Linnaeus had to manage a conflict between the need to bring information into a fixed order for purposes of later retrieval, and the need to permanently integrate new information into that order, says Mueller-Wille. “His solution to this dilemma was to keep information on particular subjects on separate sheets, which could be complemented and reshuffled,” he says.
Carl Linnaeus created a method whereby he kept information on separate sheets of paper which could be reshuffled.
In a commonplace-centric culture, this would have been a fascinating innovation.
Did the cost of paper (velum) trigger part of the innovation to smaller pieces?
Did the de-linearization of data imposed by codices (and previously parchment) open up the way people wrote and thought? Being able to lay out and reorder pages made a more 3 dimensional world. Would have potentially made the world more network-like?
cross-reference McLuhan's idea about our tools shaping us.