A young man named Marshall McLuhan, having glimpsed the photo shoot in Life, wrote with scathing insight in his first book, The Mechanical Bride (1951):

The services of Dr. Hutchins and Professor Adler to education are justly celebrated. They have by their enthusiasm put education in

McLuhan analogizes the tabbed dividers of a card index to tombstones and the card indexes to coffins!

link to: https://hypothes.is/a/RB4YdNUQEe2NLDvcEZtdKw

https://www.metalcabinetliquidators.com/ Rancho Cucamonga, CA<br /> James

https://orangecounty.craigslist.org/fud/d/santa-fe-springs-index-filing-cabinet/7515311169.html

Dousa, Thomas M. “Facts and Frameworks in Paul Otlet’s and Julius Otto Kaiser’s Theories of Knowledge Organization.” Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 36, no. 2 (2010): 19–25. https://doi.org/10.1002/bult.2010.1720360208.

In this respect Otlet was closer to the philosophy of organization used by Niklas Luhmann.

Some of the structure in Kaiser's system was built into relationships on guide cards. While not exactly hub notes, they did provide links to other areas of the system in addition to synonyms under which materials could be found including broader terms, narrower terms, and related terms often seen in library information systems.

Kaiser touches on the issue of "coming to terms" in his card (indexing) system. He preferred using the author's terminology over the indexer's. Some of the fungibility of words and their definitions was met by the use of a "logical key" to the index which was put onto guide cards for each main entry term.

Compare the various organizational structures of Otlet, Kaiser, and Luhmann.

Seemingly their structures were dictated by the number of users and to some extent the memory of those users with respect to where to find various things.

Otlet as a multi-user system with no single control mechanism or person, other than the decimal organizing standard (in his case a preference for UDC), was easily flexible for larger groups. Kaiser's system was generally designed, built and managed by one person but intended for use by potentially larger numbers of people. He also advised a conservative number of indexing levels geared toward particular use-cases (that is a limited number of heading types or columns/rows from a database perspective.) Finally, Luhmann's was designed and built for use by a single person who would have a more intimate memory of a more idiosyncratic system.

George Carlin Gets Dark - Charlie Rose Interview 1996 by [[Charlie Rose]]

ᔥ @lazybear on Mastodon

"This idea goes with that one, and I never suspected it, and then to make something out of it that's bigger than the two of them"

Did #GeorgeCarlin used or knew #zettelkasten ?

19:10 -> 19:15<br /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9OhMZYTS4E

Reply to @Edmund https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/21907/#Comment_21907

Doto's book is the best and tightest yet for explaining both how to implement a Luhmann-artig zettelkasten as well as why along with the affordances certain elements provide. He does a particularly good job of providing clear and straightforward definitions which have a muddy nature in some of the online spaces, which tends to cause issues for people new to the practice. Sadly, for me, there isn't much new insight due to the amount of experience and research I bring to the enterprise.

I do like that Doto puts at least some emphasis on why one might want to use alphanumerics even in digital spaces, an idea which has broadly been sidelined in most contexts for lack of experience or concrete affordances for why one might do it.

The other area he addresses, which most elide and the balance gloss over at best, is that of the discussion of using the zettelkasten for output. Though he touches on some particular methods and scaffolding, most of it is limited to suggestions based on his own experience rather than a broader set of structures and practices. This is probably the biggest area for potential expansion and examples I'd like to see, especially as I'm reading through Eustace Miles' How to Prepare Essays, Lectures, Articles, Books, Speeches and Letters, with Hints on Writing for the Press (London: Rivingtons, 1905).

I could have had some more material in chapter 3 which has some fascinating, but still evolving work. Ideas like interstitial journaling and some of the related productivity methods are interesting, but Doto only barely scratches the surface on some of these techniques and methods which go beyond the traditional "zettelkasten space", but which certainly fall in his broader framing of "system for writing" promise.

Doto's "triangle of creativity", a discussion of proximal feedback, has close parallels of Adler and Hutchins' idea of "The Great Conversation" (1952), which many are likely to miss.

For those who missed out, Dan Allosso has posted video from the sessions at https://lifelonglearn.substack.com/ Sadly missing, unless you're in the book club, are some generally lively side chat discussions as the primary video discussion was proceeding. The sessions had a breadth of experiences from the new to the old hands as well as from students to teachers and everywhere in between.

How I Use CLOGs to Organize My Writing Files by [[Bob Doto]]

Value of knowledge in a zettelkasten as a function of reference(use/look up) frequency; links to other ideas; ease of recall without needing to look up (also a measure of usefulness); others?

Define terms and create a mathematical equation of stocks and flows around this system of information. Maybe "knowledge complexity" or "information optimization"? see: https://hypothes.is/a/zejn0oscEe-zsjMPhgjL_Q

takes into account the value of information from the perspective of a particular observer<br /> relative information value

cross-reference: Umberto Eco on no piece of information is superior: https://hypothes.is/a/jqug2tNlEeyg2JfEczmepw

Inspired by idea in https://hypothes.is/a/CdoMUJCYEe-VlxtqIFX4qA

inspired by, but definitely not take from as not in evidence

Many people have "daily notes" and "project notes" in what they consider to be their zettelkasten workflow. These can be thought of as subcategories of reference notes (aka literature notes, bibliographic notes). The references in these cases are simply different sorts of material than one would traditionally include in this category. Instead of indexing the ideas within a book or journal article, you're indexing what happened to you on a particular day (daily notes) or indexing ideas or progress on a particular project (project notes). Because they're different enough in type and form, you might keep them in their own "departments" (aka folders) within your system just the same way that with enough material one might break out their reference notes to separate books from newspapers, journal articles, or lectures.

In general form and function they're all broadly serving the same functionality and acting as a ratchet and pawl on the information that is being collected. They capture context; they serve as reminder. The fact that some may be used less or referred to less frequently doesn't make them necessarily less important

An alternate stating of the process: 1. capture<br /> 2. refine<br /> 3. connect<br /> 4. search

cross-reference earlier process: https://hypothes.is/a/HgcILIvyEe-OfdOArKZxGg

card system ⇒ system theory

In the early 1900s it was very common, especially in English speaking countries to call these note taking/paper database systems "card systems". Is it a wonder then that they may have helped to create "systems theory"?

In particular, look at Niklas Luhmann's work as well as Ross Ashby.

Example of a fleeting note triggered by a single word in a context, but with thoughts not relating at all to the specifics of the particular work.

Overview of Bob Doto's suggested process:<br /> 1. having and capturing thoughts<br /> 2. refining thoughts into clear ideas that can be repurposed<br /> 3. connecting ideas across topics<br /> 4. developing connections and making them accessible<br /> 5. transforming notes into writing for readers 6. re-integrating writing back into the system (he lumped this in with 5, but I've broken it out)

How do these steps relate to those of others?

Eg: Miles1905: collect, select, arrange, dictate/write (and broadly composition)

Miles touches on the interplay of knowledge written down on index cards and the knowledge which is kept only in one's mind. Some practitioners in the space from 2013-2024 seem to imply that they're writing almost everything out in far deeper detail than Miles would indicate. In his incarnation, much of the knowledge might be more quickly indicated by a short sentence or heading which the brain can associate to longer explanations.

This sort of indexing is akin to some of the method potentially seen in Marshall Mathers' zettelkasten.

I'm creating a tag here for "card index for productivity" to track the idea of productivity in writing which I'm specifically using separately from the tag "card index as productivity system" which is used to describe their use for project tracking systems in systems like GTD, Memindex, etc.

What work exactly does Miles include in his description of preparation of a 30,000 word book in two hours?

He specifically excludes dictation. He does include selection of ideas and arrangement. He also says it includes "collection", but I'm supposing that he's taking a larger tranche of cards from a possibly massive collection and collecting only those he needs right now? Certainly the reading, thinking, and collecting work can't be included in this two hours of work.

Does he have a better definition of what he means by collection?

Unsurprising given that card systems were used for accounting in the early 1900s, but not many manuals cover the use of a card index for addresses (aka Rolodex) of for bills or memoranda.

Love that Miles talks about what index cards he uses, where he gets them from and even their relative prices!

Miles doesn't specify how he comes by the practice of a "Card-System" other than "by degrees" as well as elaborating on it in the months before he writes this book.

(Having something more concrete would be nice though...)

At some point he read Barrett Wendell's book on composition (1891) to discover that he recommended cards as well.

Dictation from index cards can be done quickly for drafting one's writing to improve the efficiency of composing and writing essays.

This is essentially the sort of advice which Nabokov used in his writing work in combination with his wife Vera.

reuse of index cards

How exactly would fully used ("covered") cards be used for scrapbooks for Hospitals?

Using a card-system over writing on a single sheet of paper or in a notebook allows one to separate the thinking work. Instead of both capturing the idea and arranging them simultaneously, one is splitting these tasks into smaller parts for simpler handling.

Miles, 1905 uses an arrow symbol with a hash on it to indicate a "connecting link between two Sentences or Paragraphs, etc."

It's certainly an early example of what we would now consider a hyperlink. It actively uses a "pointer" in it's incarnation.

Are there earlier examples of these sorts of idea links in the historical record? Surely there were circles and arrows on a contiguous page, but what about links from one place to separate places (possibly using page numbers?) Indexing methods from 11/12C certainly acted as explicit sorts of pointers.

Eustace Miles suggests the use of "special marks on cards" (annotations) in the top left corners, though he doesn't provide specific examples of how they might be used in practice. He does mention "The Abbreviations and Marks need be clear only to the Writer [sic] himself. They save ever so much time."

• "X": As contrasted with—
• "Q": Quotation
• Black triangle in corner: important
• Arrow pointing to corner of card: As compared with
• Angled parallel lines in the bottom right corner of card: End of Paragraph (or Chapter).
• Arrow pointing to the corner of card with hash mark: Connecting Link between two Sentences or Paragraphs, etc.
• Upside down V (or caret): An omission, e.g. to be filled in afterwards
• ?: A doubtful point

In Miles' visual examples of cards, he presents them in portrait (rather than landscape) orientation.

This goes against the broad grain of most standard card index filing systems of the time, but may be more in line with the earlier French use of playing cards orientation.

His portrait orientation also matches with the size ratios seen in his Card-Tray suggestion on p187. https://hypothes.is/a/llEgpIf4Ee-dVfcaIGUryQ

He's repeating (and thus emphasizing) the admonition that a card system is not expensive, particularly in relation to the savings in time and effort.

How does he define "labelled" and "catalogued"?

Presumably he means a version of tagging/categorization and possibly indexing them to be able to easily find them again?

Miles lists the following objections: - expense - inconvenience - unusual (new, novel)

Notice that he starts not with benefits or affordances, but with the objections.

What would a 2024 list of objections look like? - anachronism - harder than digital methods - lack of easier search - complexity - ... others?

Miles' uses the ubiquity of card systems (even at the writing in 1899, prior to publication) within business as evidence for bolstering their use in writing and composition.

(Recall that he's also writing in the UK.)

Using a card system, particularly while travelling, can help to more efficiently use one's time in preventing idleness while travelling and waiting.

One of the major affordances of using a zettelkasten or card index for writing is that it forces the writer to break things down into their constituent parts, thereby making the entire process of writing far easier and less complex. One can separately focus their attention on the smaller steps of collecting, selecting, and arranging the material before beginning to actually write.

Miles, Eustace Hamilton. How to Prepare Essays, Lectures, Articles, Books, Speeches and Letters, with Hints on Writing for the Press. London: Rivingtons, 1905. http://archive.org/details/howtoprepareessa00mileuoft.

evidence of a card system/zettelkasten method in this?

I found a copy and indeed there is evidence!

Brooklyn Engineers’ Club. Brooklyn Engineer’ Club Proceedings for 1906: Constitution and By-Laws and Catalogue of Reference Works Added to the Library During the Year. Brooklyn Engineers’ Club, 1907.

Julius Reizen in reviewing over Umberto Eco's index card system in How to Write a Thesis, defines his own "insurance card" as one which contains "hard-to-classify thoughts, questions, and areas for further inquiry". These he would keep together so that they don't otherwise get lost in the variety of other locations one might keep them

These might be akin to Ahrens' "fleeting notes" but are ones which may not easily or even immediately be converted in to "permanent notes" for one's zettelkasten. However, given their mission critical importance, they may be some of the most important cards in one's repository.

link this to - idea of centralizing one's note taking practice to a single location

Is this idea in Eco's book and Reizen is the one that gives it a name since some of the other categories have names? (examples: bibliographic index cards, reading index cards (aka literature notes), cards for themes, author index cards, quote index cards, idea index cards, connection cards). Were these "officially" named and categorized by Eco?

May be worthwhile to create a grid of these naming systems and uses amongst some of the broader note taking methods. Where are they similar, where do they differ?

Multi-search tools that have full access to multiple trusted data stores (ostensibly personal ones across notebooks, hard drives, social media services, etc.) could potentially solve the problem of needing to remember where you noted something.

Currently, in the social media space especially, this is not a realized service.

How to ZK a fiction book! Zettelkasten for Fiction- Where Imagination Finds Order'- Book WIP ep. 78 by [[Victoria Crowder]]

meh... interested in the mention, but nothing directly actionable here. Perhaps in her other material?...

Not that it couldn't be done, but I'll suggest that following the structure/order of a Luhmann-artig zettelkasten may be a bit more limiting or difficult for creating fiction.

There's a rich history of researching, outlining, and writing with card indexes as part of the creative process. Perhaps looking briefly at some examples particularly focusing on fiction may be helpful? Once you've done this, you can pick and choose the portions and affordances that work best for your preferred way of thinking and working.

Some quick examples:

• Vladimir Nabokov https://www.openculture.com/2014/02/the-notecards-on-which-vladimir-nabokov-wrote-lolita.html
• David Lynch process via Frank Daniel: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=tag%3A%27David+Lynch%27
• Variations of this method include:
  • Dustin Lance Black https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrvawtrRxsw
  • Ben Rowland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwKjuBvNi40
• Randy Ingermanson. “The Snowflake Method For Designing A Novel.” Advanced Fiction Writing, circa 2013. https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

Perhaps querying my digital zettelkasten may be helpful for you? Start with: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=tag%3A%27card+index+for+writing%27

Ultimately, you can only spend so much time going down the rabbit hole of how you ought to do this work and taking suggestions or reading about how others have done it. The more difficult but more fruitful portion is to pick a method which seems like it will work for you and experiment with it by actually using or evolving it for yourself. How you start may not necessarily be how you end, but you won't know what's best for you if you don't start. Practice, practice, practice will get you much farther faster.

reply to u/Atreides_Lion at https://reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1ft4r3z/a_very_important_matter_for_me/

https://www.ebay.com/itm/156425307066

Remington Rand leather portable card index notebook case with slots for a variety of functionalities: - 1-31 for days of month - Alphabetic categorization A-Z - Months (Jan-Dec) - Miscellaneous

The additional "hidden context" is that the rachet/gear seen in many of these diagrams is usually attached to a radial spring (or some other device) which, as it is wound, stores energy which is later used by the bigger device in which the rachet and pawl are encased. Examples include the stem of watches, which when wound, store energy which the watch later uses to run as it counts the seconds. Another example is the mainspring of a typewriter which is attached to a ratchet/pawl set up; when you push the carriage to the right, the spring gets wound up and stores energy which is slowly expended by the escapement a space or a letter at a time as you type. In the zettelkasten analogy, the box and numbered cards placed in it act as the pawl (the wedge that prevents backward movement), as you add more and more information, you're storing/building up "potential energy" in small bits. This "stored energy" can be spent at a later time by allowing you to more easily write an article, paper, book, etc. In some sense, the zettelkasten (as most tools do) allows you a "mechanical advantage" in the writing process over trying to remember everything you've ever read and then relying on your ability to spit it all back out in a well-ordered manner.

reply to Muhammed Ali at https://discord.com/channels/992400632390615070/992400632776507447/1286577013439594497

continuation of https://hypothes.is/a/GTPIPnYiEe-GTUu4YcdeAQ

Typewriter Clear Plastic Card Guide Holder Clean Polish White Out Dirt Restore by [[Phoenix Typewriter]]

For cleaning white out off of the clear plastic on card guides try the following: - scrape with fingernail<br /> - Simple Green - Marvel Mystery Oil (from automotive shops) followed by lacquer thinner in miniscule amounts (one drop). The oil helps protect the plastic from melting from the lacquer thinner. Rinse and repeat.

Others have indicated that floor wax stripper will remove white out without damaging the plastic of the card guides.

Casey Newton makes this blanket statement. Any real evidence for this beyond his "gut"?

Many "paper machines" like Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten were almost custom made not just for searching, but for browsing through regularly much like commonplace books.

Perhaps the question is really, how is your particular database designed?

Three apps that made me more productive this year by [[Casey Newton]]

Casey Newton is using a Zettelkasten note taking approach based on zettelkasten.de to cover his beat

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Manuel_of_Eames_Cursive_Shorthand_by_the/2Bk9AAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Manuel of Eames Cursive Shorthand by the Card System<br /> A Reporting System with Longhand Movement, in which the Vowels and Consonants are Joined in the Order of Their Occurrence, Including a Remarkable Discovery in Pedagogics which Reduces the Time of Learning at Least One-half

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Geyer_s_Stationer/Ml7lJzdUNFIC?hl=en&gbpv=0<br /> Geyer's Stationer<br /> Devoted to the Interests of the Stationery, Fancy Goods and Notion Trades · Volume 82<br /> 1926

page 36 of the 1926 December issue has a "Rapidex" product for the telephone which sounds ostensibly like a Rolodex-type system

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/side-profile-of-traditional-wooden-library-card-royalty-free-image/1374216041?searchscope=image%2Cfilm

Another fun photo of "linked" strings wrapped around a library card catalog representing the links between ideas within a paper database.

Macey Filing Appliances 1906<br /> Catalogue No. 4206<br /> The Macey Co.<br /> https://archive.org/details/macey-filing-appliances-1906/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/catalog00fred/mode/2up

Fred Macey Company Catalog (1910)

Advanced Typing - Shortcuts (1943)

Advanced Typing: Shortcuts. 16 mm. Vol. MN-1512c. United States Navy Training Film, 1943. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUJfCfqgsX0.

Correct typing posture: fingers curved<br /> arms sloping up<br /> light fast strokes<br /> steady rhythm

fast continuous motion of return lever<br /> using backing sheet (aka temping sheet ??)

Shortcuts:<br /> mise en place for office supplies (she doesn't use this phrasing though) - greater efficiency - cuts down on searching

tabulators can be helpful. There are two types:<br /> - automatic - handset

Use tabs for paragraphs, dating letters, columns of numbers, and letter closings.

To clear all tab stops, put carriage to left, hold tab clear key and move the carriage across. (Usually applies to Royal, Remington, Underwood, and Electromatic).

On LC Smith and Woodstock machines sometimes have a tab clear lever on the back.

Decimal tabulator keys help to align a variety of numbers around a decimal point.

Always have a few tabs set to prevent a flying carriage which can be hard on the machine.

When using carbon sheets which are slightly longer than the paper size, cut off a small triangle at the top left hand side. This makes it easier for one to separate the carbons from the copies by holding the top left with one hand and pulling the carbons out from the bottom of the stack.

To align multiple sheets of paper for carbon copies, use a folded sheet at the top to taco the pages into the machine. Remove the folded sheet once the carbon pack is rolled forward.

Paper bail rollers should be set to split the pages into thirds (for two rollers).

Remington noiseless machines have a pressure indicator on the front of the machine (usually above the keyboard) which can be used when using thick carbon packs that may cause the ribbon guide to stick or bind.

Only erase when the carriage is fully left or right to prevent eraser crumbs from falling into the machine.

Use a soft eraser on carbon copies. Use and insert slips of paper behind the carbons and allowing them to stick out the sides, erasing from back sheet to front so as not to allow the eraser to mark your carbon copies. For the front sheet, use a shield and ink eraser and erase with a horizontal motion. After erasing, easily pull out the inserted sheets.

When typing a correction, tap the key lightly two or three times rather than hard once.

When in a rush and it's necessary to add a word (on double spacing), underline the last letter of the prior word and type a slash (/). Then move the typing line up and type the insertion above the prior line. This creates an "arrow" of sorts for the inserted word.

Details for inserting extra letters in misspelled words using half-spacing machines. (Underwoods and Electromatics don't have this function.)

Light pencil marks at the bottom of the sheet can help to indicate the coming bottom of the sheet.

Putting up the card holders (fingers) on Underwoods and Royals. They help to hold the card and improve print quality and reduce noise.

Card holders can cause markings on carbon packs if they're not lowered.

Trick for quickly writing postcards in succession: Disengage the ratchet using the platen spring release (or variable platen switch) Type the address on the front of the card. When done give the platen a quick practiced spin. The postcard with "jump" up and stop at the paper table and be in position for rolling in the opposite direction to write the message on the back of the card! When done a faster spin of the platen will shoot the card over the back of the typewriter where it can land in a box to collect all the postcards which were written in such a manner. <br /> timestamp 23:22

Time saving methods for addressing envelopes:

• Front seat principle. Insert the envelope in the usual way and type out the address. When done, turn the envelope down through the machine with the right hand. With the left hand, place the next envelope between the top of the first envelope and the front of the platen. Feed the first envelope back through the machine (in reverse) and the second will be rolled in to place for typing. Continue in this fashion until finished. All the finished envelopes will stack up in the back at the paper table.

• Chain feeding. The first envelope is inserted and rolled partway into the machine. A second envelope is inserted between the platen and the second envelope (behind the platen). Turn the first envelope to the writing line and type the address. Take out the first envelope and insert the next the same way as before.

• Uses paper bail. Do the first envelope in the usual way. Spin it out of the machine up and behind the paper bail into a box behind the typewriter.

For quickly doing labels or small cards:<br /> Create a small zig-zag fold into a piece of paper to create a pocket slot which can be scotch taped on either side. This template paper can then be inserted so that the pocket is visible above the writing line, but the paper below it is still in the platen. The label or card can be placed into the pocket and the platen reversed to feed the label or card in backwards to the desired typing line. Using a v-groove or hole in the typing line can create a pencil line to serve as a guide for inserting many labels at the same place so that the typing lines up between labels.

Some offices had special platens for holding cards like this.

Pockets like this can also be used to hold the page to add additional lines at the bottom of pages. Deeper pockets may need to be used for doing this with carbon packs whose carbons are longer than the pages.

Alternately one can do something similar by creating a inverted u-shaped set of slits into an index card. to hold such labels.

When in the midst of a page and needing to do another piece urgently, roll back the letter until about 2 inches from the top, and then place in the new page and one between each of the carbons. Then roll forward to do the short message as necessary. Turn back to the insertion position to remove the copies and then continue with the first letter where you left off.

For drawing horizontal lines on typewriter paper, push the carriage to the extreme left and place the pencil or pen at the edge of the card guide and the scale. Then move the carriage to the right to effect the line. For vertical lines, put the carriage at the desired space and place the pencil at the card guide and scale and move the platen up/down as necessary.

http://typewriter-museum.lv/en/page/AdminDokRokasgramata

Index card system to track daily, weekly, and monthly routines by [[Anna Havron]]

Brief outline of a tickler file system for today, daily, weekly, and monthly to do items.

Ugmonk released a limited edition of 100 archive boxes for their Analog productivity cards today at 7AM (Pacific) for $229.00 (including 12 card packs and a metal divider). It sold out within two and a half hours.

With the inclusion of this archive box it makes the system much more like the original Memindex system.

https://ugmonk.com/products/analog-archive-box-walnut?variant=43942761562262

Given my current r/typewriter flair ("typewriters + card index = magic"), I couldn't help but appreciate that Lucas Dul features a 3x5" card index (aka database) of typewriter typefaces in a recent video on the 1896 Williams 3 typewriter: https://youtu.be/T1zzXwB3Xh8?si=K4FeiS-V_aev9_SZ&t=506. Those who have been following along on the typeface front will recognize some of the samples from this small index having been featured in a video on typewriter typefaces at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scrguKgDNIY.

I'm reminded of a similar card index (or Zettelkasten if you speak German) database of type I saw last year via the Letterform Archive article at Schriftenkartei [Typeface Index], 1958–1971 and a related Flickr version of it at https://www.flickr.com/photos/letterformarchive/albums/72177720310834741/

Lest you think these sorts of analog office pairings are completely obsolete, I feel compelled to mention that I've recently noticed that Pam Beasley's character had both an IBM typewriter and a metal 1970s/80s era two drawer metal card file behind her desk in the TV series The Office (NBC, 2005-2013).

If typewriters and card indexes are your sort of thing, I've got a small personal collection as well as some research and writing about them which can be found at https://boffosocko.com/research/zettelkasten-commonplace-books-and-note-taking-collection/#Boxes

If you follow my collections and work, you know I'm not beyond pairing up a nice typewriter with a card index (or two).

Image of a 1948 Royal and a matching Steelcase card index.

Syndication link: https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1e5u5z3/era_appropriate_database_for_typewriter_typefaces/

You have to love the fact that Lucas Dul has a HON card index file of 3x5" index cards with typeface samples organized by decade.

timestamp 8:38

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/3801438776811728/

Sold · Antique 16-Drawer Library Card File Cabinet

Purchased for $250

cost per drawer $15.63

Alternate angle at http://images.google.com/hosted/life/81b7b3f24bbe1b3a.html

Nabokov used index cards for his research and writing. In one index card for research on Lolita, he creates a "weight-heigh-age table for girls of school age" to be able to specify Lolita's measurements. He also researched the Colt catalog of 1940 to get gun specifications to make those small points realistic in his writing.

syndication link

I have run across Jeff Shelton's Analog system (originally via Kickstarter) before. Thanks for the reminder.

There's also a slew of others, especially for folks looking at commercially preprinted cards (though I tend to think they're overpriced compared to blank cards): - The Hipster PDA (Parietal Disgorgement Aid) https://web.archive.org/web/20040906150523/https://merlin.blogs.com/43folders/2004/09/introducing_the.html - Pile of Index Cards (PoIC) https://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/albums/72157594200490122/ - Levenger https://www.levenger.com/products/triple-decker-pocket-planner?variant=42485422424213 (among others they carry including pocket briefcases) - Notsu https://notsubrand.com/ - Baronfig / Strategist: https://baronfig.com/products/strategist?variant=39787199529043 - Jeff Shelton's Analog system https://ugmonk.com/ - 3x5 Life https://www.3x5life.com/ - Foglietto https://www.nerosnotes.co.uk/collections/foglietto - Jot & Mark https://amzn.to/3Qs26Je

Am I missing any significant or influential examples, particularly branded ones?

Hubnote for 3 x 5" index cards for productivity

reply to u/scihuy at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1c2b2d6/note_taking_in_the_past/kzcg3qa/

I posed your question to my own card index:

Generally scientists haven't spent the time to talk about their methods the way those in the social sciences and humanities are apt to do. This being said, their methods are unsurprisingly all the same.

If you want to look up examples, you can delve into the nachlass (digitized or not) of most of the famous scientists and mathematicians out there to verify this. Ramon Llull certainly wrote, but broadly memorized all of his work; Newton had his wastebooks; Leibnitz used Thomas Harrison's Ark of Studies cabinet; Carl Linnaeus "invented" index cards for his work (search for the work of Staffan Müller-Wille and Isabelle Charmantier); Erasmus Darwin and Charles Darwin both used commonplace books; physicist Mario Bunge had a significant zettelkasten practice; Richard Feynman used notebooks; engineer Ross Ashby used a combination of notebooks which he indexed using a card index.

For historical reasons, most used a commonplace book method in which they indexed against keywords rather than Luhmann's variation, but broadly the results are the same either way.

Computer scientist Gerald Weinberg is one of the few I'm aware of within the sciences who's written a note taking manual, but again, his method is broadly the same as that described by other writers for centuries:

Weinberg, Gerald M. Weinberg on Writing: The Fieldstone Method. New York, N.Y: Dorset House, 2005.

I identify as both a mathematician and an engineer, and I have a paper-based zettelkasten for these areas, primarily as I prefer writing out equations versus attempting to write everything out as LaTeX. I'm sure others here could add their experiences as well. I've previously written about zettelkasten from the framing of set theory, topology, dense sets, and have even touched on it with respect to the ideas of equivalence classes and category theory, though I haven't published much in depth here as most don't have the mathematical sophistication to appreciate the structures and analogies.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/8120601076/

Edward Lane's Arabic English Lexicon sounds like it was compiled by means of card index. Worth looking into the scholarly method behind compiling it.

Researcher Michael Macdonald created a card index database of safaitic inscriptions which he and French archaeologist Laïla Nehmé eventually morphed into a digital database which included a collection of photographs of the extant texts.

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.

While the idea of a common user interface on computers may have felt like a selling point when facing a new scary machine with a variety of functionalities, did it really save that much time, effort, and learning curve? Particularly with respect to the common office tools it was replacing?

The common user interface was really more a benefit to the company and all the companies which programmed for it at scale. The benefits are like Melvil Dewey's standardization of the Dewey Decimal Classification which allowed libraries everywhere to work on the same system rather than needing to reinvent their own individually.

This sort of innovation with scalability is helpful as humans are far better at imitation than innovation.

In 1983, at the dawn of the personal computer age, Apple Inc. in promotional film entitled "Lisa Soul Of A New Machine" touted their new computer, a 16-bit dual disk drive "personal office system", as something that would do away with "the cluttered desk, index cards, file folders, the in-out basket, [and] the calculator." (00:01)

Some of these things moved to the realm of the computer including the messy desk(top) now giving people two messy desks, a real one and a virtual one. The database-like structure of the card index also moved over, but the subjective index and its search power were substituted for a lower level concordance search.

30 years on, for most people, the value of the database idea behind the humble "index card" has long since disappeared and so it seems here as if it's "just" another piece of cluttery paper.

Appreciate the rosy framing of the juxtaposition of "past" and "future" jumping over the idea of the here and now which includes the thing they're selling, the Lisa computer. They're selling the idealized and unclear future even though it's really just today.

(13:39) Hands flipping through a card index with overlapping dialogue about prospects

https://archive.org/details/0800_Beware_of_Mental-itis_06_00_55_00

Are Travel Loyalty Programs at Risk? by [[Elaine Glusac]] 2024-03-28

Visa and Mastercard Agree to Cap Swipe Fees in Settlement by [[Tara Siegel Bernard]]

There are likely other metadata he may be missing here: - in particular dates/times/time periods which may be useful for the historians. - others? - general forms of useful metadata from a database perspective?

this was never produced?

Elaine Svenonius in Facet Definition: a Case Study https://web.archive.org/web/20220803153450id_/https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/0943-7444-1978-3-134.pdf comes to a similar conclusion

Only two volumes of the three were ever produced as far as I can tell.

Further evidence to the claim at https://hypothes.is/a/iQwqzvC4Ee6PrNfzDQurog

as a rule, the law, order, and precision of an engineer's office.

There's an interesting dichotomy presented here about the tech forwardness of the automobile industry in 1908 versus the tech reticence of the carriage builders in regard to adopting card indexes with respect to their related (though different) industries.

Me (sarcastically):<br /> "Oh, those backwards carriage builders will get with the 'program' any day now..."

Variations of card index systems were published in booklet form by filing cabinet manufacturers as a means of selling not only their cabinets, but their systems for using them was common in the early 1900s. Examples of magazine advertisements in System Magazine back this up. It is also specifically highlighted in a review of J. Kaiser's book "The Card System at the Office" from Ironmonger (1909-10-03) which appreciates a more fully fleshed out version of a card index system in book form without mention of specific manufacturing firms.

When were bookmark-like "flags" introduced in America? (Certainly prior to 1908, based on this reference.)

anecdotal evidence from Ironmonger (1908) that this is the first card index book and prior versions are only of shorter booklet-like forms.

(Naturally, I don't trust this in the fullest sense.)

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

Annotation URL: urn:x-pdf:2acc267d4cbe455af640e4a707a84692

Alternate: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3A2acc267d4cbe455af640e4a707a84692

See alternate version at: # or https://www.google.com/books/edition/Systematic_Indexing/iwFDAAAAIAAJ?hl=en Google-Books-ID: iwFDAAAAIAAJ

(Switched for better OCR)

https://search.worldcat.org/title/20718283

J. Kaiser's The card system at the Office was translated to French in 1914 by G. et M. Ravisse, Paris.

Kaiser, J. Systematic Indexing. The Card System Series 2. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., 1911. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Systematic_Indexing/iwFDAAAAIAAJ?hl=en Google-Books-ID: iwFDAAAAIAAJ

Annotation url: urn:x-pdf:5e00705cb3b4484c6753104643a1e1a6

Alternate: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3A5e00705cb3b4484c6753104643a1e1a6

Switching editions for better OCR. see: Internet Archive or

Kaiser, J. Card System at the Office. The Card System Series 1. London: Vacher and Sons, 1908. http://archive.org/details/cardsystematoffi00kaisrich.

Annotation url: urn:x-pdf:01c6d04ce30f5072bccfd0b7ea69d9d2

Alternate: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3A01c6d04ce30f5072bccfd0b7ea69d9d2

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.

The description here is almost similar to interdepartmental memos or corporate emails which are sent out now instead. This information flows out, but broadly isn't kept or filed in the same sorts of ways.

Key cabinets are used to control the information found in other card indexes as well as for private business information which should be restricted within a firm.

Business Ledger

This section looks at index cards for communication to/from clients and appropriate follow up with respect to sales management in a manufacturing firm. It broadly represents some examples of how one would do larger scale project management and follow up with index cards.

Broadly this sounds like an indexed corporate diary of sorts, but his use of future reminders (or ticklers in the footnote) certainly points to the use of index cards in a Memindex-like fashion.

Keep in mind that he's writing in Britain and the Memindex from 1903 was a US-based product, though similar ideas may have been used at the time across the pond.

examples of specific workflows within Kaiser's card system

https://www.ebay.com/itm/276403515343 <br /> archived copy

In 1984, Memindex was selling monthly planning calendars (pocket notebook size with spiral binding and a case) rather than their older small index card sized formats. Their calendar format looks eerily like what Day-Timer, a division of ACCO Brands, has been selling since at least the early 1990s.

This goes down to even the "cut here" triangles in the lower right corners of pages to help bookmark the current page.

Early 20th century mail merge using a card index!

This is a restatement that a particular system should be customized to its users.

There is potential that a system could be applied universally, but it requires a very large amount of data and metadata to suit the needs of a greater number of people and use cases. It also requires a reasonable amount of work in practical use to make it operate as expected.

The Mundaneum was likely close on paper and Google comes close to this, but still isn't perfect.

quote via ¶76 and 92

Devising Card Systems

Many modern-day note takers and knowledge workers might take solace in the broad advice provided by J. Kaiser in 1908. In describing some of the broad categories of uses of card index filing systems for business use he says that each entity "has its individual character and individual requirements, and its individual character" (ie, everyone is different and has different needs), therefore everyone "must devise [their] system in accordance with [their] own requirements" and should "be the best judge as to what these requirements are." He continues on in the rest of the book to outline a variety of suggestions and methods which one might use or adopt, but he doesn't dictate specific methods and leaves those decisions up to the end user.

When devising their own systems, one certainly ought to heed this advice when looking at a variety of alternative methods like Forte's P.A.R.A., Milo's LYT, or even in mimicking Luhmann's idiosyncratic Zettelkasten set up. Are these methods best for your particular use cases? Are they simple enough for what you want to do, or are they overly structured and complicated? The key is to be able to classify and file things quickly so that they can be easily accessed in the future, all the rest becomes additional details and overhead to support on an ongoing basis.

(¶76)

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.

grin

This sort of failure is still seen today with people setting up note taking systems in a variety of digital environments.

Setting up and learning a note taking or card index system has a reasonably large up-front cost, but learning it well and being able to rely on it over long periods of time will eventually reap larger and cheaper long-term outcomes and benefits.

Unless changing systems creates dramatically larger improvements, the cost of change will surely swamp the benefits making the switch useless. This advice given by Kaiser is still as true today as it was in 1908, we tend not to think about the efficiency as much now as he may have then however and fall trap to shiny object syndrome.

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.

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.

Julius Kaiser contemporaneously posits that mass manufacture and maximizing efficiency (greater output for minimum input) are the primary drivers of card index system use in the early 20th century. These also improve both precision and accuracy in handling information which allow for better company or factory operation, which would have been rising concerns for businesses and manufacturing operations at the rise of scientific management during the time period.

Given this date, he's potentially either giving advice to consumers about what to buy or manufacturers about how to design and improve their systems.

He notes the general equivalency of cards and papers in vertical files.

One of the primary affordances that individual atomic cards have is the ability to more easily re-arrange and reuse them for various purposes in comparison with larger sheets with greater amounts of data on them.

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.

I've seen some mixed cabinet in the early 1900s, but apparently by 1908, it was common practice to separate vertical filing cabinets and card cabinets.

¶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.

The nebulous, but colloquial "card system" was a common, but now lost moniker for the use of a card index in business settings in the early 1900s.

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.

Hartlib Papers 30/4/47A, Ephemerides 1640, Part 2.

In extolling the Ark of Studies created by Thomas Harrison, Samuel Hartlib indicated that the combinations of information and the potential links between them created the "argumentative part" of the system. In some sense this seems to be analogous to the the processing power of an information system if not specifically creating its consciousness.

card index in Russian is 'картотек'

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

Otlet's effort was more than a "database for all subjects", wasn't it? This seems a bit simplistic.

Read [[Martha S. Jones]] in Sleuthing the Card Catalog

Research on keywords and their shifting meanings over time can make things difficult for the novice researcher. This example from Martha S. Jones certainly highlights this perspective even in under a century of semantic shift.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/374936561744

Previously listed (late Summer 2023). Offered for bidding at $7,200 for a Jens Risom Library Card catalog on/around 2023-09-16. Local pickup from Pageland, SC. Ex-library from Davidson College Library in North Carolina tag number 01359.

Section of 6x5 and another of 6x7 for a total of 72 drawers with a middle section which has two pull out writing drawers.

Cost per drawer at opening bid: $100.00

2023-09-25: Relisted at https://www.ebay.com/itm/374948492633

2024-02-29 Relisted at https://www.ebay.com/itm/375282966486

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

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166584466393

2024-02-06: 15 drawer (5x3) card catalog offered for starting bid of $200. 3 piece sectional with top, drawers and simple table base with spindle legs. Appears to be in maple with polished steel fittings.

Manufacturer: none listed<br /> Location: Local pick up from Niagara Falls, NY

Condition: the finish on this is shot and is either cracked, peeling, or generally non-existent on the outside. Missing two rods. Finish on the wood inside appears solid.

Cost per drawer: - opening bid of $200: $13.33

This was later relisted at https://www.ebay.com/itm/166595950156 and ultimately sold for $255.00.

Cost per drawer: $17.00

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/945071177181845/

2024-02-01 Listed Shaw-Walker four drawer side table for $95 and it sold within a day for local pick up.

Cost per drawer: $23.75

I inquired about this, but missed out on it by just a few hours. I totally want a pair of these as end tables for a couch or a cozy club/reading chair.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/694743405502203/

Seller description: 1902 Shaw Walker Card Catalog and File Cabinet 3 piece stackable $765 Listed 19 weeks ago in San Bernardino, CA Details

Condition
Used - Good
Color
Brown
Material
Wood

Super nice old antique card catalog Stackable Oak wood Very few marks for its age 1902 original tags inside it Simply elegant piece No missing pieces no scratches 76 t 16 w 19 d

Jeanie Lowry listing from October 2023 and sold in late 2023 potentially for $765 or less.

Sectional Shaw-Walker modular card catalog and filing cabinet. 3 sections of 2x3 drawers for 3x5" cards and one section of 2x1 along with a two 8.5x11" filing drawers and a writing desk pullout section.

22 total drawers but 20 for index cards

Cost per drawer: $34.77 (sold)

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1020494389229110/

Solid Gaylord Bros. 60 drawer card catalog for pick up in San Bernardino, CA by Jeanie Lowry on Facebook. Reasonable shape despite some dings, especially to the wood facia at the bottom. One metal drawer pull shorn off, but looks like it had all it's rods as well as three writing drawers in the middle.

2023-01 Listed for ??<br /> Sold sometime in early 2024 presumably for $525

Seller description: Beautiful Vintage 1950’s Bro Dart Card Catalog Vintage 60 Drawer Card Catalog One drawer handle has the hook missing 3 of the slide in bars missing Some wear on the bottom panel Drawers are strong with brass handles and screws 60 inches tall 40 1/2 wide 17 1/2 deep Drawers are 5 1/2 inches wide Very heavy Great piece would look so great in a retail setting

Cost per drawer: $8.75

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/406045722112862/

2024-02-01 Originally listed for 1,100 or so and slowly decreased to $990 on 2024-02-17 at which point it was listed as "not in stock", so unsure if actually sold.

Gaylord Bros. 25 drawer modular card catalog in 4 sections including top and table/legs and two drawer sections of 5x2 and 5x3. in reasonable but somewhat rough condition. for pick up in San Bernardino, CA from Jeanie Lowry

Offered as part of a Facebook garage sale which included a similar 30 drawer catalog with pull out writing desks and a handful of metal card filing cabinets meant for punch cards.

1960’s 25 Drawer Card Catalog Hard to find item In great shape 40 1/2 T, 33 W, 17 D

Read [[Martha S. Jones]] in A New Face for an Old Library Catalog

Discussion on harmful content in library card catalogs and finding aids.

The methods used to describe archive material can not only be harmful to those using them, but they also provide a useful historical record of what cataloguers may have been thinking contemporaneously as they classified and organized materials.

This is another potentially useful set of information to have while reading into historical topics from library card catalogs compared to modern-day digital methods.

Is anyone using version control on their catalogs?

that they had themselves been writing all those years.

Baker describes the library card catalog as a massive book made up of 3 x 5 inch pages describing all the other books. Sadly he laments, they never bothered to catalog this meta-book itself.

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)

A library card catalog drawn using ASCII art. :)

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

The huge frozen card catalog of the Library of Congress currently suers from alarming levels of public trauma: like the movie trope in which the private eye tears a page from a phone

Interesting psychology being played out here....

Card catalog cards being repurposed for art.