- Mar 2024
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Local file Local file
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Elaborate library classifications were either inapplicable or much 74too complicated and therefore unmanageable. Their applicationto business was out of the question. Something simple, easy toimderstand and easy to handle was required. This was foundin the numerical arrangement. The numerical classification inspite of its arbitrary character will always have this advantagethat it ensures accuracy with the least trouble, and this is stillmore the case where large quantities are handled. It was quitenatural therefore that this should be preferred for business purposes.As there are many sets of things arranged numerically, it isnecessary to distinguish one set from the other, so as to know towhat set a given number refers. This is done by affixing dis-tinguishing initials to the numbers, each class being assigned somecharacteristic initial of its own.
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.
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Volume 2 will be almost entirelydevoted to the work of indexing in the sense of analysing literatureand will go more fully into the question of classification and themanagement of guide cards. The present volume is confined asfar as practicable to the use of plain cards. Tabulated cards,methods of tabulating and the application of tabulated cards topractical business will be dealt with in volume 3, " The CardSystem at the Factory."
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.
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- Oct 2023
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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1942Dear Kitty,Bep stayed with us Friday evening. It was fun, but she didn’t sleepvery well because she’d drunk some wine. For the rest, there’snothing special to report. I had an awful headache yesterday andwent to bed early. Margot’s being exasperating again.This morning I began sorting out an index card le from theo ce, because it’d fallen over and gotten all mixed up. Before long Iwas going nuts. I asked Margot and Peter to help, but they were toolazy, so I put it away. I’m not crazy enough to do it all by myself!Anne Frank
In a diary entry dated Monday, November 2, 1942, Anne Frank in an entry in which she includes a post script about the "important news that [she's] probably going to get [her] period soon." she mentions spending some time sorting out an index card file. Presumably it had been used for business purposes as she mentions that she got it from the office. Given that it had "fallen over and gotten all mixed up", it presumably didn't use a card rod to hold the cards in. It must have been a fairly big task as she asked for help from two people and not getting it, she abandoned the task because, as she wrote: "I'm not crazy enough to do it all by myself!"
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- Mar 2023
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niklas-luhmann-archiv.de niklas-luhmann-archiv.de
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9/8b2 "Multiple storage" als Notwendigkeit derSpeicherung von komplexen (komplex auszu-wertenden) Informationen.
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.
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TheSateliteCombinationCard IndexCabinetandTelephoneStand
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)
Tags
- telegraph
- card index filing cabinets
- intellectual history
- card index for business
- postcards
- satelite stands
- technology
- office furniture
- Adjustable Table Company
- telephones
- audience
- user interface
- evolution of technology
- zettelkasten boxes
- rolodexes
- annotations
- Grand Rapids Michigan
Annotators
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- Feb 2023
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www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com
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"Prosperity is something created by businessmen for politicians to take credit for."
—Ronald Reagan
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www.srf.ch www.srf.ch
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Stettler, Lucia. “Geheime Gästekartei überlebt Hotelbrand – und birgt Zündstoff.” Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF), April 8, 2021, sec. Kultur. https://www.srf.ch/kultur/gesellschaft-religion/brisanter-fund-geheime-gaestekartei-ueberlebt-hotelbrand-und-birgt-zuendstoff.
<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>ManuelRodriguez331</span> in Advantages of Analog note taking : Zettelkasten (<time class='dt-published'>02/07/2023 08:33:25</time>)</cite></small>
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Lois Hechenblaikner, Andrea Kühbacher, Rolf Zollinger (Hrsg.): «Keine Ostergrüsse mehr! Die geheime Gästekartei des Grandhotel Waldhaus in Vulpera». Edition Patrick Frey, 2021.Der reich bebilderte Band bietet eine spannende Reise in ein Stück Schweizer Tourismusgeschichte: Die Herausgeber haben die 20'000 Karteikarten aus den Jahren 1920-1960 sehr sorgfältig kuratiert, nach Themen gegliedert und in einen grösseren, gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhang gestellt.Die Leserinnen und Leser erfahren viel über die Klientel im Hotel Waldhaus, zum Teil sogar in kleinen biografischen Porträts; und sie können an konkreten Beispielen verfolgen, wie sich der Sprachgebrauch der Concierges im Laufe der Zeit verändert – gerade zum Beispiel im Zusammenhang mit jüdischen Gästen.
Google Translate:
Lois Hechenblaikner, Andrea Kühbacher, Rolf Zollinger (editors): «No more Easter greetings! The secret guest file of the Grandhotel Waldhaus in Vulpera". Edition Patrick Frey, 2021.
The richly illustrated volume offers an exciting journey into a piece of Swiss tourism history: the editors have very carefully curated the 20,000 index cards from the years 1920-1960, structured them by topic and placed them in a larger, social context.
The readers learn a lot about the clientele in the Hotel Waldhaus, sometimes even in small biographical portraits; and they can use concrete examples to follow how the concierge's use of language has changed over time - especially in connection with Jewish guests, for example.
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- Jan 2023
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forum.zettelkasten.de forum.zettelkasten.de
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Anybody using this approach to manage contacts? How?
reply to IvanFerrero at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/1740/anybody-using-this-approach-to-manage-contacts-how#latest
Many of the digital note taking tools that run off of text allow you to add metadata to your basic text files (as YAML headers, inline with a
key:: value
pair, or via #tags). Many of them have search functionality or use other programmatic means like query blocks, DataView, DataViewJS, etc. for doing queries on your files to get back lists, tables, charts, etc. of the data you're looking for.The DataView repository has some good examples of how this works with something like Obsidian. Fortunately if you're using simple text files you can usually put them into one or more platforms to get the data and affordances you want out of them individually.
As an example, I have a script block in my daily note in Obsidian for birthdays in my notes that fall on today's date:
```dataview LIST birthday FROM "Lists/People" WHERE birthday.day = date(2023-01-18).day ```
If I put the text
birthday:: 1927-12-08
into a note about Niklas Luhmann, his name and birthday would appear in my daily note on his birthday. One can use similar functionality to create tables of books they read with titles, authors, ratings, dates read, etc. or a variety of other data input which parses through your plaintext files. Services like Obsidian, Logseq, et al. are getting better about allowing these types of programmatic searches for users without backgrounds in programming and various communities usually provide help for pre-made little snippets like the one above that one can cut and paste into their notes to get the outputs that they need. Another Obsidian based example that uses text files for tracking academic journal articles can be found at https://nataliekraneiss.com/your-academic-reading-list-in-obsidian/; I'm sure there are similar versions for other text-based platforms.In pre-digital times, for a manual version of a rolodex like this in paper, one could use different color cards as pseudo-tags (doctors are on yellow cards, family members on blue cards, friends on green cards, etc.) or adding edge notches or even tabs to represent different types of metadata. See for example the edge colored cards in Hawkexpress' Pile of Index Cards: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/albums/72157594200490122
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- Dec 2022
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Reply to:
Who is Zettelkasten note-taking system for? <br /> u/Beens__<br /> https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/zhyu5i/who_is_zettelkasten_notetaking_system_for/
Perhaps your use case may benefit from knowing the longer term outcomes of such processes, particularly as they relate to idea generation and innovation within your areas of interest? Keeping notes which you review over periodically and between which you create potential links will help to foster more productive long term combinatorial creativity, which will help you create new and potentially useful ideas much more quickly than blank page-based brainstorming.
Her method was much more ad hoc than the more highly refined methods of Luhmann which allowed him to write, but perhaps there's something you might appreciate from the example of the character Tess McGill in the movie Working Girl. Even more base in practice is that of Eminem, which shows far less structure, but could still have interesting long term creativity effects, though again, it bears repeating that one should occasionally revisit their notes (even if they're only in "headline form") in attempts to refresh their memory and link old ideas to new to generate completely new ideas.
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