Medicine shows became popular after the Civil War when patent medicine salesmen traveled the "kerosene circuit" in rural America. Flourishing until the passage of 1906 Fair Food and Drug Act made them obsolete, medicine shows provided entertainment to attract audiences and then used their intermissions to sell their products.

This pattern would later be seen in later radio and television when product pitchmen sponsored entertainment in return for commercial time.

(Bob Dylan, Theme Time Radio Hour, "Doctors," February 20, 2008 via http://www.oldhatrecords.com/)

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_show

Also related to tent revival shows which featured music and religion as entertainment and socializing.

Example in music: Neil Diamond's song: Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show

I love the fact that the image for "Research & History" here is a six drawer card index!

http://www.oldhatrecords.com/

https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/17617#Comment_17617

There is definitely something here from a usability (and reusability) perspective when notes are broken down into smaller pieces the way that is encouraged by Hypothes.is or by writing on index cards.

Compare: - ://www.evernote.com/shard/s170/sh/d69cf793-1f14-48f4-bd48-43f41bd88678/DapavVTQh954eMRGKOVeEPHm7FxEqxBKvaKLfKWaSV1yuOmjREsMkSHvmQ - https://via.hypothes.is/https://www.otherlife.co/pkm/

The first may be most useful for a note taker who is personally trying to make sense of material, but it becomes a massive wall of text that one is unlikely to re-read or attempt to reuse at a later date. If they do attempt to reuse it at a later date, it's not clear which parts are excerpts of the original and which are the author's own words. (This page also looks like it's the sort of notes, highlighting, and underlining recommended by Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain text using progressive summarization.)

The second set, are more concrete, more atomic, more understandable, and also as a result much more usable.

reply to jameslongley at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/2532/personal-knowledge-management-is-bullshit

I find that these sorts of articles against the variety of practices have one thing in common: the writer fails to state a solid and realistic reason for why they got into it in the first place. They either have no reason "why" or, perhaps, just as often have all-the-reasons "why", which may be worse. Much of this is bound up in the sort of signaling and consumption which @Sascha outlines in point C (above).

Perhaps of interest, there are a large number of Hypothes.is annotations on that original article written by a variety of sense-makers with whom I am familiar. See: https://via.hypothes.is/https://www.otherlife.co/pkm/ Of note, many come from various note making traditions including: commonplace books, bloggers, writers, wiki creators, zettelkasten, digital gardening, writers, thinkers, etc., so they give a broader and relatively diverse perspective. If I were pressed to say what most of them have in common philosophically, I'd say it was ownership of their thought.

Perhaps it's just a point of anecdotal evidence, but I've been noticing that who write about or use the phrase "personal knowledge management" are ones who come at the space without an actual practice or point of view on what they're doing and why—they are either (trying to be) influencers or influencees.

Fortunately it is entirely possible to "fake it until you make it" here, but it helps to have an idea of what you're trying to make.

As if by magic<br /> by Helen Davies on 2000-05-08

Sue Hart at Hodder & Stoughton was able to persuade Michel Thomas to create a series of language courses on cassettes and CDs following his BBC2 broadcast of The Language Master.

Michel Thomas Method Review

Michel Thomas method also includes: - atomic pieces built up as building blocks into larger pieces - lots of encouragement to prevent the feeling of failure

Downsides: - there is no failure mode which can nudge people into a false sense of performance when using their language with actual native speakers

This reviewer indicates that there is some base level of directed mnemonic work going on, but the repetition level isn't such that long term retention (at least in the space repetition sort of way) is a specific goal. We'll need to look into this piece more closely to firm this up, however.

The Michel Thomas Method in a nutshell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Xh-by50pI

This video indicates that small mnemonic hooks are inserted for some words in the Michel Thomas method. This was not immediately apparent or seen in the 1997 BBC documentary about his method and wasn't immediately apparent in Harold Goodman's discussion.

Is it apparent in Goodman's session with his nephews? Was it part of Thomas' method originally or was it added later? Is it truly necessary or does it work without it as in the SSiW method which doesn't use it.

It will take some deeper dives, but ostensibly this method seems to look like that of Pimsleur, Mormon Church, SSiW, and other methods.

The Language Master<br /> BBC - Michel Thomas<br /> [English CC]<br /> [Leg. PT-BR]

Michel Thomas is one of the most brilliant language teachers in the world. His usual clients are movie stars and business leaders. This programme takes him to a Sixth Form College in London to work with school pupils, to test his claim that he can teach anyone a language in a week - with no reading, writing or homework. The film also explores his personal history - as a hero of the French Resistance during WW II.

The Michel Thomas method involves: - slow build up of words, phrases, natural grammar - forced production of the language through practice - positive interaction - patience - no stress - no judgement - encouragement - constant evidence of progress

How does "understanding" of the language evolve out of this method? It's more like revelation rather than understanding...

This method appears much more atomic than that of SSiW (Aran Jones), but some of this is down to the fact that there's a live person who is able to unjudgementally prompt one with pieces which they've missed. The teacher has the context whereas the taped instructors do not. Presumably this sort of interpersonal prompting and context isn't necessarily required, but it can help to better lower the learner's stress and potentially speed up the learning process. It would require some standardization to set up a specific experiment to test between these two modes to tease this data out.

Reference key: [[Levy1997]]<br /> “The Language Master.” 1:33 : 1, color. London, UK: BBC 2, March 23, 1997. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0w_uYPAQic.

I thought Ebbinghaus did this in the late 1800s?! 😜

WordPress Community on Mastodon

Don't Dehorsify the Horse<br /> by Sasha Fast

Perhaps apropos from Wittgenstein's own zettelkasten? 🐎

1. ''Putting the cart before the horse" may be said of an explanation like the following: we tend someone else because by analogy with our own case we believe that he is experiencing pain too.—Instead of saying: Get to know a new aspect from this special chapter of human behaviour—from this use of language. (p96)

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Zettel. Edited by Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright,. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Second California Paperback Printing. 1967. Reprint, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2007.

If we believe as previously indicated by Luhmann's son that Luhmann learned the basics of his evolved method from Johannes Erich Heyde, then the point of the original was all about categories and subject headings. It ultimately became something which Luhmann minimized, perhaps in part for the relationship of work and the cost of hiring assistants to do this additional manual labor.

The hilarious part of this is that within a much broader tradition of Western intellectual history, Niklas Luhmann's zettelkasten is one of the most heterodox approaches on the map.

Zibbaldone With It All

meh...

Important caveat here....

Nachlass<br /> : a German word, used in academia to describe the collection of manuscripts, notes, correspondence, and so on left behind when a scholar dies.

compounding of nach as "after", and the verb lassen meaning "to leave".

This section makes me question whether or not the editors of this work were aware of the zettelkasten tradition?!?

This brings up the question of how Ludwig Wittgenstein arranged his own zettelkasten...

Peter Geach made an arrangement of Wittgenstein's zettels which was broadly kept in the edited and published version Zettel (1967). Apparently fragments on the same topic were clipped together indicating that Wittgenstein's method was most likely by topical headings. However there were also a large number of slips "lying loose in the box." Perhaps these were notes which he had yet to file or which some intervening archivist may have re-arranged?

In any case, Geach otherwise arranged all the materials as best as he could according to subject matter. As a result the printed book version isn't necessarily the arrangement that Wittgenstein would have made, but the editors of the book felt that at least Geach's arrangement made it an "instructive and readable compilation".

This source doesn't indicate the use of alphabetical dividers or other tabbed divisions.

Based on the dating provided by Anscombe and von Wright, Wittgenstein's zettelkasten slips dated from 1929 to 1948.

for reference LW's dates were 1889-1951

Supposing that the notes preceded the typescripts and not the other way around as Anscombe and von Wright indicate, the majority of the notes were turned into written work (typescripts) which were dictated from 1945-1948.

What was LW's process? Note taking, arranging/outlining, and then dictation followed by editing? Dictating would have been easier/faster certainly if he'd already written down his cards and could simply read from them to a secretary.

Some of the manuscript notes in Wittgenstein's zettelkasten were "apparently written to add to the remarks on a particular matter preserved in the box".ᔥ So much like Niklas Luhmann's wooden conversation partner, Wittgenstein was not only having conversations with the texts he was reading, he was creating a conversation between himself and his pre-existing notes thus extending his lines of thought within his zettelkasten.

In Zettel, the editors indicate that many of Wittgenstein's zettels "were for the most part cut from extensive typescripts of his, other copies of which still exist." Perhaps not knowing of the commonplace book or zettelkasten traditions, they may have mistook the notes in his zettelkasten as having originated in his typescripts rather than them having originated as notes which then later made it into his typescripts!

What in particular about the originals may have made them think it was typescript to zettel?

In 1967, G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright published a collection of notes from Ludwig Wittgenstein's zettelkasten which they aptly titled Zettel.

https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/charging-tray-for-library-readers-tickets-14436111112.html

A wooden 5 tray charging tray with lid! This could make a fascinating portable zettelkasten. It has options for both 2"x3" and 3"x5"Cards.

https://www.carrmclean.ca/charging-trays-and-guides.html

http://www.shopbrodart.com/Library-School-Furniture/Adult-and-Teen-Furniture/Computer-Furniture/Card-Catalog-Trays-and-Cabinets/_/Brodart-Wood-Charging-Trays2/

Brodart Full-Length Single Charging Tray<br /> Full- length charging tray with 1,000-card capacity<br /> Price: $96.32

• Adjustable steel follower block with automatic lock
• Felt pads on tray bottom protect desktop
• Full-length charging tray for countertop use
• 4"H x 4"W x 16"D
• Holds 1,000 5"H x 3"W cards
• Includes antimicrobial finish
• Made in the USA

See also: https://hypothes.is/a/ao89RMQmEe2zIvsu3lf6kw for a smaller version

http://www.shopbrodart.com/Library-School-Furniture/Adult-and-Teen-Furniture/Computer-Furniture/Card-Catalog-Trays-and-Cabinets/_/Brodart-Wood-Charging-Trays/?q=tray&s=MToyNTY6NDo6Ojo6OjA6

Brodart Mini Single Charging Tray Mini single charging tray with 600-card capacity More Info Price: $76.76

• Adjustable steel follower block with automatic lock
• Felt pads on tray bottom protect desktop
• Mini charging tray fits on your lap
• 4"H x 4"W x 8"D
• Holds 600 5"H x 3"W cards
• Includes antimicrobial finish
• Made in the USA

This could be used for a modern day Memindex box for portrait oriented 3 x 5" index cards.

https://www.universityproducts.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=card%20catalog

In 2023, University Products offered catalog cards for printing, but no longer offers physical card catalogs.

https://en.forum.saysomethingin.com/t/interesting-video-about-michel-thomas-by-teacher-who-was-trained-in-the-method-by-him/30934

How I found Michel Thomas

https://americantvdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/1997_in_British_television

https://www.hodder.co.uk/

My Ten Years With Michel Thomas - Dr. Harold Goodman

https://youtu.be/askAFNzI9Rc

Michel Thomas taught languages conversationally in both languages by creating absolutely no pressure or worry and always keeping students in the "now".

Find:<br /> Kaplan, Howard. “The Language Master.” The Jerusalem Report, August 11, 1994.

Watch:<br /> “The Language Master.” 1:33 : 1, color. London, UK: BBC 2, March 23, 1997. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0w_uYPAQic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmus_Rask

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Jespersen

Andrew Tate: Romanian court rejects bail application<br /> by Lucy Williamson & Laura Gozzi

Andrew Tate, a former kickboxer and Big Brother (17, UK) housemate, has gained popularity among young men for promoting a "hyper-masculine, ultra-luxurious lifestyle".

Where does Tate fit into the pantheon of the prosperity gospel? Is he touching on it or extending it to the nth degree? How much of his audience overlaps with the religious right that would internalize such a viewpoint?

Twitter had banned and then later reinstated Andrew Tate for saying women should "bear responsibility" for being sexually assaulted.

A potential downside of active learning classrooms (opinion)<br /> by Sarabeth Grant

The New Kingdom from around 1430 to 1200 BCE was the peak of Hatti power in the ancient Near East.

see also: https://hypothes.is/a/7juYrMOXEe2oWAN8p96NMw

Isuwa (transcribed Išuwa and sometimes rendered Ishuwa) was the ancient Hittite name for one of its neighboring Anatolian kingdoms to the east. Isuwa is the origin of our word 'Asia'.

Religion was a major part of Hittite life as was the military and war. In all parts of strategy and execution, the gods were consulted before carrying out any military campaigns.

Defeated Hatti enemies who weren't deported were usually left to rebuild with a three year tax exemption.

Iron at this time was meteoric in origin and incredibly valuable, so it wouldn't have been used until after the collapse of the Hittite Empire when iron smelting began its rise; bronze weapons would have been more common as a result.

Some of the oaths taken by Hatti warriors involved mutton fat and melted wax on one's hands. Another version indicated that the breaking of the oath would turn them into women, their troops into women, and their weapons destroyed and replaced with weaving sticks and mirrors.

Dise, Jr., Robert L. “Ancient Empires Before Alexander: Course Guidebook.” The Teaching Company, 2009. https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/ancient-empires-before-alexander.

annotation target: urn:x-pdf:1e4821a1d889703f671b666411312026 annotations: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=urn%3Ax-pdf%3A1e4821a1d889703f671b666411312026

Ancient Empires before Alexander. DVD. Vol. 3150 The Great Courses: History. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2013.https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/ancient-empires-before-alexander.

Wilusa is a city in western Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age which we identify as a Hittite word for the city of Troy.

Mentioned briefly in lecture 10 of Ancient Empires before Alexander.

Ken Ribet’s love note from Serge Lang<br /> by Ken Ribet

AMS Open Math Notes

Resources and inspiration for math instruction and learning

Welcome to AMS Open Math Notes, a repository of freely downloadable mathematical works hosted by the American Mathematical Society as a service to researchers, faculty and students. Open Math Notes includes: - Draft works including course notes, textbooks, and research expositions. These have not been published elsewhere and are subject to revision. - Items previously published in the Journal of Inquiry-Based Learning in Mathematics, a refereed journal - Refereed publications at the AMS

Visitors are encouraged to download and use any of these materials as teaching and research aids, and to send constructive comments and suggestions to the authors.

What tensor products taught me about living my life<br /> by Cathy O'Neil aka mathbabe

Impromptu: Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI by Reid Hoffman

via Friends of the Link

A Graduated English-Welsh Spelling Book by John Lewis

Some of the words may have shifted a bit since 1857, but there's something delightfully subversive about considering using this book to learn/practice Welsh in 2023.

https://archive.org/details/apracticalgramm00adlegoog/page/n2/mode/2up

An interesting find! This Latin Grammar appears to be that of Francis James Childs, the eminent folklorist and Harvard's first Professor of English.

Heinrich Gottfried Ollendorff

The Method Gaspey-Otto-Sauer of teaching languages was popular until the 1950s and was influenced by la méthode Ollendorff from the 1830s.

Llyfr newydd - Welsh - SSi Forum

🎉

compare this with tummeling

What is the overlap? How do they differ?

Sounds fascinating<br /> - https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/jeffersonian-dinners/ - https://jeffersondinner.org/jefferson-dinner/

Adler, David, James Cornehlsen, and Andrew Frothingham. Harnessing Serendipity: Collaboration Artists, Conveners and Connectors. Advanced Reader Copy. 2023. Reprint, David Adler, 2023.

Iggers, Georg G. “Historiography in the Twentieth Century.” History and Theory 44, no. 3 (October 2005): 469–76. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2303.2005.00337.x.

https://view.lists.wnyc.org/?qs=c21e51f10535486454406231c332604f2f1294f7dc1e092cc447aecc921a7afea43d909cff18f5632556038806bd1478ef38f4a01571075f8ab2569693d3d5f772f504793f123055e5985cba29893530

Examples of momfluencers from the early 20th century onward.

Mezcal Worm in a Bottle: DNA Testing Yields Unexpected Results

Read on 2023-03-10

ggstrader/obsidian-meta-vault at obsidian-iceberg

A repository for custom Obsidian.md dashboards, daily notes, etc.

Bookkeeping, Eisenhower Matrixes, & Pretty Canvas Cards by Eleanor Konik

The Great Vaccinator

https://waaa.wnyc.org/radiolab_podcast/radiolab_podcast20greatvaccinator.mp3/radiolab_podcast20greatvaccinator.mp3_ywr3ahjkcgo_7d3105f4ceea640a7c9df376fa60ffce_43057055.mp3?hash_redirect=1&x-total-bytes=43057055&x-ais-classified=streaming&listeningSessionID=0CD_382_72__176a88639f0d9f459a1123b260a07f59e7746372

Listened to on 2023-03-11

Much like Richard Feynman kept a list of his 12 favorite problems, Maurice Hilleman kept a running list of diseases for which he was working on developing vaccines to remedy.

Stationery vending machine in the headquarters on the university campus

Pens, highighters, index cards, and other small sundries available on a German university campus at the library.

1-click Beautiful Screenshots on Windows

Interesting workflow here for taking a screenshot quickly, saving it as a file, saving it to clipboard, and sharing it to various services.

ShareX - The best free and open source screenshot tool for Windows

via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q-GQ4KiJEk

Einblicke in das System der Zettel - Geheimnis um Niklas Luhmanns Zettelkasten, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4veq2i3teVk.

Watched 2023-03-13

Mentioned elsewhere, but there's a segment here that he used whatever paper he happened to have around including the receipts from a brewery, tax papers, and even his children's art papers.

Like Cuckoos, Capitalism Had to Push All Other Ways of Living Out of the Nest

Friends of the Link 2023-03-01

What Are Our Next Two "Stacks"?

Friends of the Link 2023-03-01

https://app.thebrain.com/brains/3d80058c-14d8-5361-0b61-a061f89baf87/thoughts/7de7af80-11c8-358c-93ed-22b575eb95d9/notes

Friends of the Link 2023-03-01

Leveraging Social Annotation in the Age of AI : Hypothesis

Slides for this presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1wOmZiAKWsXru1Uv7_nH5S3KDCYHtdBiZYb1_ab58yeA/edit#slide=id.g15258ea6415_0_78

Video<br /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5fqPirbb64

Hans-Georg Moeller on Reading, Writing, Niklas Luhmann, Jordan Peterson, Carefree Wandering, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3Pkp5YUdHc.

German academic publishing in Niklas Luhmann's day was dramatically different from the late 20th/early 21st centuries. There was no peer-review and as a result Luhmann didn't have the level of gatekeeping that academics face today which only served to help increase his academic journal publication record. (28:30)

In Chapter 1: American Exceptionalism of Myth America (Basic Books, 2023) historian David A. Bell indicates that Jay Lovestone and Joseph Stalin originated the idea of American Exceptionalism in 1920, but in Democracy (1880, p.72) Henry Adams seems to capture an early precursor of the sentiment:

"Ah!" exclaimed the baron, with his wickedest leer, "what for is my conclusion good? You Americans believe yourselves to be excepted from the operation of general laws. You care not for experience. I have lived seventy-five years, and all that time in the midst of corruption. I am corrupt myself, only I do have courage to proclaim it, and you others have it not. Rome, Paris, Vienna, Petersburg, London, all are corrupt; only Washington is pure! Well, I declare to you that in all my experience I have found no society which has had elements of corruption like the United States. The children in the street are corrupt, and know how to cheat me. The cities are all corrupt, and also the towns and the counties and the States' legislatures and the judges. Every where men betray trusts both public and private, steal money, run away with public funds.

• Adams, Henry. Democracy : An American Novel. Leisure Hour Series 112. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1880. http://archive.org/details/democracyanameri00adamrich.

Had a flavor of American Exceptionalism been brewing for decades before Stalin's comment?

Perhaps it's already begun, but when will we begin seeing edited collections of peoples email correspondence or perhaps their early blogs?

The Emails of Bill Clinton, 7 volumes?

Adams, Henry. The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography. Edited by Ira B. Nadel. 1907. Reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

annotation target: url: urn:x-pdf:36c954cb79cc117f8dbeff1351049bda

https://github.com/bramses/chatgpt-md

Notes Raft - How to Build a Habit of Writing Evergreen Notes<br /> by Haikal Kushahrin

Luhmann with focus on "Matuschak's evergreen notes".

Inspired by Shime's Word Raft, Haikal Kushahrin has created a note raft with several people as a means of keeping them all accountable for writing at least 15 notes per week.

The AdlerNet Guide, Part III<br /> by Amy Hunt

It's not just me who's noticed this.

Interesting that for someone propounding Luhmann's zettelkasten system that Scheper has done this. Was it because he did it himself and then didn't want to change (likely) or because he spent time seeing others' problems with Luhmann's numbering system and designed a better way (less likely)?

I've noticed on a couple of .pdf documents from Google books that their fingerprints, lack thereof, or some other glitch in creating document equivalency all seem to clash creating orphans.

Example, the downloadable .pdf of Geyer's Stationer 1904 found at https://www.google.com/books/edition/Geyer_s_Stationer/L507AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 currently has 109 orphaned annotations caused by this issue.

See also a specific annotation on this document: https://hypothes.is/a/vNmUHMB3Ee2VKgt4yhjofg

https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_o1suAAAAYAAJ/mode/2up Die deutsche Frau nach 1914

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Business_the_Magazine_for_Office_Store_a/d7RLAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Page 9 has an advertisement for Mr. D. F. Urbahns' Memory Training method!

The Pelman School of Memory Training, 1635 Masonic Temple, Chicago.<br /> LONDON , 4 Bloomsbury St., W.C.; <br /> PARIS, Avenuede Nenilly, 109 ;<br /> MUNICH , Mozartstrasse, 9; <br /> MELBOURNE, G.P.O, Box 1635

p 89 There's a Dickson School of Memory selling a Dickson Method.

Seen in a Hoskins business equipment advertisement in Business magazine (1903) for card index:

YOUR BUSINESS AT YOUR FINGER ENDS

Close to the phrase "at your finger tips". Would it have appeared before or after this?

Business: The Magazine for Office, Store and Factory. Vol. 16. Business Man’s Publishing Company, 1903. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Business/QKaxezfHjL0C?hl=en&gbpv=0.

Trademark for Memindex

Ser. No. 511,916. WILSON MEMINDEX COMPANY, Rochester, N. Y. Filed Aug. 23, 1947.<br /> FOR LOOSE-LEAF DAILY MEMORANDUM CARD SYSTEM COMPRISING MEMORANDUM CARDS AND POCKET AND DESK CASES THEREFOR.<br /> Claims use since Aug. 1, 1903.

(p58, SEPTEMBER 7, 1948) (aside: interesting to note that Wurlitzer is on the same page!)

Memindex, Wilson Company, Rochester, N. Y. Loose - leaf daily memorandum card system . Serial No. 511,916, Sept. 7. Class 37.

Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office. Vol. 614. United States Patent Office, 1948.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Collier_s/IDwa6nqexo8C?hl=en&gbpv=0

Memindex advertised in Collier's (Volume 34) in 1904.

General instructions for using a Memindex

HOW IT IS USED <br /> Things to be done today, jot on face card. Things to be done tomorrow or next Friday, jot on card for that day. Things to keep before you until done, jot on opposite front card. A matter for January 10th jot on a short card put under the band till you return to your desk, then file next to card for January 10th when it will come out and refresh your memory.

Things to be done when in New York or Chicago jot on card "N" or "C." The new address of Mr. Jones, under "J." Ideas on advertising jot on card tabbed "adv." Things for your clerk to do, on his card , etc., etc. Retire today's card tonight, carrying forward things not completed and put next card in the file in has proved that almost back of pocket case. The alphabet enables one to index all jottings for instant reference. This system is very comprehensive yet perfectly simple. You soon the learn to depend on it every hour of every day.

Within the general instructions in a 1904 Memindex advertisement (next to an ad for "Genuine Edison Incandescent Lamps") we see the general ideas of indexing things into the future and carrying undone tasks forward, just as is done in the bullet journal method.

Howard L. Wilson, Manufacturer, 45 State St., Rochester, N. Y.<br /> (next to an ad for "Genuine Edison Incandescent Lamps")(p.2 in a 2/3 page ad)

Carleton, Hubert, ed. St. Andrew’s Cross. Vol. 19. Brotherhood of St. Andrew., 1904.

Specific issue: Nov-Dec 1904 Vol. 19, No 2-3, Pittsburgh, PA

Howard L. Wilson, Mfr., 61 State St., Rochester, N.Y. (p.392)

Miller, Kempster B., William A. Colledge, Alfred S. Johnson, and Carl S. Dow, eds. Technical World Magazine. Chicago, IL: American School of Correspondence at Armour Institute of Technology, 1905. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Technical_World_Magazine/CgLOAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Specific issue: The Technical World, Volume II, No. 3, November 1904 Chicago

Apparently in addition to a Fred Macey Company and the Globe-Wernicke Co. there was a Macey-Wernicke Co. Ltd. which supplied card index supplies in 1904.

Geyer’s Stationer: Devoted to the Interests of the Stationery, Fancy Goods and Notion Trades, Volume 38, 1904. (p333)

Hudson & Hudson of Toledo, OH were one of the early distributors of Howard L. Wilson's Memindex system.

Geyers Stationer. “The Revolving Desk Tray.” Geyer’s Stationer: Devoted to the Interests of the Stationery, Fancy Goods and Notion Trades, November 10, 1904. vol. 38, issue 940, p25. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Geyer_s_Stationer/L507AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.

Memindex dimensions mentioned in a 1904 advertisement<br /> cards: 2 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches<br /> case: 2 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches

Geyers Stationer. “Memindex Advertisement.” Geyer’s Stationer: Devoted to the Interests of the Stationery, Fancy Goods and Notion Trades, September 15, 1904. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Geyer_s_Stationer/L507AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Howard L. Wilson of Rochester, NY named his vest pocket card index system the Memindex.

https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/og/1998/week46/pattmex.htm

This would appear to indicate that the Trademark of the Wilson Memindex expired in 1998.

Compare with listing at https://www.google.com/books/edition/Index_of_Trademarks_Issued_from_the_Unit/YhBWAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9c/1b/c4/42ee9bd28aae7d/US1196269.pdf

https://patents.google.com/patent/US1196269A/en?assignee=memindex&oq=memindex

Patent for Memex, but not for the original system.

https://www.garten-des-gedenkens.de/?page_id=118&lang=EN

Example of a zettelkasten as an Holocaust rememberance/momument installation in Marburg in 2012

http://tamaroszettelkasten.blogspot.com/

Example of a blog being kept as a zettelkasten....

Altfranzösisches etymologisches Wörterbuch : AGATE

I recall that the Oxford English Dictionary was also compiled using a slip box method of sorts, and more interestingly it was a group effort.

Similarly Wordnik is using Hypothes.is to recreate these sorts of patterns for collecting words in context on digital cards.

Many encyclopedias followed this pattern as did Adler's Syntopicon.

Not sure why Manfred Kuehn removed this website from Blogger, but it's sure to be chock full of interesting discussions and details on his note taking process and practice. Definitely worth delving back several years and mining his repository of articles here.

http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/<br /> archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20230000000000*/http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/

https://archive.org/details/encyclopaediabritannicagreatbooksofthewesternworld/Encyclop%C3%A6dia%20Britannica%20-%20Great%20Books%20of%20the%20Western%20World%2C%20Volume%201%20-%20The%20Great%20Conversation/

According to the Oxford English dictionary, 'non-fiction' was coined in 1903 in a library journal by a librarian attempting to define the opposite of fiction.

Why "Verity"?<br /> by Richard Rhodes

Richard Rhodes uses the word verity rather than non-fiction as a means of defining his writing work in a more positive framing rather than defining it as the opposite of fiction (i.e. non-fiction).

http://www.greaterbooks.com/verity.html

This is a spectacular looking list of verity works over the last century. So many I've already read or which are already on my ever-growing list.

Italicized works on this verity list are already noted on one or more of the 47 other lists.

Lubbock's List: http://www.greaterbooks.com/lubbock.html

http://www.greaterbooks.com/

Center for the Study of the Great Ideas

https://web.archive.org/web/20190806154724/https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/literature/gbww/index.html

University of Adelaide digital collection of the Great Books of the Western World using public domain sources within their collection.

https://www.logos.com/product/55052/great-books-of-the-western-world

A digital (app?) version of The Great Books of the Western World with cross references.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ebooks/comments/eao9c8/great_books_of_the_western_world_ebook_collection/

Someone's collected digital copies of most of the Great Books of the Western World collection here.

https://standardebooks.org/collections/encyclopaedia-britannicas-great-books-of-the-western-world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillary_sphere

Any book collector worth their salt will already have in mind the way they want their collection arranged. Only someone who wants to use it as wallpaper would have a service arrange it.

I wonder what the other two cases were?

the phrase "intellectual furniture" is sort of painful here...

The Very First Bible 144 A.D. by Marcion of Sinope, A. W. Mitchell.

Randomly ran across the bible from Marcion of Sinope...

odd title if it's meant not as curiosity but as a bible for Marcionites...

Oh, but it is ZK furniture in every sense! The narrow definition of zettelkasten in common use (in this subreddit and in many other locations on the internet) to describe only card indexes/digital software which have the numbering scheme and form of Niklas Luhmann's only works for his and a number of imitators from roughly 2007/2013 to the present. Prior to this it is a much more generic term in Germany and elsewhere known in English as a card index or card file, but academics and others have been using practices broadly similar to Luhmann's for centuries in a variety of forms.

You're likely right that this particular piece of furniture had a business-specific market use case for the majority of its users, but I'm sure there was a subset of customers, particularly those in academia, which may have used it primarily as a note storage or personal knowledge management tool in a way highly similar to Luhmann's. Because it was in America, it was unlikely to have been called by the German name zettelkasten, though there were many German-Americans (Gotthard Deutsch and S. D. Goitein come to mind) who had this practice and may have done so, though I've seen no direct evidence of this at present in their writings. Not all card indexes were used for business or library purposes. In addition to academic researchers, we know a variety of mid-century comedians used their card indexes for collation and storage of jokes over their careers.

The quality of the advertisement is hard to make out, but on close examination it appears to have four drawers and the scale leads me to think that this would likely have accommodated 3 x 5" index cards. Some upcoming research work may uncover the manufacturing specifics and I'll share them as I find them.

As for Harrison and Placcius they're definitely there and people talk about them occasionally, though few seem as interested in the historical aspects despite the fact that they have a lot to demonstrate about the pros/cons of various practices. I remember adding them both to the English wikipedia page in July 2021. Certainly they could stand to be more widely known for their work, as could Leibniz. More on both can be found mentioned in the following: - Cevolini, Alberto. “Where Does Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index Come From?” Erudition and the Republic of Letters 3, no. 4 (October 24, 2018): 390–420. https://doi.org/10.1163/24055069-00304002. - Blair, Ann M. Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age. Yale University Press, 2010. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300165395/too-much-know. - Blei, Daniela. “How the Index Card Cataloged the World.” The Atlantic, December 1, 2017. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/12/how-the-index-card-catalogued-the-world/547271/. - Vincentius Placcius. De arte excerpendi. Vom Gelahrten Buchhalten Liber singularis, quo genera et praecepta excerpendi... Gottfried Liebezeit, 1689. http://archive.org/details/bub_gb_IgMVAAAAQAAJ.

There's also a bit on Placcius in: - Krajewski, Markus. Paper Machines: About Cards & Catalogs, 1548-1929. Translated by Peter Krapp. History and Foundations of Information Science. MIT Press, 2011. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/paper-machines.

The bigger hero, in my opinion, is Konrad Gessner and his work from 1548 which outlined much of the common "rules" note takers, practitioners of ars excerpendi, zettelers, and card indexers have been using ever since, including an early idea which many would now call "atomic notes". Much of his work, however was transferring ideas of commonplace book practices of his day into the form of paper slips which were heavily used until mass manufacture of index cards in the 20th century made them cheap and plentiful. Within the note taking space online the community also broadly ignores influential figures like Agricola, Erasmus, and Melanchthon who make some big strides in popularizing a variety of methods in the 1400-1500s.