The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae used the Meusel system for creating Zettel by utilizing double folio sheets onto which they copied text in hectographic ink which can be reproduced by lithography before cutting them up into slips.

Done alphabetically and then secondarily by chronological time. (Indicated in a box on the top left of each slip.) The number of copies of each slip is written in the bottom left hand corner and circled.

Forschung: Der Thesaurus linguae Latinae. Munich, Germany: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3Eqt2QBKNs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3Eqt2QBKNs

Based on the history and usage of horreum here in this first episode of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae podcast, a project featuring a 10+ million slip zettelkasten at its core, I can't help but think that not only is the word ever so apropos for an introduction, but it does quite make an excellent word for translating the idea of card index in English or Zettelkasten from German into Latin.

My horreum is a storehouse for my thoughts and ideas which nourishes my desire to discover and build upon my knowledge.

This seems to be just the sort of thing that Jeremy Cherfas might appreciate on multiple levels.

https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/download/nxm28u/Horreum.mp3

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

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

Hayes, William C. Review of Historical Records of Rameses III, by William F. Edgerton and John A. Wilson. American Journal of Archaeology 40, no. 4 (1936): 558–59. https://doi.org/10.2307/498809.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/498809

...have been diligently consulted and compared with the present versions and the authors have also availed themselves of the invaluable material contained in the Zettelkasten of the Berlin Wirterbuch der...

This is the oldest appearance of the word "Zettelkasten" appearing in a journal article which I could find on JSTOR.

I'm not surprised it's in a journal in the humanities and specifically on archaeology.

Update: even better, this has introduced me to a massive new ZK: Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache!

Where is Indiana Jones' zettelkasten?!

https://aaew.bbaw.de/thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae

https://aaew.bbaw.de/digitalisiertes-zettelarchiv

The Digitized Card Archive ( DZA ) of the Dictionary of the Egyptian Language (Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache) has been available on the Internet since 1999. The archive can be searched at: https://aaew.bbaw.de/tla/servlet/DzaIdx.

Since 2004, the materials and query functions have been integrated into the larger Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae project at https://aaew.bbaw.de/thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.

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

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

Structures and Transformations of the Vocabulary of the Egyptian Language: Text and Knowledge Culture in Ancient Egypt. “Altägyptisches Wörterbuch: Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften 1999,” 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20180627163317/https://aaew.bbaw.de/wbhome/Broschuere/index.html.

With support from the German Research Foundation, the 1.5 million sheets of the Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache began to be digitized and put online in 1997.

Google translation:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Correcting a text within a digital archive or database allows the change to propagate to all portions of the collection compared with a physical card index which has the hurdle of multiple storage and requires manual changes on all of the associated copies.

This sort of affordance can be seen in more modern note taking tools like Obsidian which does this sort of work with global search and replace of double bracketed words which change everywhere in the collection.

In the early twentieth century one might have created a card index to study a large textual corpus, but in the twenty first one is more likely to rely on a relational database instead.

In looking at the uses of and similarities between Wb and TLL, I can't help but think that these two zettelkasten represented the state of the art for Large Language Models and some of the ideas behind ChatGPT

Alternate sort orders for the slips for the Wb include chronological, grammatical, semantic, and graphic, but for teasing out the meanings the original sort order was sufficient. Certainly other sort orders may reveal additional subtleties.

The Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache slip box collection is almost 17 times the size of Niklas Luhmann's by number of slips (1,500,000/90,000 = 16.67) and 58.81 times the size in number of boxes (1588/27).Though keep in mind that due to the multiple storage here each card was copied ~40 times, so if only only counts individual cards then the collection would have been (1.5M/40) 375,000 slips, which is still more than 4 times the size of Luhmann's collection of slips.

See: https://hypothes.is/a/QMYAQMztEe2disvmvCAEAA for source of Wb number source.

The zettelkasten for the Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache comprises approximately 1.5 million slips for words and the card archive fills 1588 boxes.

The structure of the filing system for the Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache was designed based on the work done for the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae started in 1894. Texts in the collection were roughly divided into passages of about 30 words and written in hieroglyphic form on postcard-sized slips of paper. The heading contained the designation of the text and the body included the texts' context (inscriptions, etc.) as well as a preliminary translation of the passage.

These passages were then cross-referenced with other occurrences of the hieroglyphics to provide better progressive translations which ultimately appeared in the final manuscript. As a result some of the translations on the cards were incomplete as work proceeded and cross-comparisons of individual words were puzzled out.

A slip showing a passage of text from the victory stele of Sesostris III at the Nubian fortress of Semna. The handwriting is that of project leader Adolf Erman, who had "already struggled with the text as a high school student".

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

!!

McCauley, Edward Y. “A Dictionary of the Egyptian Language.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 16, no. 1 (1883): 1–241. https://doi.org/10.2307/1005403.

Prior to the Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache, but nothing brilliant with respect to use of a zettelkasten to create.

The split between the ideas of commonplace book and zettelkasten may stem from the time period of the Anglicization of the first. If Gessner was just forming the tenets of a zettelkasten practice in 1548 and the name following(?) [what was the first use of zettelkasten?] while the word commonplace was entering English in 1531 using a book format, then the two traditions would likely have been splitting from that point forward in their different areas.

reply to u/taurusnoises at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/11ov8qp/comment/jbvdyx8/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Thanks for the tip Bob, JSTOR was a reasonably quick/easy search (compared to the larger list I've got that'll take some manual digging.) The vast majority of instances I found within JSTOR were in full German contexts, and many definitely were in a negative contextual light (generally as an epithet—one went so far as to mention a smell— describing authors' poor structure, over-reliance on ZK, argument, or writing style, potentially as not providing appropriate context.) Fascinatingly the number of appearances of zettelkasten in any language began in the early 1900s and have grown from a dozen every decade to 150 this past decade with a marked increase in the 1980s and 90s.

The oldest one I found in an English language article was from:

Hayes, William C. Review of Historical Records of Rameses III, by William F. Edgerton and John A. Wilson. American Journal of Archaeology 40, no. 4 (1936): 558–59. https://doi.org/10.2307/498809. (JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/498809)

All available earlier copies and parallel texts have been diligently consulted and compared with the present versions and the authors have also availed themselves of the invaluable material contained in the Zettelkasten of the Berlin Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache.

Potentially not the very first English appearance, but 1936 is reasonably early. I wasn't surprised that it appeared in an archaeology journal.

Of particular interest is that it provides an indication that the "Berlin Dictionary" or the Dictionary of the Egyptian Language, which was begun in 1897 just two years after the beginning of the Mundaneum by Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine, began life as a multi-user zettelkasten. For those who are looking for the rare versions of collaborative zettelkasten, this is a new version for folks to research.

ägyptischen Sprache.

This is the first use of the word Zettelkasten in an English (non-German) context in JSTOR that I've been able to find.

Still likely not the first appearance, but reasonably early...

Süss, Wilhelm. Karl Morgenstern (1770-1852), eloquentiae, I - ll. Gr. et Lat., antiquitatum, aesthetices et historiae litterarum atque artis p.p.o. simulque bibliothecae academicae praefectus : ein kulturhistorischer Versuch. Dorpat : Mattiesen. Accessed March 24, 2023. https://jstor.org/stable/community.32963350.

Karl Morgenstern (1770-1852), eloquence, I - ll. Gr. and Lat., antiquities, aesthetics and history of literature and art ppo and at the same time in charge of the academic library: ein kulturhistorischer Versuch<br /> 1928<br /> Sweet, William<br /> Karl Morgenstern (1770-1852), eloquence, I - ll. Gr. and Lat., antiquities, aesthetics and history of literature and art ppo and at the same time in charge of the academic library: ein kulturhistorischer Versuch,

... the ancient ones etc., his note boxes filled with quotations He compares the nations, speaks of the Germans who, since Gellert, “read and write and read what. has, eyes.. other nation has one, Leipziger which boasts such staid mass catalogues?” But not the word interpreters of the ancients, who the ...

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

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

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

Müller, A., and A. Socin. “Heinrich Thorbecke’s Wissenschaftlicher Nachlass Und H. L. Fleischer’s Lexikalische Sammlungen.” Zeitschrift Der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 45, no. 3 (1891): 465–92. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43366657

Title translation: Heinrich Thorbecke's scientific estate and HL Fleischer's lexical collections Journal of the German Oriental Society

... wrote a note. There are about forty smaller and larger card boxes , some of which are not classified, but this work is now being undertaken to organize the library. In all there may be about 100,000 slips of paper; Of course, each note contains only one ...

Example of a scholar's Nachlass which contains a Zettelkasten.

Based on this quote, there is a significant zettelkasten example here.

Review: [Untitled] Roman und Satire im 18. Jahrhundert: Ein Beitrag zur Poetik by Jörg Schönert Review by: J. D. Workman Monatshefte, Vol. 62, No. 4 (Winter, 1970), pp. 420-421 https://www.jstor.org/stable/30156502

...form of the period for which there are no classical "rules." Schinert musters his evidence in an interesting and generally very lucid manner, although at times he may seem somewhat overzealous, if not indeed repetitious, in assembling all the data: at times one detects the faint odor of the Zettelkasten...

faint odor! ha! and in an English language document.

"Neither of us seems to be good for professors." The lectures by Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859) Steffen Martus Journal for German Studies , New Series, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2010), pp. 79-103 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23977728

... of knowledge that can be constantly rearranged, constantly expanded, constantly rebuilt, added to and sorted out. While the topography was fixed in the old systems of knowledge, new categories could easily be set up in the Zettelkasten , for example, under which knowledge found its place that had not been foreseen ...

Paris on the Amazon?: Postcolonial Interrogations of Benjamin’s European Modernism (pp. 216-245) Willi Bolle From: A Companion to the Works of Walter Benjamin, Camden House (2009) Edition: NED - New edition https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt14brv7g

...and complete but constitutes an open repertoire, always in movement, expressing and stimulating the spirit of experimentation and invention. Let us remember that Benjamin, in his early work Einbahnstraße (One-Way Street, 1923/28), argued in favor of direct communication between the “ Zettelkasten ” (card box...

communication between?! though it is 2009 and after Luhmann's reference to communication with slip boxes....

In Memoriam: Josef Körner (9 May 1950) Robert L. Kahn The Modern Language Review, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Jan., 1963), pp. 38-59 https://www.jstor.org/stable/3720394

...of German letters long before Heine, impudently naive and imprudently honest, though always in- dustrious, 'griindlich' (and was it not Korner who 'discovered' the numerous un- published notebooks of Friedrich Schlegel and, in turn, left behind some twenty ' Zettelkasten ' which were recently acquired by Bonn University, a unique 'Fund-...

example of use of zettelkasten in English here in 1963 specifically as a loan word from German...

On organizational forms of historical research in Germany Hermann Heimpel Historical Journal , Vol. 189 (Dec., 1959), pp. 139-222 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27612563

... , has worked through baroque collectaneas laid out in book form, will appreciate the uniform paper format, the slip box and its prerequisite, the paper cutting machine3). Without the railway there would be no congress?, no ?General Association of German Historical and Antiquity Associations ...

Review: [Untitled] Intellectual history of ancient Christianity by Carl Schneider Review by:Peter Nober Biblica , Vol. 36, No. 4 (1955), pp. 537-539 https://www.jstor.org/stable/42619108

... very different areas, which is all the more astonishing since the author had to endure difficult fates in life at the same time (I, VII: loss of his library and all card boxes in Königsberg). The author has a lot of church history, patristic, archaeological, old classical, rabbinic and even Byzantine literature ...

Der Thesaurus Linguae Latinae in München Adolf Lumpe Journal of Philosophical Research , Vol. 7, H. 1 (1953), pp. 122-125 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20480611

... J. Rubenbauer, Dr. Ida Kap and Dr. O. Hiltbrunner and a large number of domestic and foreign employees. The thesaurus archive, which after various transit stations is now housed in Arcisstrasse (No. 8/III), currently includes around ten million slips of paper in around 7000 slip boxes . So far are complete ...

Review: [Untitled] Richard Dehmel Man and the Thinker; A Biography of His Mind in the Reflection of Time by Harry Slochower Review by:Friedrich Bruns The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Apr., 1931), pp. 319-320 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27703515

... who is passionate about this work and who has extensive knowledge, especially in the philosophical field. A restriction must be made. The hardest thing about collecting is throwing it away. Too much is offered to us from a very large slip of paper . From Laotse it goes to John Dewey and from Buddha ...

Review: [Untitled] Historical Records of Rameses III by William F. Edgerton, John A. Wilson Review by: William C. Hayes American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1936), pp. 558-559

...have been diligently consulted and compared with the present versions and the authors have also availed themselves of the invaluable material contained in the Zettelkasten of the Berlin Wirterbuch der...

This is the oldest appearance of the word "Zettelkasten" appearing in a journal article which I could find on JSTOR.

I'm not surprised it's in a journal in the humanities and specifically on archaeology.

Where is Indiana Jones' zettelkasten?!

Review: [Untitled] Frontier areas of forensic psychology, especially on the theory of legal capacity. (Archive for legal and economic philosophy, vol. 21, pp. 213-219) by Karl Haff Review by:Rümel's Archive for Civilistic Practice , vol. 128, h. 3 (1928), pp. 366-372

... " than with semi-finished products, in which the author's whole list of papers is poured out on the unfortunate reader - quite apart from the cram-books and mnemonics, which still find an all too believing audience. A quote from be in place for Don Quixote ...

Heyde, Johannes Erich. Technik des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens. (Sektion 1.2 Die Kartei) Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1931.

annotation target: urn:x-pdf:00126394ba28043d68444144cd504562

(Unknown translation from German into English. v1 TK)

The overall title of the work (in English: Technique of Scientific Work) calls immediately to mind the tradition of note taking growing out of the scientific historical methods work of Bernheim and Langlois/Seignobos and even more specifically the description of note taking by Beatrice Webb (1926) who explicitly used the phrase "recipe for scientific note-taking".

see: https://hypothes.is/a/BFWG2Ae1Ee2W1HM7oNTlYg

first reading: 2022-08-23 second reading: 2022-09-22

I suspect that this translation may be from Clemens in German to Scheper and thus potentially from the 1951 edition?

Heyde, Johannes Erich. Technik des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens; eine Anleitung, besonders für Studierende. 8., Umgearb. Aufl. 1931. Reprint, Berlin: R. Kiepert, 1951.

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

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

9/8b2 "Multiple storage" as a necessity of<br /> storage of complex (complex<br /> evaluating) information.

Fascinating to see the English phrase "multiple storage" pop up in Luhmann's ZKII section on Zettelkasten.

This note is undated, though being in ZKII likely occurred more than a decade after he'd started his practice. One must wonder where he pulled the source for the English phrase rather than using a German one? Does the idea appear in Heyde? It certainly would have been an emerging question within systems theory and potentially computer science ideas which Luhmann would have had access to.

• Link to https://hypothes.is/a/WtB2AqmlEe2wvCsB5ZyL5A on multiple storage affordances

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

According to the Niklas Luhmann-Archiv, Luhmann began his first zettelkasten in 1952 likely when he was working as a legal trainee in Lüneburg or as a government councilor in the Ministry of Education in Lower Saxony.

This timeframe would have been just after Johannes Erich Heyde had published the 8th edition of Technik des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens in 1951.

Link to: - https://hypothes.is/a/Jn9elsk5Ee2hsLP5WWBEBw on dates of NL ZK - https://hypothes.is/a/CqGhGvchEey6heekrEJ9WA aktenzeichen - https://hypothes.is/a/4wxHdDqeEe2OKGMHXDKezA Clemens Luhmann link

reply to u/dotphrasealpha at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/11z08fq/what_type_of_note_did_niklas_luhmann_average_6/

The true insight you're looking for here is: Forget the numbers and just aim for quality followed very closely by consistency!

Of course most will ignore my insight and experience and be more interested in the numbers, so let's query a the 30+ notes I've got on this topic in my own zettelkasten to answer the distal question.

Over the 45 years from 1952 to 1997 Luhmann produced approximately 90,000 slips which averages out to:

• 45 years * 365 days/year = 16,425 days
• 90,000 slips / 16,425 days = 5.47 slips per day

In a video, Ahrens indicates that Luhmann didn't make notes on weekends, and if true, this would revise the count to 7.69 slips per day.

260 working days a year (on average, not accounting for leap years or potential governmental holidays)

• 45 years x 260 work days/year = 11,700 days
• 90,000 slips / 11,700 days = 7.69 slips per day

Compare these closer numbers to Ahrens' stated and often quoted 6 notes per day in How to Take Smart Notes.

I've counted from the start of '52 through all of '97 to get 45 years, but the true amount of time was a bit shorter than this in reality, so the number of days should be slightly smaller.

Keep in mind that Luhmann worked at this roughly full time for decades, so don't try to measure yourself against him. (He also published in a different era and broadly without the hurdle of peer review.) Again: Aim for quality over quantity! If it helps, S.D. Goitein created a zettelkasten of 27,000 notes which he used to publish almost a third more papers and books than Luhmann. Wittgenstein left far fewer notes and only published one book during his lifetime, but published a lot posthumously and was massively influential. Similarly Roland Barthes had only about 12,500 slips and loads of influential work.

I keep notes on various historical practitioners' notes/day output over several decades using these sorts of practices. Most are in the 1-2 notes per day range. A sampling of them can be found here: https://boffosocko.com/2023/01/14/s-d-goiteins-card-index-or-zettelkasten/#Notes%20per%20day.

Anecdotally, I've found that most of the more serious people here and on the zettelkasten.de forum are in the 4-10 slips per week range.

<whisper>quality...</whisper>

Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten consists of a total of 27 sections/drawers each containing from 2,500 to 3,500 slips.

• ZK1 comprises 7 sections with about 23,000 notes written from about 1952 to 1961
• ZKII comprises 20 sections with approximately 67,000 slips written between 1961 to early 1997.

Sections 15, 16, 17 were part of the beechwood zettelkasten and along with sections 18, 19, and 20 which were stored outside of the main boxes in individual slipcases contain the bibliographic portions of ZKII

Part of section 17 contains some of the index as well as an index of people for ZKII in addition to some other special portions along with the index of keywords, bibliographical slips, and an overview of topics from ZKI.

The primary wooden boxes frequently pictured as "Luhmann's zettelkasten" is comprised of six wooden four-drawer card index filing cabinets which were supplemented by three individual slipcases.

One would suspect the individual slipcases were like the one pictured on his desk here: Luhmann zuhause am Zettelkasten (vermutlich Ende der 1970er/Anfang 1980er Jahre)<br /> Copyright Michael Wiegert-Wegener<br /> via Niklas Luhmann Online: die Erschließung seines Nachlasses - Geistes- & Sozialwissenschaften

The Luhmann archive has a photo of the beechwood portion with 24 drawers and one of the additional slipboxes on top of it:

(via https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/nachlass/zettelkasten)

Most of the photos from the museum exhibition and elsewhere only focus on or include the main wooden portion of six cabinets with the 24 drawers.

See also: https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/nachlass/zettelkasten

Over the 45 years from 1952 to 1997 this production of approximately 90,000 slips averages out to

45 years * 365 days/year = 16,425 days 90,000 slips / 16,425 days = 5.47 slips per day.

260 working days a year (on average, not accounting for leap years or potential governmental holidays) 45 years x 260 work days/year = 11,700 90,000 slips / 11,700 days = 7.69 slips per day

In a video, Ahrens indicates that Luhmann didn't make notes on weekends, and if true this would revise the count to 7.69 slips per day.

Compare these closer numbers to Ahrens' stated 6 notes per day in How to Take Smart Notes. <br /> See: https://hypothes.is/a/iwrV8hkwEe2vMSdjnwKHXw

I've counted from the start of '52 through all of '97 to get 45 years, but the true amount of time was a bit shorter than this in reality, so the number of days should be slightly smaller.

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

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

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155447667554

This Catalog has a page with the various sizes of card catalog boxes available from Cole Steel in 1950s. The external sizes can be useful for placing the individual card sizes for some of these boxes on the secondary market.

They also include approximate card capacities.

reply to u/jaybestnz https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/11xcnqg/if_i_have_many_notes_is_it_more_effective_to_load/

Part of the benefit of having a Luhmann-esque structured ZK, which is what I'm presuming your definition of a zettelkasten is, is that you're doing some of the interconnecting and building links and structures along the way. Instead, you'll now be doing that work after the fact and en-masse.

The underlying question is: do you plan on keeping and maintaining a more Luhmann-esque zettelkasten after your book? If you do, then it may be useful to take that step, otherwise, you're likely doing additional work that you may not see benefit from.

Making some broad assumptions about what you may have so far... If you've got physical index cards, things will be easier to collate and arrange. In your case, the closest (easy) workflow is that of Ryan Holiday who outlines his process in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU7efgGEOgk

Beyond this, your next best bets might be informed by:

• Dustin Lance Black: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrvawtrRxsw
• Victor Margolin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxyy0THLfuI

If you prefer your writing structural advice in written form, then perhaps you're already in the latter part of the process broadly described by Umberto Eco in How to Write a Thesis (MIT, 2015).

In re: Last lines of: https://www.nb.admin.ch/snl/en/home/about-us/sla/insights-outlooks/einsichten---aussichten-2012/aus-dem-nachlass-von-james-peter-zollinger.html

Google translate does a reasonable job on translating it as 'getting bogged down' but the original sich ‹verzettelt› would mean roughly to "get lost in the slips", perhaps in a way similar to Anatole France's novel Penguin Island (L’Île des Pingouins. Calmann-Lévy, 1908) but without the storm or the death.

A native and bi-lingual German speaker might be better at explaining it, but this is a useful explanation of the prefix (sich) ver- : https://yourdailygerman.com/german-prefix-ver-meaning/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/11uibsm/zettelkasten_or_hopeless_paper_chaos/

Don't be blinded by availability bias. It was historically almost always thus! Especially in Germany. (The French have traditionally called it a fichier boîte and in English it's the card index.) It's only been since the rise in popularity of the use of the German word in English (beginning in late 2013 with zettelkasten.de) where it has almost always been associated with Niklas Luhmann that has has most people now associating Luhmann's method with the word Zettelkasten.

If you look back at the 2013 exhibition "Zettelkästen. Machines of Fantasy" at the Museum of Modern Literature, Marbach am Neckar, you'll notice that there were six zettelkasten featured there including those of Arno Schmidt, Walter Kempowski, Friedrich Kittler, Aby Warburg, Paul, Blumenberg, and Luhmann. Of those, the structure of Luhmann's was the exception which wasn't primarily organized broadly by subject heading. You'll also find some historians and sociologists organizing theirs by date or geographic regions as well as other custom arrangements as their needs and work might dictate.

The preponderance of books talking about these note taking methods suggest a topic heading arrangement for filing, including the book by Johnannes Erich Heyde from which Luhmann's son has indicated he learned an old technique from which he evolved his own practice.

See also:

• The Two Definitions of Zettelkasten https://boffosocko.com/2022/10/22/the-two-definitions-of-zettelkasten/

• Heyde, Johannes Erich. Technik des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens: zeitgemässe Mittel und Verfahrungsweisen. Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1931.

Rarely does a week go by that I don't run across another new/significant example of a zettelkasten. Thanks u/atomicnotes for keeping up the pace with James Peter Zollinger. (Though this week may be a twofer given my notes on Ludwig Wittgenstein's over the last few days.)

Aus dem Nachlass von James Peter Zollinger<br /> Swiss National Library NL

ᔥ u/atomicnotes in r/Zettelkasten - Zettelkasten, or "hopeless paper chaos"? <br /> (accessed:: 2023-03-20 04:49:15)

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Zettel. Edited by Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright,. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Second California Paperback Printing. 1967. Reprint, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2007.

annotation target: urn:x-pdf:15f4a1e48274f28b55eb6f8411c1ff1c

This section makes me question whether or not the editors of this work were aware of the zettelkasten tradition?!?

This brings up the question of how Ludwig Wittgenstein arranged his own zettelkasten...

Peter Geach made an arrangement of Wittgenstein's zettels which was broadly kept in the edited and published version Zettel (1967). Apparently fragments on the same topic were clipped together indicating that Wittgenstein's method was most likely by topical headings. However there were also a large number of slips "lying loose in the box." Perhaps these were notes which he had yet to file or which some intervening archivist may have re-arranged?

In any case, Geach otherwise arranged all the materials as best as he could according to subject matter. As a result the printed book version isn't necessarily the arrangement that Wittgenstein would have made, but the editors of the book felt that at least Geach's arrangement made it an "instructive and readable compilation".

This source doesn't indicate the use of alphabetical dividers or other tabbed divisions.

Based on the dating provided by Anscombe and von Wright, Wittgenstein's zettelkasten slips dated from 1929 to 1948.

for reference LW's dates were 1889-1951

Supposing that the notes preceded the typescripts and not the other way around as Anscombe and von Wright indicate, the majority of the notes were turned into written work (typescripts) which were dictated from 1945-1948.

What was LW's process? Note taking, arranging/outlining, and then dictation followed by editing? Dictating would have been easier/faster certainly if he'd already written down his cards and could simply read from them to a secretary.

Some of the manuscript notes in Wittgenstein's zettelkasten were "apparently written to add to the remarks on a particular matter preserved in the box".ᔥ So much like Niklas Luhmann's wooden conversation partner, Wittgenstein was not only having conversations with the texts he was reading, he was creating a conversation between himself and his pre-existing notes thus extending his lines of thought within his zettelkasten.

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.

reply to jameslongley at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/2532/personal-knowledge-management-is-bullshit

I find that these sorts of articles against the variety of practices have one thing in common: the writer fails to state a solid and realistic reason for why they got into it in the first place. They either have no reason "why" or, perhaps, just as often have all-the-reasons "why", which may be worse. Much of this is bound up in the sort of signaling and consumption which @Sascha outlines in point C (above).

Perhaps of interest, there are a large number of Hypothes.is annotations on that original article written by a variety of sense-makers with whom I am familiar. See: https://via.hypothes.is/https://www.otherlife.co/pkm/ Of note, many come from various note making traditions including: commonplace books, bloggers, writers, wiki creators, zettelkasten, digital gardening, writers, thinkers, etc., so they give a broader and relatively diverse perspective. If I were pressed to say what most of them have in common philosophically, I'd say it was ownership of their thought.

Perhaps it's just a point of anecdotal evidence, but I've been noticing that who write about or use the phrase "personal knowledge management" are ones who come at the space without an actual practice or point of view on what they're doing and why—they are either (trying to be) influencers or influencees.

Fortunately it is entirely possible to "fake it until you make it" here, but it helps to have an idea of what you're trying to make.

Don't Dehorsify the Horse<br /> by Sasha Fast

Perhaps apropos from Wittgenstein's own zettelkasten? 🐎

1. ''Putting the cart before the horse" may be said of an explanation like the following: we tend someone else because by analogy with our own case we believe that he is experiencing pain too.—Instead of saying: Get to know a new aspect from this special chapter of human behaviour—from this use of language. (p96)

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Zettel. Edited by Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright,. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Second California Paperback Printing. 1967. Reprint, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2007.

If we believe as previously indicated by Luhmann's son that Luhmann learned the basics of his evolved method from Johannes Erich Heyde, then the point of the original was all about categories and subject headings. It ultimately became something which Luhmann minimized, perhaps in part for the relationship of work and the cost of hiring assistants to do this additional manual labor.

The hilarious part of this is that within a much broader tradition of Western intellectual history, Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten is one of the most heterodox approaches on the map.

Zibbaldone With It All

meh...

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....)