in short time, they're likely to give up on it and never see the ultimate benefits.

Index card quality can be important for cards that are repeatedly used.

This admonition was more frequently attended to with respect to library card catalogs, but potentially less followed in personal use—Niklas Luhmann's self-cut paper slips which wore ragged over time come quickly to mind here.

¶5

The book is ostensibly in the form of a card index with numbers laid out in running order to create a book. The index is also done keyed to these paragraph numbers rather than by page as has traditionally been done.

As a result, one could cut up the book (or two copies to get both sides) and turn it back into a card index with very little work.

companion volumes treated the topics of "analysing literature" and the application of tabulated cards to practical business "at the Factory".

see: Kaiser, J. Systematic Indexing. The Card System Series 2. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., 1911. http://archive.org/details/systematicindexi00kaisuoft.

https://archive.org/details/run-de-1986-10/page/120/mode/2up

"RUN – Unabhängiges Commodore Computermagazin", Ausgabe 10/Oktober 1986, which has a hexdump code listing of a C64 Zettelkasten

ᔥ[Michael Gisiger[]] in mastodon: (@gisiger@nerdculture.de)

Lust auf #Retrocomputing und #PKM mit einem #Zettelkasten? Bitte schön, in der Oktober-Ausgabe 1986 des #Commodore Magazins RUN findet sich ein Listing für den #C64 dazu. Viel Spass beim Abtippen 😅

https://archive.org/details/run-de-1986-10/page/120/mode/2up

See additional conversation at: https://www.reddit.com/r/c64/comments/1bg0ja1/does_anyone_have_the_zettelkasten_program_from/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

https://pipdecks.com/

Also targeting business executives (via YouTube) as a storytelling deck: https://pipdecks.com/pages/storyteller-tactics-card-deck

Described as "expert knowledge in your back pocket", and sold as a "toolkit" with "practical step-by-step recipes", and "templates."

They offer 7 decks of tactics for Brand, Team, Storytelling, Innovation, Productivity, Team, Workshop, Strategy.

/reply at Digital Fitness in response to Agnes Lausen about folgezettel

Hey Agnes, thanks a lot for attending. I rlly loved the energy and loved doing the workshop. As to your question, yes I do use obsidian for my zettelkasten. As to the numbering, it gives me a few benefits. Firstly, it forces me to make a link. If I am going to import a new note, I will have to link the note to another note, because I have to give an ID (number). This prevents orphan notes. And, it gives me a visual sense of what is going on in my zettelkasten. I can see at a glance if a section has more notes than others (my section 4, for example, has more notes.) Both the ID and the statement title, for me, gives me so much context just seeing the title without looking at the contents.

This is a useful frame with respect to any process.

How would one apply it to zettelkasten for those having issues in their workflows?

One could consider the simplicity of ars excerpendi/zettelkasten against the phrase "trust the process", and this is fine for some of the lower level collecting methods, but one needs to be careful not to fall trap to the complacency of only collecting and not using the collection to actively create.

Many people rely too much on the collection portion of the process and don't put any work into the use or creation portions. They may be left wondering what the ultimate value is of their unused collection of treasure.

Indexing the world into a commonplace book, zettelkasten, or other means can create new perspectives on the world in which we live. It thereby helps to prevent the sorts of cognitive bias which we might otherwise fall trap to.

This example of Homes indexing crime gives him a dramatically different perspective on crime in the countryside to Watson who only sees the beauty in the story of "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1bdpe68/is_the_zettelkasten_just_for_organised_people/

This could be used as a stand alone app for viewing and arranging "index cards" as a digital outliner for organizing ideas.

https://blyt.net/phxslides/

A slideshow could be thought of as an individual playlist or outline for a particular article, chapter, or book.

Phoenix Slides https://blyt.net/phxslides/

via Peter Kaminski:

A fast, free image viewer I use for sifting through thousands of images:

I love the tying together of the "aliveness" of a zettelkasten with the "soul" of the phonograph here.

https://qnnnp.medium.com/is-a-second-brain-superior-to-no-brainer-writing-c494dc86d429

Obsidian templates via Edmund Gröpl<br /> https://github.com/groepl/Obsidian-Templates

aka u/International_Bed897 and also on forum.zettelkasten.de

Listened to [[Jorge Arango]] in Beck Tench on Tinderbox

https://web.archive.org/web/20240305193114/https://writing.bobdoto.computer/how-to-use-folgezettel-in-your-zettelkasten-everything-you-need-to-know-to-get-started/

I regularly come across posts wrt to use Folgezettel or not, and whether there's a role for them outside 'Luhmann purism'. Bob Doto is vocal about it, or has been over the yrs. I get three elements from this: 1. The numerical branches and numbers are emergent, not preplanned like Johnny Decimal or as people once suggested for common placing 1. It forces a first link. Which also serves as a mental anchor. This is something that can work regardless of Folgezettel. I also always add at least one link. The thing is I do not fixate that link by marking them as the original or something like that. I could however do that in some way. The same is true for exploring the collection. It might help as an entry point (and you may have a mental map of the main numbered branches) but that works without numbering too: I know from the graph where main sections of my notes are and use that as starting point. 1. Luhmann and Doto remarked it helps preserve original lines of reasoning /argumentation from a source text or their thinking session. This is something I currently don't really have, and do miss. I do at times create an overview note for such things, and I sometimes add 'link trains' to a note, linking to an overarching concept and following concept and an example. I am not sure that introducing numbering is key in keeping lines of argumentation visible/traceable. This is one of the things to think about n:: numbering systems allow keeping lines of reasoning

https://chat.openai.com/g/g-z5XcnT7cQ-zettel-critique-assistant

Zettel Critique Assistant<br /> By Florian Lengyel<br /> Critique Zettels following three rules: Zettels should have a single focus, WikiLinks indicate a shift in focus, Zettels should be written for your future self. The GPT will suggest how to split multi-focused notes into separate notes. Create structure note from a list of note titles and abstracts.

ᔥ[[ZettelDistraction]] in Share with us what is happening in your ZK this week. February 20, 2024

https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1avz21q/what_to_teach_in_an_obsidian_workshop_at/

Fleeting notes aren't permanently stored in the zettelkasten

Duncan, Dennis. Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age. 1st ed. London: Allen Lane, 2021. https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324002543.

annotation link: urn:x-pdf:a4bd1877f0712efcc681d33d58777e55

https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3Aa4bd1877f0712efcc681d33d58777e55

I'm curious if anyone frames their zettelkasten practice in terms of disputation via the scholastic tradition? <br /> context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disputation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vhEmiHodUU How to Automatically Be More Creative by Morganeua

https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1aquhwp/the_problem_of_zettelkasen_transparency/

One of the more philosophical posts in the r/zettelkasten space....

Able to see lots of cards at once.

ZK practice inspired by Ahrens, but had practice based on Umberto Eco's book before that.

Broad subjects for his Ph.D. studies: Ecology in architecture / environmentalism

3 parts: - zk main cards - bibliography / keywords - chronological section (history of ecology)

Four "drawers" and space for blank cards and supplies. Built on wheels to allow movement. Has a foldable cover.

He has analog practice because he worries about companies closing and taking notes with them.

Watched TheNoPoet's How I use my analog Zettelkasten.

https://www.youtube.com/@TheIdiotPoet

Bought a photo printer so he could include images and photos in his zettelkasten

Watched [[The Unenlightened Generalists]] in Linked Notes: An Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method

A 28:30 intro to zettelkasten. I could only make it about 10 minutes in. Fine, but nothing more than yet another "one pager" on method with a modified version of the Luhmann myth as motivation.

reference for this?

definition: syndetic structure is one of coherency and resolution made up by referential links.

Why is no one using this word in the zettelkasten space?

The adjective "syndetic" means "serving to connect" or "to be connected by a conjunction". (A conjunction being a word used to connect words, phrases and clauses, for example: and, but, if). The antonym is "asyndetic" (connections made without conjoins)

List of names for computerized library card catalogs at various libraries.

https://www.amazon.com/Knape-Vogt-Card-Size-Follower-Anochrome/dp/B0006FKQJ4

https://www.wwhardware.com/catalog/product/view/_ignore_category/1/id/3588/s/kv-index-follower-and-track-kv047/

https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/hardware/storage-and-organization/files/69118-index-followers

Listed as an "Index Follower". Looks to be the same model as https://www.wwhardware.com/catalog/product/view/_ignore_category/1/id/3588/s/kv-index-follower-and-track-kv047/

by u/osservazione at https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/1anwrez/zauberkasten_work_in_progress/

Mr Collier had a special technique. He cut out the quotations and, dipping a brush in sweet-smelling Perkins Paste glue, he stuck the quotation onto the slip. It was quick, and some nights he could get through 100 slips. Just him and the sound of his scissors, the incessant croak of cicadas, and the greasy smell of the neighbour’s lamb chops hanging in the close air. Around midnight, he would stop work, gather up the scraps of paper, clear the table,

zettelkasten and nudity!!!

The first edition of the Oxford English dictionary was published in 1928 in 10 volumes containing 414,825 entries and 1,827,306 quotations.

One of the longest serving OED contributors, Edward Peacock wrote 24,806 slips over 54 years which comes to approximately 1.25 notes per day.

over how long a period?

Job Pierson 43,055 slips over 11 years<br /> 10.7 notes per day

compare with scrap heaps or even the method of Eminem's zettelkasten (Eminem's gloryhole ???). rofl...

What was his slip total to give a notes per day calculation?

(obviously not taking into account his other work...)

Presumably this dictionary also used a card index for collection? (check...)

repetition here from before to introduce mental health...

thousands of slips...

James Murray's instructions to Miss E. Hilda Taylor in 1914 for how to read for excerpting of useful words for the Oxford English Dictionary.

Compare this with his original instructions from circa 1879.

Also: https://hypothes.is/a/3S08ysbDEe6Ca5tVAqEABQ

see: https://hypothes.is/a/rYYCXsbDEe6fpR-_EMl5Fw

It is incredibly difficult to plan in advance what to collect for any zettelkasten, even when its scope is tightly defined, like it would have been for the Oxford English Dictionary.

By the second year into his editing work on the OED, John Murray estimated that he had sent out 817,625 slips to readers.

At the average price of $0.025 for bulk index cards in 2023, this would have cost $20,440, so one must wonder at the cost of having done it. How much would this have been in March 1879 when Murray tool over editorship?

How many went out in total? Who cut them all? Surely mass manufacture didn't exist at the time for them?

Sending them out would have helped to ensure a reasonable facsimile of having cards of equal size coming back.

Perhaps one of the first sources of counting slips in weight rather than number!

This practice of writing out everything onto slips sounds like that used later (double check the timing) by the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae in creating their slip corpus for later work.

Oxford English Dictionary (1857 - )

They looked exactly like the slips sent into the OED by the Dictionary People. There was a world map

Lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie, a previous editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, said she "had worked in the OED archives for years and the contents of the Grimmwelt Museum looked identical" to them. She indicated that the similarity of the dictionary projects extended to the hundreds of volunteers, lists of words, counts of entries, etymology work, citations from published sources, and general philological methods used by the editors of the era.

The Grimmwelt Museum in Kassel, Germany is the home of some of the work of Grimm Brothers work on the Deutsches Wörterbuch which features a large wall of zettel or slips hanging from long nails.

The slips hanging on nails sounds similar to Thomas Harrison's 1740's wooden cabinet of hanging slips used for excerpts and isn't far off from the organizational structure used by the subsequent Oxford English Dictionary's pigeonhole system of organization for their slip collection.

see: https://hypothes.is/a/kVW3glq0EeyihQ834uN_Ig

Top slip contributors to OED: 1. Thomas Austin Jnr. 165,061 slips over 10 years (45.22 notes per day) 2. William Douglas 151,982 over 22 years (18.92 notes per day) 3. Thomas Nadauld Brushfield 70,277 over 28 years (1.98 notes per day) 4. William Chester Minor 62,720 slips over 23 years (to 1906) (7.5 notes per day)

Tens of thousands of books were used to draw the quotations used in the OED.

Sarah Ogilvie found a total of three address books from Dr. Murray as well as three address books from Frederick Furnivall which contained details about the three thousand or so contributors to the OED.

The scriptorium for the OED relied on shelves of pigeonholes into which the slips could be sorted and stored.

There are photos of Murray with these pigeonholes stuffed behind him. Dig one of these up.

This pigeonhole practice is in marked difference to other projects like the TLL which relied on boxes on shelves.

Considered outside of Oxford at the time, Dr. Murray fashioned the Scriptorium at his house at 78 Banbury Road. Murray received so much mail that the Royal Mail installed a red pillar box just to handle the volume.

The slips for the OED were sorted alphabetically and then grouped chronologically and by sense of meanings of the words.

Volunteer 'Readers' for the Oxford English Dictionary were encouraged to write down interesting headwords along with their appearances in-situ along with the associated bibliographical information. The recommended paper size was 4 x 6-inch pieces of paper which were commonly called 'slips'.

(Double check this against the historical requests from James Murray.)

Ogilvie, Sarah. The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary. 1st ed. New York: Knopf, 2023. https://amzn.to/3Un0sv9.

Read from 2023-12-04 to 2024-02-01

Annotation URL: urn:x-pdf:c95483c701c7fc677e89f2c44f98a30b

How to make time for your Zettelkasten<br /> by Fernando Nóbel

meh, nothing new/insightfu....

I'm contemplating buying some nails to make a Brothers Grimm-esque zettelwand to arrange my next piece. Forget Post-It Notes! Chris Rock eat your heart out. (h/t Thomas Harrison, 1740s)

#OldSchool #analog #FTW

see also: https://hyp.is/lczNTMazEe6bU_fwliPccg/www.grimmwelt.de/en/exhibitions/grimmwelt

Syndication link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1am3fz2/a_zettelwand/

https://www.grimmwelt.de/en/exhibitions/grimmwelt

Almay Stock image of the zettel nailed to the wall of the Grimmwelt Museum.

available at https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-kassel-germany-04th-sep-2015-handwritten-notes-on-slips-of-paper-per-87120004.html?imageid=631BF48C-B8A9-4C47-A06D-C8D0A1977E32&p=173981&pn=1&searchId=f05b0873a45b69226316dbba98960532&searchtype=0

https://qnnnp.substack.com/p/zettelkasten-eb5

quick overview article of Luhmann research sources on his zettelkasten, nothing new to me here.

https://forum.the-big-bang-theory.com/topic/357-card-catalog/

Likely just decoration, but did Leonard or Sheldon ever interact with the card catalog in their apartment? A zettelkasten perhaps?

https://findingaids.lib.umich.edu/catalog/umich-bhl-0183

https://buyolympia.com/Item/bumper-crop-ask-me-about-my-rich-inner-life

I saw a bumper sticker on a car this afternoon that read "Ask Me About My Rich Inner Life". I think I'm going to have to buy one to put on my zettelkasten.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/126p7tk/what_its_like_to_have_a_conversation_with_your/

Your zettelkasten, having a perfect memory of your "past self" acts as a ratchet so that when you have a new conversation on a particular topic, your "present self" can quickly remember where you left off and not only advance the arguments but leave an associative trail for your "future self" to continue on again later.

Many thoughts and associations occur when you're having conversations with any text, whether it's with something you're reading by another author or your own notes in your zettelkasten or commonplace book. For more conversations on this topic, perhaps thumb through: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=tag%3A%27conversations+with+the+text%27

If you view conversations broadly as means of finding and collecting information from external sources and naturally associating them together, perhaps you'll appreciate this quote:

No piece of information is superior to any other. Power lies in having them all on file and then finding the connections. There are always connections; you have only to want to find them.—Umberto Eco in Foucault's Pendulum (Secker & Warburg)

(Reply to u/u/Plastic-Lettuce-7150 at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1ae2qf4/communicating_with_a_zettelkasten/)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1aglte6/eink_tablets/

I've yet to run across anyone excited about zettelkasten on their e-ink device. The note taking experience for writing/capturing seems to be there, but a user interface for sorting, searching, and interlinking seems to be wholly missing.

u/tylermangelson named his zettelkasten J.A.K.O.B.

https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/1aecx27/naming_my_baby_antinet/

https://www.ebay.com/itm/325982715454

35 drawer modular card catalog in light mid century modern design. Table with stick legs a 5x6 section including two pull out writing drawers, a 5x1 section and a top. Likely maple, in great shape. All wood and metal, includes all rods.

Listed in 2024-01-29 for $3995.00 with freight shipping extra from South Bend, IN

Labeled as a Centura 400 (model?)

Cost per drawer: $114.00

This is the first time I've seen a catalog from Sjöström on the market though on searching there are a handful floating around.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/276296844684

I've sketched it out elsewhere but let's memorialize the broad strokes here because we're inspired at the moment... come back later and add in quotes from Luhmann and other sources (@Heyde1931).

Luhmann was balancing the differences between topically arranged commonplaces and the topical nature of the Dewey Decimal System (a standardized version across thousands of collections) and building neighborhoods of related ideas.

One of the issues with commonplace books, is planning them out in advance. How might you split up a notebook for long term use to create easy categories when you don't know how much room to give each in advance? (If you don't believe me, stop by r/commonplacebooks where you're likely to see this question pop up several times this year.) This issue is remedied when John Locke suggests keeping commonplaces in chronological order of their appearance and cross-indexing them.

This creates a new problem of a lot of indexing and increased searching over time as the commonplace book scales. Translating to index cards complicates things because they're unattached and can potentially move about, so they don't have the anchor effectuated by their being bound up in a notebook. But being on slips allows them to be more easily shuffled, rearranged, and even put into outlines, which are all fantastic affordances when looking for creativity or scaffolding things out into an article or book for creation.

As a result, numbering slips creates a solid anchor by which the cards can be placed and always returned for later finding and use. But how should we number them? Should it be with integers and done chronologically? (1, 2, 3, ..., n) This is nice, but makes a mish-mash of things and doesn't assist much in indexing or finding.

Why not go back to Dewey, which has been so popular? But not Dewey in the broadest sense of using numbers to tie ideas to concrete categories. An individual's notes are idiosyncratic and it would be increasingly rare for people to have the same note, much less need a standardized number for it (and if they were standardized, who does that work and how is it distributed so everyone could use it?) No, instead, let's just borrow the decimal structure of Dewey's system. One of the benefits of his decimal structure is that an infinity of new books can be placed on ever-expanding bookshelves without needing to restructure the numbering system. Just keep adding decimal places onto the end when necessary. This allows for immense density when necessary. But, importantly, it also provides some fantastic level of serendipity.

Let's say you go to learn about geometry, so you look up the topic in your trusty library card catalog. Do you really need to look at the hundreds of records returned? Probably not. You only need the the Dewey Decimal Number 516. Once you're at the shelves, you can browse through that section to see what's there and interesting in the space. You might also find things on the shelves above or below 516 and find the delights of topology and number theory or abstract algebra and real analysis. Subjects you might not necessarily have had in mind will suddenly present themselves for your consideration. Even if your initial interest may have been in Zhongmin Shen's Lectures on Finsler geometry (516.375), you might also profitably walk away with James E. Humphreys' Introduction to Lie Algebras and Representation Theory (512.55).

So what happens if we use these decimal numbers for our notes? First we will have the ability to file things between and amongst each other to infinity. By filing things closest to things which seem related to each other, we'll create neighborhoods of ideas which can easily grow over time. Related ideas will stay together while seemingly related ideas on first blush may slowly grow away from each other over time as even more closely related ideas move into the neighborhood between them. With time and careful work, you'll have not only a breadth of ideas, but a massive depth of them too.

The use of decimal numbering provides us with a few additional affordances:

1 (Neighborhoods of ideas) 1.1 combinatorial creativity Neighborhoods of ideas can help to fuel combinatorial creativity and forge new connections as well as insight over time. 1.2 writing One might take advantage of these growing neighborhoods to create new things. Perhaps you've been working for a while and you see you have a large number of cards in a particular area. You can, to some extent, put your hand into your box and grab a tranche of notes. By force of filing, these notes are going to be reasonably related, which means you should be able to use them to write a blog post, an article, a magazine piece, a chapter, or even an entire book (which may require a few fistfuls, as necessary.)

2 (Sparse indexing) We don't need to index each and every single topic or concept into our index. Because we've filed things nearby, if a new card about Finsler geometry relates to another and we've already indexed the first under that topic, then we don't need to index the second, because our future selves can easily rely on the fact that if we're interested in Finsler geometry in the future, we can look that up in the index, and go to that number where we're likely to see other cards related to the topic as well as additional serendipitous ideas related to them in that same neighborhood.

You may have heard that as Luhmann progressed on his decades long project, broadly on society and within the area of sociology, he managed to amass 90,000 index cards. How many do you suppose he indexed under the topic of sociology? Certainly he had 10s of thousands relating to his favorite subject, no? Of course he did, but what would happen over time as a collection grows? Having 20,000 indexed entries about sociology doesn't scale well for your search needs. Even 10 indexed entries may be a bit overwhelming as once you find a top level card, hundreds to thousands around it are going to be related. 10 x 100 = 1,000 cards to flip through. So if you're indexing, be conservative. In the roughly 45 years of creating 90,000 slips, Luhmann only indexed two cards with the topic of "sociology". If you look through his index, you'll find that most of his topical entries only have pointers to one or two cards, which provide an entryway into those topics which are backed up with dozens to hundreds of cards on related topics. In rarer, instances you might find three or four, but it's incredibly rare to find more than that.

Over time, one will find that, for the topics one is most interested in, the number of ideas and cards will grown without bound. Here it makes sense to use more and more specific topics (tags, categories, taxonomies) all of which are each also sparsely indexed. Ultimately one finds that in the limit, the categories get so fractionalized that the closest category one idea has with another is the fact that they're juxtaposed closely by number. The of the decimal expansion might say something about the depth or breadth of the relationship between ideas.

Something else arises here. At first one may have the tendency to associate their numbers with topical categories. This is only natural as it's a function at which humans all excel. But are those numbers really categories after a few weeks? Probably not. Treat them only as address numbers or GPS coordinates to be able to find your way. Your sociology section may quickly find itself with invasive species of ideas from anthropology and archaeology as well as history. If you treat all your ideas only at the topical level, they'll be miles away from where you need them to be as the smallest level atomic ideas collide with each other to generate new ideas for you. Naturally you can place them further away if you wish and attempt to bridge the distance with links to numbers in other locations, but I suspect you'll find this becomes pretty tedious over time and antithetical when it comes time to pull out a handful and write something. It's fantastically easier to pull out a several dozen and begin than it is to go through and need to pull out linked cards in a onesy-twosies manner or double check with your index to make sure you've gotten the most interesting bits. This becomes even more important as your collection scales.

https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/2809/brainstorming-the-benefits-of-the-zettelkasten-and-the-zettelkasten-method#latest

Watching this thread for ideas.

Doto, Bob. “What Do We Mean When We Say ‘Bottom-Up?’” Writing by Bob Doto (blog), January 25, 2024. https://writing.bobdoto.computer/what-do-we-mean-when-we-say-bottom-up/.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240125111157/https://boffosocko.com/2024/01/24/rev-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-s-zettelkasten/

Chris keeps surfacing nice examples of people using index card systems for pkm and learning. Here Martin Luther King jr.

The key question here is: what the Zettelkasten really is?

There is argument about something which is not provided: definition of ZK.

When it will be the definition, then it can be argued, but so there are only two one-sided heads talking to themselves about different things, but which have something in common, so they can talk endlessly.

And it has nothing to do with knowledge management, note-taking or learning, because it can be done in many ways, so then there is no need to discuss about it in terms of misunderstanding.

Misunderstanding and fallacies can be talked in terms of definitions or ideas, but it should be any will to compromise some limitations and not putting everything under umbrella-terms.

Will someone discuss that bloggers write texts like ancient philosophers so for example Plato was very first blogger? There are texts and written thoughts in both cases, aren't they!?

reply to u/chasemac_ at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/19ep9rc/comment/kjempeu/

I'm curious from where you draw your "original purpose" claim? This presupposes having identified a zettelkasten progenitor who has clearly made such a statement. (If you're thinking Luhmann, you're missing the mark by centuries. And even if you're thinking Luhmann, where did he say this specifically?) While Konrad Gessner seems to have been an early progenitor in 1548, the broader idea goes much further back. Even in the early days of the commonplace book, the primary analogy was using them as "storehouses" for collecting treasure (thesaurus) aka knowledge or wisdom.

Even Luhmann's framing of his zettelkasten as his "second memory" was old by the time he wrote it:

In a short academic dissertation on the art of excerpts, Andreas Stübel described the card index as a ‘secondary and subsidiary memory’ (‘memoria secundaria and subsidiaria’), summing up in just three words the dilemma scholars had been struggling with for two centuries with respect to the use of commonplace books. As far as I know, Stübel was the first among contemporaries to speak of secondary memory. —Alberto Cevolini in “Where Does Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index Come From?” Erudition and the Republic of Letters 3, no. 4 (October 24, 2018): 390–420. https://doi.org/10.1163/24055069-00304002.

If we look even further back we read Seneca the Younger in Epistulae morales, writing positively about collecting with respect to classic rhetoric:

"We should follow, men say, the example of the bees, who flit about and cull the flowers that are suitable for producing honey, and then arrange and assort in their cells all that they have brought in;

Without a clear originator, I might suggest that historically the first purpose was for memory followed closely by learning and then accumulating wisdom and knowledge (sententiae). Using them for output only came much later.

Why is there so much bad ink in the zettelkasten space about about "collecting"? (a la the "collector's fallacy") If you collect nothing, you'll have nothing. You have to start somewhere. Collecting happens first before anything useful comes out of the enterprise. Where are all these "people [who] do nothing but boast about the amount of cards in their box"? I'm not seeing lots of evidence of them in fora or online certainly. Show us your collection of examples of those to back up the claim. Are there index card hoarders out there who honestly have tens of thousands of notes with absolutely no purpose? I suspect it's rare.

If you're a collector, collect away! Take solace in the words of historian Keith Thomas:

Unfortunately, such diverse topics as literacy, numeracy, gestures, jokes, sexual morality, personal cleanliness or the treatment of animals, though central to my concerns, are hard to pursue systematically. They can’t be investigated in a single archive or repository of information. Progress depends on building up a picture from a mass of casual and unpredictable references accumulated over a long period. That makes them unsuitable subjects for a doctoral thesis, which has to be completed in a few years. But they are just the thing for a lifetime’s reading. So when I read, I am looking out for material relating to several hundred different topics.

reply to Karen Hume at https://jillianhess.substack.com/p/martin-luther-king-jrs-organizational/comment/47959537

It is incredibly unlikely that King was aware of Luhmann's organizational structure as their practices were contemporaneous right down to their starting years. Luhmann's ZK1 comprises 7 sections with about 23,000 notes written from about 1952 to 1961 while the Morehouse Collection indicates that concerning King's research notes archive "The bulk of the notes were taken as reference material for King’s coursework while a doctoral student at Boston University (1952-1955), including notes taken specifically as reference material for King’s dissertation..." I've been actively searching for several years now, and have yet to find anyone following Luhmann's structure until after the Marbach Exhibition "Zettelkästen. Machines of Fantasy" in 2013. Broadly most have historically followed a variation of a subject heading organization, with or without indexing, similar to that found in the commonplace book tradition and described in Johannes Erich Heyde's book Technik des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens; eine Anleitung, besonders für Studierende (multiple editions including 1931 & 1951), which was a work Luhmann read when devising his own system.

Incidentally it looks like MLK was using Weis No. 35 boxes, a version of which is still available, now from Globe-Weis: https://amzn.to/3vVcO3c. Perhaps some enterprising teachers will help students create their own versions now?

https://findingaids.auctr.edu/repositories/2/resources/159/collection_organization

Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection: Series 4: Research Notes<br /> Collection Identifier: 0000-0000-0000-0131i

This seems to be the bulk of where MLK's zettelkasten is maintained, in particular: - The General Subject file: https://findingaids.auctr.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/176973 - The Theologian's Debate Box https://findingaids.auctr.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/176974 - The Subject Index File: https://findingaids.auctr.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/176975 - The Author Index File: https://findingaids.auctr.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/176976

https://morehouse.edu/life/campus/martin-luther-king-jr-collection/overview/

Pictured here are three card index files, one specifically labeled as "Subject Index File" and visibly labeled on the back wall as a "Weiss No. 35". One of the individual tabs in the rear of the subject index file behind the A-Z tabs is labeled "Salvation".

Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection: Series 4: Research Notes Collection Identifier: 0000-0000-0000-0131i

https://findingaids.auctr.edu/repositories/2/resources/159

Hess, Jillian. “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Organizational Systems.” Substack newsletter. Noted (blog), January 22, 2024. https://jillianhess.substack.com/p/martin-luther-king-jrs-organizational.

In addition to his card index, Martin Luther King, Jr. compiled a collection of 166 folders organized around various topics which he used to organize outlines, clippings, pages from books, and other source materials as well as drafts of sermons or speeches on those topics.

To some extent these folders are just larger format repositories mirroring the topical arrangements of his card index.

Jillian Hess' guess for the origin of King's plagiarism.

It's also possible that he came from a much more oral facing cultural upbringing rather than a dyed-in-the-wool academic one which focused on attribution.

example of a note from King's zettelkasten

Some of King's note cards later figured in his speeches including his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Martin Luther King, Jr. maintained a card index during his Ph.D. studies while he was at Boston University working in the area of systematic theology.

He created over a thousand notecards with respect to the Old Testament, many containing a mixture of biblical quotations as well as his own thoughts.

Nice to see that Bob Doto has joined the list of moderators at r/zettelkasten.

I Screwed Up but I Learned A Lot About the Zettelkasten<br /> by Curly Gruene Cahall<br /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFxZTq8oZhI

Without seeming to realize the split between the two ideas, Cahall seems to have organically discovered the basic difference between a topically oriented commonplace book method (on index cards) and a Luhmann-artig method of numbering cards as folgezettel.

He recommends picking one or the other, or potentially doing both and not worrying.

It would seem like a zettelkasten joke, but Cahall has an index entry on "singular focus", yet it has two entries in disparate places in his zk. [14:02]

🤣

Cahall has a practice of using Luhmann-artig numbering, but having tabbed cards which section his box into broad categories. Yet in an example relating to the Eisenhower Matrix, which he would naturally categorize as "productivity", he instead places it next to a card in "creativity" about dealing with tasks.

Generally I would advise people specifically not to practice this way, but presumably it works for him....

He says he never understood branching and as a result of his practice, he needs to spend much more time indexing.

Curly Gurene Cahall calls his zettelkasten "Sherlock".

Reply to Couscous at https://discord.com/channels/686053708261228577/722584061087842365/1197392837952684052

A quick survey of currently active academics, teachers, and researchers who are blogging about note taking practices and zettelkasten-based methods.

Individuals

Dan Allosso is a history professor at Bemidji State University who has used Obsidian in his courses in the past. He frequently writes about related topics on his Substack channels. One can also find related videos about reading, writing, and research process as well as zettelkasten on his YouTube channel. In addition to this, Dan has a book on note taking and writing which focuses on using a card index or zettelkasten centric process.

Shawn Graham has both a blog as well as a prior course on the history of the internet using Obsidian. In the course materials he has compiled significant details and suggestions for setting up an Obsidian vault for students interested in using the tool.

Kathleen Fitzpatrick has a significant blog which covers a variety of topics centered around her work and research. Her current course Peculiar Genres of Academic Writing (2024) focuses on writing, note taking (including Zettelkasten) and encourages students to try out Obsidian, which she's been using herself. A syllabus for an earlier version of the course includes some big name bloggers in academia whose sites might serve as examples of academic writing in the public. The syllabus also includes a section on being an academic blogger and creating platform as a public intellectual.

Morganeua is a Ph.D. candidate who has a fairly popular YouTube channel on note taking within the academic setting (broadly using Obsidian, though she does touch on other tools from time to time).

Chris Aldrich is independent research who does work at the intersection of intellectual history and note taking methods and practices. He's got an active website along with a large collection of note taking, zettelkasten, commonplace books, and sense-making related articles. His practice is a hybrid one using both analog and digital methods including Obsidian and Hypothes.is.

Bob Doto is a teacher and independent researcher who focuses on Luhmann-artig zettelkasten practice and writing. He uses Obsidian and also operates a private Discord server focused on general Zettelkasten practice.

Manfred Kuehn, a professor of philosophy at Boston University, had an influential blog on note taking practices and culture from 2007 to 2018 on Blogspot. While he's taken the site down, the majority of his work there can be found on the Internet Archive.

Andy Matuschak is an independent researcher who is working at the intersection of learning, knowledge management, reading and related topics. He's got a Patreon, YouTube Channel and a public wiki.

Broader community-based efforts

Here are some tool-specific as well as tool-agnostic web-based fora, chat rooms, etc. which are focused on academic-related note taking and will have a variety of people to follow and interact with.

Obsidian runs a large and diverse Discord server. In addition to many others, they have channels for #Academia and #Academic-tools as well as #Knowledge-management and #zettelkasten.

Tinderbox hosts regular meetups (see their forum for details on upcoming events and how to join). While their events are often product-focused (ways to use it, Q&A, etc.), frequently they've got invited speakers who talk about their work, processes, and methods of working. Past recorded sessions can be found on YouTube. While this is tool-specific, much of what is discussed in their meetups can broadly be applied to any tool set. Because Tinderbox has been around since the early 00s and heavily focused on academic use, the majority of participants in the community are highly tech literate academics whose age skews to the over 40 set.

A variety of Zettelkasten practitioners including several current and retired academicians using a variety of platforms can be found at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/.

Boris Mann and others held Tools for Thought meetups which had been regularly held through 2023. They may have some interesting archived material for perusal on both theory, practice, and a wide variety of tools.

Others?

I've tried to quickly tip out my own zettelkasten on this topic with a focus on larger repositories of active publicly available web-based material. Surely there is a much wider variety of people and resources not listed here, but it should be a reasonable primer for beginners. Feel free to reply with additional suggestions and resources of which you may be aware.

Software and applications for creating visualizations of zettelkasten contents: - Tinderbox (Mac) - Apple's Freeform (app) - Obsidian Canvas - Excalidraw (plugin for Obsidian) - Scrintal - Heptabase - Card Buddy (Mac) - AFFiNE (https://github.com/toeverything/AFFiNE)

https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/2797/an-app-to-represent-a-zettelkasten-or-parts-of-it-visually

Choosing an external system for knowledge keeping and production forces the learner into a deliberate practice and confronts them with their lack of understanding. This is a large part of the underlying value not only of the zettelkasten, but of the use of a commonplace book which Benjamin Franklin was getting at when recommending that one "read with a pen in your hand". The external system also creates a modality shift from reading to writing by way of thinking which further underlines the value.

What other building blocks are present in addition to: - modality shift - deliberate practice - confrontation of lack of understanding

Are there other systems that do all of these as well as others simultaneously?

link to Franklin quote: https://hypothes.is/a/HZeDKI3YEeyj9GcNWKX4iA

Hawk Sugano was introduced to index cards circa 2001 by means of Watanabe Shoichi's book “知的生活の方法” (A Method of Intellectual Life".

https://web.archive.org/web/20170530033313/http://pileofindexcards.org/blog/2006/08/20/me-and-indexcard/

https://web.archive.org/web/20180227130424/http://pileofindexcards.org/blog/2006/12/25/start-indexcard-provider-service/

Hawk Sugano apparently offered the Pile of Index Cards as a physical product offering by combining Correct's index card dock and Kokuyo's fieldnotes in late December 2006.

https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/1120/a-notebook-zettelkasten/p1

I could totally see this UI with a video generated version of Niklas Luhmann answering questions using the training set of notes in his online zettelkasten at https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/tutorial

syndication link: https://bavatuesdays.com/ai106-long-live-the-new-flesh/comment-page-1/#comment-388943

At least Scott Scheper is advising people to ignore the advice in his own book about numbering systems. (Too bad he didn't write that advice in his own book...)

https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/193c6bu/comment/khcbe5n/

https://www.etsy.com/shop/RelicWoodGifts

Etsy shop that does custom wooden boxes: Relic Wood Gifts<br /> Could be commissioned to do custom zettelkasten boxes.

I've seen an example of their work and it is stunningly nice.

via Librarian at Jefferson Branch of Pasadena Public library