Hurd, Cuthbert C., ed. Proceedings: IBM Computation Seminar December 1949. New York: Internation Buisiness Machines Corporation, 1951. http://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ibmproceedeminarDec49_14295048.
In a variety of context here the idea of "cards" could be held to be synonymous with "notes".
Collision cards (though used in a physics setting) could be a bit hilarious with the idea of "atomic notes" and the idea of "combinatorial creativity".
Fifty years ago, coinciding with the centennial of the release of Darwin’s manuscript, author Morse Peckham collected all six editions into a single “variorum” text. Peckham painstakingly created a reference system that denotes the modifications and changes between editions. The text was created by Peckham’s careful enumeration of every sentence from every edition, copied onto index cards; from these cards, he carefully assembled them into a final text.
surveys indicate that screens and e-readers interfere with two other important aspects of navigating texts: serendipity and a sense of control.
Based on surveys, readers indicate that two important parts of textual navigation are sense of control and serendipity.
http://books.google.com/books/about/Electronic_journal_literature.html?id=YSFlAAAAMAAJ
How does the control over a book frame how we read? What does "power over" a book look like compared to "power with"?
What are the tools for thought affordances that paper books provide over digital books and vice versa?
I find myself thinking about people publishing books in index card/zettelkasten formats. Perhaps Scott Scheper could do this with his antinet book presented in a linear format, but done in index cards with his numbers, links, etc. as well as his actual cards for his index so that readers could also see the power of the system by holding it in their hands and playing with it.