The volunteer ‘Readers’ were instructed to write out the words andsentences on small 4 x 6-inch pieces of paper, known as ‘slips’.
Volunteer 'Readers' for the Oxford English Dictionary were encouraged to write down interesting headwords along with their appearances in-situ along with the associated bibliographical information. The recommended paper size was 4 x 6-inch pieces of paper which were commonly called 'slips'.
(Double check this against the historical requests from James Murray.)
https://pages.oup.com/ol/cus/1646173949115570121/submit-words-and-evidence-to-the-oed
The modern day digital version of an OED contribution slip includes database fields for the following:
Only the first two fields are mandatory.
Image of slips used for gorilla in the first edition of the OED.
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.
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/
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.
Frederic L. Paxson kept a collection of 3 x 5 " slips of thin paper that filled eighty wooden file drawers which he organized using topical-chronologic headings spanning 4639 BCE to 1949.
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.
Manfred Keuhn indicates that Webb popularized the idea of "one fact, one card", (and perhaps she may have helped re-popularize the idea in the 20th century) but Konrad Gessner (Pandectarum sive Partitionum Universalium. Zurich: Christoph Froschauer, 1548) had already advised "A new line should be used for every idea." Since Gessner then says that each line was to be cut up into an individual slip, the ideas are equivalent.
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
What scholar is being referenced here as using larger slips and suggesting others do likewise?
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.
sheets / slips
The sheet box
Interesting choice of translation for "Die Kartei" by the translator. Some may have preferred the more direct "file".
Historically for this specific time period, while index cards were becoming more ubiquitous, most of the prior century researchers had been using larger sheets and frequently called them either slips or sheets based on their relative size.
Beatrice Webb in 1926 (in English) described her method and variously used the words “cards”, “slips”, “quarto”, and “sheets” to describe notes. Her preference was for quarto pages which were larger pages which were likely closer to our current 8.5 x 11” standard than they were to even larger index cards (like 4 x 6".
While I have some dissonance, this translation makes a lot of sense for the specific time period. I also tend to translate the contemporaneous French word “fiches” of that era as “sheets”.
See also: https://hypothes.is/a/OnCHRAexEe2MotOW5cjfwg https://hypothes.is/a/fb-5Ngn4Ee2uKUOwWugMGQ
By the earlytwentieth century advice manuals on research methods recommended takingnotes on index cards.141
Here Blair quotes Chavigny and Heyde, but crucially leaves out Bernheim, Langlois & Seignobos, and Beatrice Webb.
Check the others, specifically for index card references, but Webb uses slips or sheets (and often larger ones).
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
Poe used the book itself as his "slip box".
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). “
oops... in the opening seconds, Scott Young unconsciously says
[Tiago Forte] has written a very interesting book, "Building A Second Brain", which is all about how do you take smart notes...
wrong guest!?!
i g u r e ]Y ́his manuscript by obraham firtelius S]c‘e–gfTW author of many geographical atlasesand dictionariesW is not a draft of any of his published works but a collection of notes underalphabetized geographical headingsY fin the right side of each page notes are entered on slips ofpaper glued into the notebook in alphabetical orderW following a common early modern methodof alphabetizationi the left side of the page is left blank for additional notes to add to thealphabetical entriesY ́he notebook already resembles the kind of work for which it gathersmaterial—the encyclopedic dictionaryY ”eproduction of an opening of firteliusW “ ́hesaurusgeographicusW” fllantinXfforetus ffuseum SontwerpT ff` ‘fcW from uilbert ́ournoyW “obrahamfirtelius et la poe ́sie politique de xacques van paerleW” in ”obert ̧Y yarrow et alYW tbrahamOrtelius Tdhej–dhlkUX cartographe et humaniste S ́urnhoutW ]ggfTW ppY ]da–dbi reproduction byvarvard ˆniversity ffedia `ervicesY
What is the date of this manuscript by Abraham Ortelius (1527-98)? It shows the pattern of gluing slips of paper into books.