The volunteer ‘Readers’ were instructed to write out the words andsentences on small 4 x 6-inch pieces of paper, known as ‘slips’.

Possible further answers to your open questions are in »›Schmierbuchmethode bestens zu empfehlen.‹ Sudelbücher?«, in: Ulrich Joost et al. (eds.), Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 1742–1799. Wagnis der Aufklärung, München 1992, 19–48. PDF in GermanThere’s plenty more at the Lichtenberg society.And a fascinating online exhibition. See display no. 20 for an example of one of Lichtenberg’s annotated bibliographies, which he had published specially in an interleaved edition, and, wouldn’t you know it, some of his loose slips!

The famous OED slips – 4 x 6 inch pieces of paper, some pre-filled with title and publication details – were to be completed by readers, whose task was to write down instances and examples of words in need of definition.

A sample of the note cards the scholars are using to assemble the comprehensive Latin dictionary. Courtesy of Samuel Beckelhymer. hide caption toggle caption Courtesy of Samuel Beckelhymer.

I find that last claim highly unlikely. If you walk through a bog, you get bogged down. That's where the phrase comes from, Magnus.

he three-by-five inch slipsof thin paper eventually filled about eighty wooden file drawers.And he classified the notes day by day, under topical-chronologicalheadings that eventually extended from 4639 B.C. to 1949, theyear after his death.

In writing my dissertation and working on my first book, I used an index card system, characterized by the "one fact, one card" maxim, made popular by Beatrice Webb.

Experience here, as in the tasksof critical scholarship,^ has decided in favour of thesystem of slips.

The analysis of documents —The method of slips—Complete-ness necessary

AtleastonedistinguishedAmericanscholarhasmadethemthechieffactorin hisnote-system,tosuch degreeastohavenoplace for smallerpiecessave astheymight befiledwiththe larger;andhasfreelycounseledotherstodolikewise

Thismeans,uselooseslipsorsheets.Withthemone canmakenotesquite separately,so thateach,nomatterwhatitslength,willbeaunitbyitself.Notes thus separatelymadecan then beput here or there at will;classifiednowinoneway,nowinanother;employed,asfirstwritten,for various purposesin succession.Duplicationofeffort,renoting of thesame matter,maybereduced-especiallybythe aid of cross-references-to a minimum.

The sheet box

By the earlytwentieth century advice manuals on research methods recommended takingnotes on index cards.141

In getting my books, I have been always solicitous of an ample margin; this not so much through any love of the thing in itself, however agreeable, as for the facility it affords me of penciling suggested thoughts, agreements and differences of opinion, or brief critical comments in general. Where what I have to note is too much to be included within the narrow limits of a margin, I commit it to a slip of paper, and deposit it between the leaves; taking care to secure it by an imperceptible portion of gum tragacanth paste. — Edgar Allen Poe on marginalia

The system of slips the best — Its drawbacks — Means ofobviating them^The advantage of good "private librarian-ship"

“ Every one agrees nowadays ”, observethe most noted French writers on the study of history, “ that it is advisable to collectmaterials on separate cards or slips of paper. . . . The advantages of this artifice areobvious; the detachability of the slips enables us to group them at will in a host ofdifferent combinations; if necessary, to change their places; it is easy to bring textsof the same kind together, and to incorporate additions, as they are acquired, in theinterior of the groups to which they belong ” (Introduction to the Study of History,by Charles Langlois and Charles Seignobos, translated by C. G. Berry, 1898, p.103). “

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