- Apr 2024
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t our index would refer us to electricitywherever mentioned in the text of our literature if usableinformation is given, and it should also tell us something more—the aspect under which it is treated in each case. Whetherand from what aspect information is usable, that we must decidefor ourselves.
Kaiser speaks here of the issue of missing index entries in commercial and even library-based indexes versus the personal indexing of one's own card index/zettelkasten.
Some of the problem comes down to a question of scale as well as semantics, but there's also something tied up with the levels of specificity from broad category headwords to more specific, and finally down to the level of individual ideas. Some of this can be seen in the levels of specificity within the Syntopicon though there aren't any (?, doublecheck) of links from one idea directly to another.
Note that while there may be direct links from a single idea to another, there is still infinite space by which one can interpose additional ideas between them.
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printed indexes leave the contents almost entirelyuntouched.
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- Mar 2024
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Local file Local file
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Accuracy This is one of the chief claims of the card system. 63To increase accuracy in fUing, the materials arealways arranged numerically. We thereby approach as nearlyas possible to mathematical exactness. The advantages of thecard system become more and more apparejit as the files increasein bulk, and accuracy must remain a constant factor in aU workconnected with it. It will also bring its reward in the smoothworking of the files and the immediate accessibility of anythingrequired. In accuracy might be included consistency, which isindispensable for effective work (356).
In modern, digital settings, the work of approapriately indexing content is lost in exchange for other forms of organization (tagging, for example), this means one is less reliant on an index for looking up material and more reliant on concordance search of particular words within an ever-growing corpus of collected knowledge.
Over time and with scale, simple tagging may become overwhelming as a search method for finding the requisite material, even when one knows it exists.
As a result a repository may do better in the long run with a small handful of carefully applied rules from the start.
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