I've seen this quote earlier today, but interesting seeing another source quote it.

—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Notebook E, #46, 1775–1776

In this single paragraph quote Lichtenberg, using the model of Italian bookkeepers of the 18th century, broadly outlines almost all of the note taking technique suggested by Sönke Ahrens in How to Take Smart Notes. He's got writing down and keeping fleeting notes as well as literature notes. (Keeping academic references would have been commonplace by this time.) He follows up with rewriting and expanding on the original note to create additional "explanations" and even "connections" (links) to create what Ahrens describes as permanent notes or which some would call evergreen notes.

Lichtenberg's version calls for the permanent notes to be "separated and ordered" and while he may have kept them in book format himself, it's easy to see from Konrad Gessner's suggestion at the use of slips centuries before, that one could easily put their permanent notes on index cards ("separated") and then number and index or categorize them ("ordered"). The only serious missing piece of Luhmann's version of a zettelkasten then are the ideas of placing related ideas nearby each other, though the idea of creating connections between notes is immediately adjacent to this, and his numbering system, which was broadly based on the popularity of Melvil Dewey's decimal system.

It may bear noticing that John Locke's indexing system for commonplace books was suggested, originally in French in 1685, and later in English in 1706. Given it's popularity, it's not unlikely that Lichtenberg would have been aware of it.

Given Lichtenberg's very popular waste books were known to have influenced Leo Tolstoy, Albert Einstein, Andre Breton, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. (Reference: Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph (2000). The Waste Books. New York: New York Review Books Classics. ISBN 978-0940322509.) It would not be hard to imagine that Niklas Luhmann would have also been aware of them.

Open questions: <br /> - did Lichtenberg number the entries in his own waste books? This would be early evidence toward the practice of numbering notes for future reference. Based on this text, it's obvious that the editor numbered the translated notes for this edition, were they Lichtenberg's numbering? - Is there evidence that Lichtenberg knew of Locke's indexing system? Did his waste books have an index?

Watts, Charles J. The Cost of Production. Muskegon, MI: The Shaw-Walker Company, 1902. http://archive.org/details/costproduction01wattgoog.

Short book on managing manufacturing costs. Not too much of an advertisement for Shaw-Walker manufactured goods (files, file management, filing cabinets, etc.). Only 64 pages are the primary content and the balance (about half) are advertisements.

Given the publication date of 1902, this would have preceded the publication of System Magazine which began in 1903. This may have then been a prototype version of an early business magazine, but with a single author, no real editorial, and only one article.

Presumably it may also have served the marketing interests of Shaw-Walker as a marketing piece as well.

Tangentially, I'm a bit intrigued by the "Mr. Morse" mentioned on page 109 who is being touted as an in-house consultant for Shaw-Walker.... Is this the same Frank Morse who broke off to form the Browne-Morse Co.? (very likely)

see: see also: https://hypothes.is/a/Sp8s4sprEe24jitvkjkxzA for a snippet on Frank Morse.

Beyond having people make direct copies of cards by hand or using carbon paper, The Calculagraph Company manufactured a copying machine for duplicating data.

There is an accompanying picture (which I haven't copied here). Advertisement from 1906 System Magazine:

The Calculagraph<br /> Makes individual records of actual<br /> working time on separate cards<br /> which may be used interchangeably<br /> for Cost Accounting, for Pay-rolls and<br /> for a number of other purposes with-<br /> out copying or transcribing a single<br /> figure, by simply assorting the cards<br /> and adding the records directly from<br /> their faces.<br /> A card containing all the work<br /> records of one man for a week may<br /> be useful for pay-roll purposes, but it<br /> is utterly worthless for learning the<br /> cost of products, until all the items<br /> have been copied or transcribed for<br /> classification.<br /> The Calculagraph requires a large<br /> number of cards in a factory employ-<br /> ing several hundred persons, but it<br /> Saves Clerical Labor. (In one<br /> factory it saves $150.00 per week).<br /> Cards Are Cheaper Than Labor<br /> The Calculagraph Makes No<br /> Clerical Errors.<br /> Let us send you our printed matter.<br /> CALCULAGRAPH COMPANY<br /> 1414 JEWELERS BUILDING, NEW YORK CITY

https://archive.org/details/practicalbookkee00ellirich/page/6/mode/2up

<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>u/stockwestfale</span> in Requesting antinet hivemind assistance: ANALOG ACCOUNTING/BUDGETING/BOOKKEEPING : antinet (<time class='dt-published'>01/08/2023 12:04:20</time>)</cite></small>

There are some interesting parallels with kakeibo and note taking methods. Some have used envelopes to save away their notes in a similar sort of structure.

Link to https://hyp.is/RVP-plQaEe2t_7Pt7pyTgA/www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n11/keith-thomas/diary<br /> Historian Keith Thomas used envelopes for storing/maintaining his notes

reply to u/Echo_Delta17 at https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/103r4j0/requesting_antinet_hivemind_assistance_analog/

You should read Paper Machines closer as the accounting uses of Library Bureau products are what made it fantastically profitable in the early 1900s. Ann Blair has some useful references in Too Much to Know. Broadly there is lots of heavy influence of accounting principles in history as applied to note taking evolution, and particularly that of double entry bookkeeping. The idea of waste books plays particularly heavy here.

I've previously posted some early 1900s photos from Yawman & Erbe of uses of index card filing systems for CRM and other business related purposes: https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/yka3ro/vintage_yawman_and_erbe_card_index_filing_systems/

Melvil Dewey/Library Bureau ultimately partnered up with Herman Hollerith in a predecessor of what became IBM to supply early versions of punch cards for government contracts. (See Krajewski for this.)

Feel free to troll some of my other notes for some related references across time: https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=accounting

Curious what you're looking to discover here? A hard target library search for references should get you swimming in details pretty quickly here. I'd love to see what you come up with.

"Nullum numen abest si sit prudentia, is unquestionably true, with regard to every thing except poetry; and I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by proper culture, care, attention, and labour, make himself whatever he pleases, except a good poet." Chesterfield, Letter lxxxi.

See also: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:The_Works_of_the_Rev._Jonathan_Swift,_Volume_5.djvu/261 as a source

Swift, Jonathan. The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift. Edited by Thomas Sheridan and John Nichols. Vol. 5. 19 vols. London: H. Baldwin and Son, 1801.

An explicit reference in 1931 in a section on note taking to cross links between entries in accounting ledgers. This linking process is a a precursor to larger database processes seen in digital computing.

Were there other earlier references that are this explicit within either note making or accounting contexts? Surely... (See also: Beatrice Webb's scientific note taking)

Just the word "digital" computing defines that there must have been an "analog' computing which preceded it. However we think of digital computing in much broader terms than we may have of the analog process.

Human thinking is heavily influenced by associative links, so it's only natural that we should want to link our notes together on paper as we've done for tens of thousands of years (at least.)

note the evolution here based on competition from practices in another field (accounting)

What was his experience within accounting and these traditions?