Example of a small Weis steel card index which was used by a coin collector who had custom index cards made for tracking a collection.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/235342975576/

https://ideaflow.app/

Audio transcription notes with AI

2023-12-12 Released on PruductHunt https://www.producthunt.com/posts/ideaflow

https://docsify-this.net/#/

Instantly Turn Online Markdown Files into Web Pages This open-source web app, built with the magical documentation site generator Docsify, provides a quick way to publish one or more online Markdown files as standalone web pages without needing to set up your own website.

https://codeberg.org/

Codeberg is a collaboration platform providing Git hosting and services for free and open source software, content and projects.

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

Heard about her work on the MS Westerdam trip to Alaska on 2023-08-08 and want to delve into it further.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15gI7LozljTOvo_7oUwfnOIwfzD8O0VHVgWGr0oK3RI0/edit

When comparing, one ought to take careful account of the variety of wikis and their uses (both public and private) and not fall into the availability heuristic of thinking that all wikis are used and managed like Wikipedia solely because it is one of the biggest and most popular ones.

Some individual users slowly build their personal wikis a note at a time, but instead of linking one note to another, they place it onto a page near related ideas, which may tend to create articles over time. (Sounds a bit like folgezettel, no?) See Ward Cunningham’s (the creator of the idea of wiki) wiki for this: https://wiki.c2.com/

Many public TiddlyWiki’s, in part because of design, are created as short note/card-based ideas which may slowly accumulate from notes to articles as well. See my own example: https://tw.boffosocko.com/

It may take some digging in to find public versions, but many FedWiki sites have a very note (or card-based) root design rather than an article-based design: http://fed.wiki.org/view/federated-wiki

Bill Seitz’s public wiki is broadly a melange of all these patterns as well: http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/BillSeitz

For additional contrast and comparison, see also: - https://indieweb.org/Zettelk%C3%A4sten - https://indieweb.org/digital_garden - https://indieweb.org/commonplace_book

Looking at a variety of specific examples in practice will tend to be far more fruitful than considering a tiny handful of theoretical (and potentially non-existent) examples, particularly in light of the massive bias which is created by the existence of Wikipedia.

reply to ctietze at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/15201/#Comment_15201

I can be stupid in my [private] Zettelkasten without anyone noticing.

I too have a private space exactly for this purpose. On the other hand, writing and publishing in public spaces forces me to do some additional thinking/polishing work that I might not otherwise, and that often provides some spectacular results as well as useful feedback for improvement over time.

reply to u/chiefkeif at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/18fjaya/new_member_here_is_zettelkasten_the_right_method/

Some of your root issues may be addressed directly by engaging with by spaced repetition systems (for improving memory recall: try Anki, Mnemosyne, et al.) as well as mnemonic systems (memory palaces, the major system, etc.). Given that a Zettelkasten can be an instantiation of both of these simultaneously, you may find benefits for using it in such a setting. This being said, you may be better off with either one or both of the more proximal solutions with a zettelkasten being somewhat more distal for your specific needs.

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

The Notebook by Roland Allen review: a history of scribbling by [[Thomas W Hodgkinson]]

The Notebook by Roland Allen review – notes on living by [[Sukhdev Sandhu]]

Not so much of a review as the dumping out of most of the reviewer's highlights from the book. I get the impression that he at least read it and paid attention, but what did he actually think of it?

Cursory overview of Roland Allen's book: The Notebook (reply to u/eggbunni at https://www.reddit.com/r/ilovestationery/comments/17lpbzb/comment/kcmicw5/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

Broadly, it's exactly about what the title indicates. I had to purchase a copy shipped from the UK, so mine has only just arrived in Los Angeles. As a result, I've not read it fully yet beyond a cursory glance.

You can find a reasonable overview at Amazon, and there are a few reviews of it, primarily in UK-based papers (Telegraph, Guardian) where the book has been released. Personal communication with some friends who have journaling, note taking, and commonplace book practices say they've been enjoying it a lot, particularly on the history of the notebook and related forms of stationery and writing practices. It needn't be read linearly.

It's got a reasonable section on the history of paper and papermaking. Sections on friendship books, waste books, travelers and their notebooks, diaries and journals, bullet journaling, artists and scientists and even police uses, and many others. It does have a full chapter on commonplace books, particularly since 1512 though it's not nearly as comprehensive as Earle Haven's book, for example. There are also examples of a variety of specific people's uses as well as photos of their notebooks/papers interspersed.

For the stationery nerd, it may be one of the more interesting potential gifts one might give, especially if you don't know their particular desires for papers, notebooks, pens, pencils, etc. in advance. I can say the heft and paper quality of the book is particularly nice for a mass produced volume and it's got some reasonable margins for writing one's notes in the book. I've already ordered a handful of copies for friends who have the gentle madness for stationery.

Having some academic background in the area of intellectual history and many of the areas that Allen is writing in, I will say that this looks like a very accessible, popular press overview of writing and notebooks that touches on almost all of the highpoints that I would expect it to have and even a few I wouldn't have expected.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hobonichi/comments/16t0vhf/hobonichi_monthly_colors_an_unnecessary_project/

https://medium.com/workings/obsidian-properties-meets-sidenotes-1b46a25d8be

: a register especially of socially prominent persons

Woolf, Virginia. “How Should One Read a Book?” In Gateway to the Great Books: 5 Critical Essays, edited by Robert M. Hutchins, Mortimer J. Adler, and Clifton Fadiman, 2nd ed., 5–14. Gateway to the Great Books 5. 1932. Reprint, Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1990.

Originally:<br /> “How Should One Read a Book?” from The Second Common Reader by Virginia Woolf. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1932.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Bloch Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch (6 July 1886 – 16 June 1944)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucien_Febvre<br /> Lucien Paul Victor Febvre (22 July 1878 – 11 September 1956)

See also Bloch's book on historiography:

Bloch, Marc. The Historian’s Craft: Reflections on the Nature and Uses of History and the Techniques and Methods of Those Who Write It. Translated by Peter Putnam. Vintage, 1964.

sourcing on this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri-Jean_Martin

Henri-Jean Martin (16 January 1924 – 13 January 2007)

Suggested by The Toronto Philosophy Meetup<br /> The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800 (Pre-Read), Fri, Dec 15, 2023, 6:00 PM - Meetup

Febvre, Lucien, and Henri-Jean Martin. The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800. Edited by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and David Wootton. Translated by David Gerard. 1st ed. Foundations of History Library. 1958. Reprint, London: N.L.B., 1976.

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

Your having said "Friends of the Library" makes me think that your set likely isn't actually ex-Library (reference or otherwise), but likely was privately owned and donated directly to the library or their friends, who then sold them to raise money for the library itself. This is a common pattern in libraries across America and explains how you've gotten such a pristine copy.

https://lifelonglearn.substack.com/p/second-unboxing

https://help.obsidian.md/import/evernote

Given the recent state of Evernote and their beginning to charge larger amounts and close off their free tiers, I've moved copies of my data over to Obsidian just in case.

https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/1894/the-official-luhmann-certified-100-note-categories

https://hypothes.is/users/sociate

https://www.ebay.com/itm/204539906243

According to the card on a Shaw-Walker desktop card index, the follower block was patented on October 10, 1902.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166417242257

72 drawer library card catalog listed for sale on 2023-11-05 for $850.00 with local pick up only in Asheboro, NC. Mid century modern in Maple with plastic drawers. Heavily used and some damage visible, but functional shape. Two sections separated by 3 writing drawers. Likely from 70s.

Cost per drawer: $11.80.

2023-11-29 relisting: https://www.ebay.com/itm/126210967207

2023-12-06 delisted https://www.ebay.com/itm/166481183026 Indicated that it was no longer available, so potentially sold for the $850 (or less)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/196117658422

2023-12 A 60 drawer cabinet on aluminum legs missing all the rods. Middle has three writing drawers. Local pick up from Powder Springs, GA.

I've never seen a model like this. Looks like wooden veneer with aluminum fittings and 70s aluminum legs. Plastic drawers.

Cost per drawer: $6.25

https://www.ebay.com/itm/335142753451

2023-12-06: Gaylord Bros. 9 drawer card catalog listed for $1,100. In rough shape and missing all the rods. Shipping from Alamo, CA.

Cost per drawer: $122.22

https://www.ebay.com/itm/176065962090

Original listing date ?

2023-12-06: 60 drawer card catalog (Gaylord Bros. though not identified as such) with three writing drawers as a continuous cabinet listed for $1,250 for local pick up only from Lake City, PA.

Cost per drawer: $20.83

When did Gaylord move from the smaller plates to the larger ones with two sections (small square and larger rectangle)?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/266540831146

Not described as such, but the internal linking mechanisms of the piece indicate it as a Gaylord Brothers card catalog.

2023-12 Gaylord Bros. 30 drawer modular card catalog with two sections of 15 , a leg base, and writing drawer section with two drawers. Listed for $1,195 for local pick up only in Freeport, OH.

cost per drawer: $39.83

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1571702826/vintage-alphabetized-index-cards-5x3

Imperial apparently made card dividers in addition to card catalogs.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1378872932/antique-imperial-large-card-catalog-wood?show_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details

Another large format card index from Imperial.

https://www.goinghomepictures.com/

https://web.hypothes.is/event/annotate-this-discover-new-hypothesis-features/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDbV574DkaE

reply to u/FusRoDaahh at https://www.reddit.com/r/commonplacebook/comments/188j2xt/getting_over_the_fear_of_perfection/

I had this problem too, but eventually switched to keeping my commonplace entirely on index cards, which also allows me to move them around and re-arrange them as necessary or when useful. (It also fixed some of my indexing problems.)

The side benefit is that if I botch a single card, no sweat, just pull out a new one and start over! If you like the higher end stationery scene afforded in notebooks, then take a look at Clairfontaine's bristol cards from Exacompta which are lush and come in a variety of sizes, colors, and rulings. (They're roughly equivalent to the cost per square meter of paper you'll find in finer notebooks like Leuchtturm, Hobonichi, Moleskine, etc., though some of the less expensive index cards still do well with many writing instruments.) Most of their card sizes are just about perfect for capturing the sorts of entries that one might wish to commonplace.

Once you've been at it a while, if you want to keep up with the luxe route that some notebook practices allow, then find yourself a classy looking box to store them all in to make your neighbors jealous. My card indexes bring me more joy than any notebook ever did.

When penmanship becomes a problem, then you can fix it by printing your cards, or (even better in my opinion), typing them on your vintage Smith-Corona Clipper.

And of course the first thing one could type out on their first card and file it at the front where you can see it every day:

"Le mieux est le mortel ennemi du bien" (The better is the mortal enemy of the good).<br /> — Montesquieu, in Pensées, 1726

aka "Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good."

reply to u/whiteo3 at https://www.reddit.com/r/commonplacebook/comments/18aggj9/best_organizationindex_system/

One of the most common methods may be using John Locke's indexing system. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/john-lockes-method-for-common-place-books-1685/ (And, yes, it's THAT John Locke...)

You could have a single notebook you use as your index which indexes the rest. Not sure how you number pages (or not), but you could keep a running page number from one notebook to the next to make differentiating notebooks a bit easier.

W. Ross Ashby was known to keep running page numbers across notebooks like this, however, instead of a notebook-based index, he actually used index cards to index them (the way libraries used to index books by subject, but instead of indexing books, he was obviously indexing quotes, ideas, and notes). So you could use a card with your index word on it with page numbers (and potentially brief notes). Then just file the category headings alphabetically to find them later. His collection has been digitized, so you can view it online to see what he was doing: http://www.rossashby.info/journal/index.html

If you want to do hybrid paper/digital you could look at https://www.indxd.ink/, a digital, web-based index tool for your analog notebooks. Ostensibly allows one to digitally index their paper notebooks (page numbers optional). It emails you weekly text updates, so you've got a back up of your data if the site/service disappears.

I've used Obsidian in combination with Hypothes.is and documented the way I created a subject index out of it: https://boffosocko.com/2022/05/20/creating-a-commonplace-book-or-zettelkasten-index-from-hypothes-is-tags/

I've also used WordPress as a commonplace of sorts and documented what I did to make an index for that: https://boffosocko.com/2021/09/04/an-index-for-my-digital-commonplace-book/

Searching the entire sub may also unearth other options to get your creative indexing juices flowing: https://www.reddit.com/r/commonplacebook/search/?q=index&restrict_sr=1

Good luck!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtwaJu80Rk4

Two people ostensibly in sales (influencers selling products: courses, books, etc.) holding themselves out as learning researchers... curious to see more of the science underlying their methods and whether it bears out.

Note the click-bait headline and how the two are sharing their platforms of users.

https://www.amazon.com/Antiracist-Deck-Meaningful-Conversations-Justice/dp/0593234847

Kendi, Ibram X. The Antiracist Deck: 100 Meaningful Conversations on Power, Equity, and Justice. One World, 2022.

A zettelkasten for creating conversations (randomly) around power, equity, and justice.

Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy - Manifold @CUNY

https://watch.reclaimed.tech/open-publishing-ecosystems

https://manifoldapp.org/community

Examples of Manifold in the world.

https://nyu.manifoldapp.org/

An example of NYU's Manifold platform.

https://manifoldapp.org/

machine translation:

The remarkable thing about this statement is that it clearly expresses what we might call, in systems theory terms, the production of complexity by selection. The basic idea is that the Zettelkasten, when set up correctly, must be able to generate much more complexity than was introduced into the Zettelkasten. This is precisely the case if its internal structure, as Luhmann (1992a, p. 66) put it, enables “independent combinatorial performances”, so that what the Zettelkasten has to communicate with each query is always much more than that user himself had in mind.

Perhaps a usable quote to support my own theory, but certainly nothing new to me.

Perhaps some interesting overlap with Ashby's law of requisite variety here? Perhaps an inverse version for creating variety and complexity?

Machine translation:

This aspect was not lost on the educated people of the early modern period. At the end of the 18th century, Christoph Meiners (1791, p. 91) had pointed out that “even the union of as many facts and ideas as have been brought together in complete excerpts [causes] a multitude of combinations and prospects that otherwise never made or received would have".

Find the Meiners reference and look more closely at his version of combinatorial creativity with respect to excerpts.

See: Meiners, Christoph. 1791. Anweisungen für Jünglinge zum eigenen Arbeiten besonders zum Lesen, Excerpiren, und Schreiben. Hannover: In der Helwingschen Hofbuchhandlung.

Machine translation:

In the machine, however, the order of knowledge is broken down into alphabetically ordered entries. That is, there is no hierarchy and no particular structure other than that of the completely conventional alphabetical order. The crucial effect of this dissolution is that combinatorial possibilities increase dramatically and knowledge can react on itself in unpredictable ways.

Cevolini suggests that by removing knowledge from traditional rhetorical geographical commonplaces new combinations of knowledge were more likely to occur. There was no hierarchy other than conventional alphabetical order.

I would suggest that he's on the wrong track as these combinations both then and now could certainly have been done by moving the excerpts around via slips or even looking things up while flipping pages. He also seems to be unaware of Llull's mnemonic techniques which specifically seemed to be designed to increase combinatorial creativity.

Harrison defined his Ark of Studies as a machine.

Cevolini seems to be saying that it was an innovation of Harrison's Ark of Studies that it served as a second memory.

Surely my translation is "off" as the use of a variety of notes and writing long prior to this were used in this way.

Cevolini, Alberto. “Die Erfindung des Zettelkastens als Vergessensmaschine: Eine historische und wissenssoziologische Einführung.” Polarisierte Welten. Verhandlungen des 41. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in Bielefeld 2022 41 (September 29, 2023). https://publikationen.soziologie.de/index.php/kongressband_2022/article/view/1564.

https://lifelonglearn.substack.com/p/unboxing-the-great-books

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAerQtNkGT0

Short video version

https://emacsconf.org/2023/talks/nabokov/

While this supposition may be true, I don't believe that there's direct evidence from Nabokov to support the statement that this is why he "loved index cards for writing novels". It's possible that he may have hated it, but just couldn't come up with anything better.

A note taking tool discussed by [[Bastien Guerry]] at I Annotate 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgTAxKbkyYU

Collection of Bob Doto's notes on tree structures with respect to N. Luhmann's zettelkasten

(via https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/188das5/comment/kbni2ft/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

He's at least done enough research to know the general groups of people who are already broadly using the zettelkasten method (or some other area of PKM).

https://www.atomicworkflows.com/atomic-note-taking/

A new zettelkasten book, though oddly no physical copy and no ebook version? The fact that this is bundled with a course and seems priced on the high side seems a major turn off.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166471025582

19 drawer Remington Rand Kardex in 20 gauge steel on casters.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166462302430

This Yawman & Erbe multi-drawer piece sold for $250 by auction on eBay o/a 2023-12-03. A variety of filing drawers, but doesn't appear to have been specifically for index cards.

Cost per drawer: $8.93

In 1895 they changed their name to the Office Specialty Manufacturing Company.

This is a horrible source for this fact as I'm reasonably sure they had Y&E well after 1895, but check this out. Did they maybe split off part of the company?

https://industrialartifacts.net/

Some nice vintage furniture and miscellaneous hardware.

Not large enough for most index card collections, but you have to love this listing for this photo of a man snuggling up to his card index:

Original photo from their website:

https://github.com/nathanlesage

Hendrik Erz is the primary developer and maintainer of the markdown text editor Zettlr.

https://docs.zettlr.com/en/advanced/zkn-method/

Zettlr's maintainer's experience suggests that using complex zettelkasten IDs makes one less likely to assume something about what they mean and thereby making them better suited for cross-linking notes.

Part of this can be read as a means of disassociating the idea of specific topics from the notes on the cards.

Zettlr uses a date-time stamp as their zettelkasten default. It doesn't suggest any useful or worthwhile reason why.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/314945102079

It's been listed a while, but first saw 2023-12-02 for $3,699.00. Local pick up from Green Bay, WI and flat rate shipping for $399.00

35 drawer modular Gaylord Bros. card catalog. 2 sections of 15 and one section of 5 along with a sectional two writing drawers and a table base with thin legs.

Modest wear, some minor water damage on one section, has all the rods, some sticker damage to finish in label areas.

cost per drawer: 105.68

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155791697888

Offered for $1,292.00 for auction on 2023-09-24 with free local pick up from Bayonne, NJ. Modular, unlabeled Card catalog with standalone (non-interlocking) 5x3 set of drawers and a section with two pull out writing drawers.

Cost per drawer: $86.13

This has been listed separately in the past year, but taken off eBay for several months before this relisting. (versus being continually relisted...)

2023-10-11: Relisted at https://www.ebay.com/itm/155822159839 for $1292.00

2023-12-02: Relisted at https://www.ebay.com/itm/155923155812 for 1292.00

https://www.ebay.com/itm/386335942459

Yawman & Erbe metal filing cabinet for 3x5" index cards with 10 drawers, each with two sections (equivalently 20 drawers). Approximate capacity 27" / 0.0072"/card = 75,000 cards.

Listed on 2023-12-02 for 800.00 with local pick up only from Putney, VT.

Looks like some heavy wear; enough that I'd likely refinish it for office use.

Marking as I don't think I've ever seen a Y&E cabinet made in metal before.

Cost per drawer: $40.00

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/substack-extremism-nazi-white-supremacy-newsletters/676156/?gift=QOMQv_-OzUwtM49NPzkD3nEbcc1k4xnH_P8eWwZzVhU&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

How to fold and cut a Christmas star<br /> Christian Lawson-Perfect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S90WPkgxvas

What a great simple example with some interesting complexity.

For teachers trying this with students, when one is done making some five pointed stars, the next questions a curious mathematician might ask are: how might I generalize this new knowledge to make a 6 pointed star? A 7 pointed star? a 1,729 pointed star? Is there a maximum number of points possible? Is there a minimum? Can any star be made without a cut? What happens if we make more than one cut? Are there certain numbers for which a star can't be made? Is there a relationship between the number of folds made and the number of points? What does all this have to do with our basic definition of what a paper star might look like? What other questions might we ask to extend this little idea of cutting paper stars?

Recalling some results from my third grade origami days, based on the thickness of most standard office paper, a typical sheet of paper can only be folded in half at most 7 times. This number can go up a bit if the thickness of the paper is reduced, but having a maximum number of potential folds suggests there is an upper bound for how many points a star might have using this method of construction.

https://werd.io/2023/doing-it-all

Interesting to see what, in generations past, might have been a gendered (female) striving for "having it all" (entailing time with children, family and a career) has crossed over into the masculine space.

Sounds like Ben's got some basic priorities set, which is really the only thing necessary. Beyond this, every parent, especially of new babies, in the W.E.I.R.D. culture is tired. By this measurement he's doing it "right". What is missing is an interpersonal culture around him of extended family and immediate community of daily interaction to help normalize his conditions. Missing this he's attempting to replace the lack of experience with this area by reaching out to his online community, which may provide a dramatically different and biased sample.

Some of the "it takes a village" (to raise a child) still operates on many facets, but dramatically missing is the day-to-day direct care and help that many parents need.

Our capitalistic culture has again, in this case of parenting in the W.E.I.R.D. world, managed to privatize the profits and socialize the losses. Here the losses in Ben's case are on his physical well-being (tiredness) and his mental state wondering if his case is "normal". A further loss is the erosion of his desire for a family unit and cohesion of community which the system is attempting to sever by playing on his desire to "have it all". Giving in to the pull of work at the expense of family only drives the system closer to collapse.

https://blog.getreu.net/20230904-tp-note-news11

https://dead.garden/blog/this-post-was-typewritten.html

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

I can't help but feel like this story and subsequent television shows and movies informed the creation of Robert Aldrich's The Frisco Kid (1979).

https://tracydurnell.com/2023/11/30/building-community-out-of-strangers/

Amen!

Yes!

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

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._Henry

https://marbla.de/

https://imaginarytext.ca/posts/2023/OnTypst/

via John Maxwell https://hcommons.social/@jmaxsfu/111496741446813321

Midway between a sermon and a bedtime story, the lecture is knowledge's dramatic form. —Mary Cappello, Lecture

via https://kfitz.info/mary-cappello-lecture/ on 2023-11-29

Recommended by Veronica Erb in https://theinformed.life/2022/04/24/episode-86-veronica-erb/

[[Jorge Arango]] interviews Veronica Erb on Annotating Books

Anecdotal evidence that dyslexia has an overlap with creating links to see a "bigger picture"

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

https://veronicaerb.com/

https://zoonomiaproject.org/

“You don't read without marking; you can't mark without reading.” —Kori Stamper

Taking notes for now and later<br /> by [[Veronica Erb]] on 2022-04-21

Interesting to contemplate the evolution of the idea of evolution through the Darwin family.

Charles would obviously have read his grandfather's book, but it also bears noting that he also had access to his grandfather's commonplace book (and likely his other papers).

See also: https://hypothes.is/a/FmVxQuqJEey33Uu0UTcMlg

Darwin's Grandfather<br /> by [[Dan Allosso]]

Gilmore, William J. Reading Becomes Necessity of Life: Material Cultural Life in Rural New England, 1780-1835. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992. https://www.amazon.com/Reading-Becomes-Necessity-Life-1780-1835/dp/0870497685

ᔥ[[Dan Allosso]] in Darwin's Grandfather

https://myboogieboard.com/<br /> A groups of portable writing boards with an associated app.

A sleeker version of Rocketbook notebooks, but with only one "page". A modern day version of the wax tablet.

Multiplatform markdown editor<br /> https://typora.io/

https://bear.app/

Mac/iOS only

reply to u/ethanzanemiller at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/185xmuh/comment/kb778dy/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Some of your methodology will certainly depend on what questions you're asking, how well you know your area already, and where you'd like to go. If you're taking notes as part of learning a new area, they'll be different and you'll treat them differently than notes you're collecting on ideas you're actively building on or intriguing facts you're slowly accumulating. Often you'll have specific questions in mind and you'll do a literature review to see what's happing around that area and then read and take notes as a means of moving yourself closer to answering your particular questions.

Take for example, the frequently asked questions (both here in this forum and by note takers across history): how big is an idea? what is an atomic note? or even something related to the question of how small can a fact be? If this is a topic you're interested in addressing, you'll make note of it as you encounter it in various settings and see that various authors use different words to describe these ideas. Over time, you'll be able to tag them with various phrases and terminologies like "atomic notes", "one idea per card", "note size", or "note lengths". I didn't originally set out to answer these questions specifically, but my interest in the related topics across intellectual history allowed such a question to emerge from my work and my notes.

Once you've got a reasonable collection, you can then begin analyzing what various authors say about the topic. Bring them all to "terms" to ensure that they're talking about the same things and then consider what arguments they're making about the topic and write up your own ideas about what is happening to answer those questions you had. Perhaps a new thesis emerges about the idea? Some have called this process having a conversation with the texts and their authors or as Robert Hutchins called it participating in "The Great Conversation".

Almost anyone in the forum here could expound on what an "atomic note" is for a few minutes, but they're likely to barely scratch the surface beyond their own definition. Based on the notes linked above, I've probably got enough of a collection on the idea of the length of a note that I can explore it better than any other ten people here could. My notes would allow me a lot of leverage and power to create some significant subtlety and nuance on this topic. (And it helps that they're all shared publicly so you can see what I mean a bit more clearly; most peoples' notes are private/hidden, so seeing examples are scant and difficult at best.)

Some of the overall process of having and maintaining a zettelkasten for creating material is hard to physically "see". This is some of the benefit of Victor Margolin's video example of how he wrote his book on the history of design. He includes just enough that one can picture what's happening despite his not showing the deep specifics. I wrote a short piece about how I used my notes about delving into S.D. Goitein's work to write a short article a while back and looking at the article, the footnotes, and links to my original notes may be illustrative for some: https://boffosocko.com/2023/01/14/a-note-about-my-article-on-goitein-with-respect-to-zettelkasten-output-processes/. The exercise is a tedious one (though not as tedious as it was to create and hyperlink everything), but spend some time to click on each link to see the original notes and compare them with the final text. Some of the additional benefit of reading it all is that Goitein also had a zettelkasten which he used in his research and in leaving copies of it behind other researchers still actively use his translations and notes to continue on the conversation he started about the contents of the Cairo Geniza. Seeing some of his example, comparing his own notes/cards and his writings may be additionally illustrative as well, though take care as many of his notes are in multiple languages.

Another potentially useful example is this video interview with Kathleen Coleman from the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. It's in the realm of historical linguistics and lexicography, but she describes researchers collecting masses of data (from texts, inscriptions, coins, graffiti, etc.) on cards which they can then study and arrange to write their own articles about Latin words and their use across time/history. It's an incredibly simple looking example because they're creating a "dictionary", but the work involved was painstaking historical work to be sure.

Again, when you're done, remember to go back and practice for yourself. Read. Ask questions of the texts and sources you're working with. Write them down. Allow your zettelkasten to become a ratchet for your ideas. New ideas and questions will emerge. Write them down! Follow up on them. Hunt down the answers. Make notes on others' attempts to answer similar questions. Then analyze, compare, and contrast them all to see what you might have to say on the topics. Rinse and repeat.

As a further and final (meta) example, some of my answer to your questions has been based on my own experience, but the majority of it is easy to pull up, because I can pose your questions not to my experience, but to my own zettelkasten and then quickly search and pull up a variety of examples I've collected over time. Of course I have far more experience with my own zettelkasten, so it's easier and quicker for me to query it than for you, but you'll build this facility with your own over time.

Good luck. 🗃️

reply to u/ethanzanemiller at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/185xmuh/taking_notes_for_historical_writing/

Rather than spending time theorizing on the subject, particularly since you sound like you're neck-deep already, I would heartily recommend spending some time practicing it heavily within the area you're looking at. Through a bit of time and experience, more of your questions will become imminently clear, especially if you're a practicing historian.

A frequently missing piece to some of this puzzle for practicing academics is upping the level of how you read and having the ability to consult short pieces of books and articles rather than reading them "cover-to-cover" which is often unnecessary for one's work. Of particular help here, try Adler and Van Doren, and specifically their sections on analytical and syntopical reading.

• Adler, Mortimer J., and Charles Van Doren. How to Read a Book: The Classical Guide to Intelligent Reading. Revised and Updated ed. edition. 1940. Reprint, Touchstone, 2011.

In addition to the list of practicing historians I'd provided elsewhere on the topic, you might also appreciate sociologist Beatrice Webb's short appendix C in My Apprenticeship or her longer related text. She spends some time talking about handling dates and the database nature of querying collected facts and ideas to do research and to tell a story.

• Webb, Beatrice Potter. My Apprenticeship. First Edition. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1926. https://archive.org/details/myapprenticeship0000beat/page/412/mode/2up.
• Webb, Sidney, and Beatrice Webb. Methods of Social Study. London; New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1932. http://archive.org/details/b31357891.

Also helpful might be Mill's article which became a chapter in one of his later books:

• Mills, C. Wright. “On Intellectual Craftsmanship (1952).” Society 17, no. 2 (January 1, 1980): 63–70. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02700062.

Perhaps u/danallosso may have something illuminating to add, or you can skim through his responses on the subject on Reddit or via his previous related writing: https://danallosso.substack.com/.

Enough historians and various other humanists have been practicing these broad methods for centuries to bear out their usefulness in researching and organizing their work. Read a bit, but truly: practice, practice, and more practice is going to be your best friend here.

How to Read a Book. Los Angeles: KCET Los Angeles, 1975. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_rizr8bb0c.

13 part series including:<br /> - 01:33:02 Part 8: How to read Stories - 01:46:13 Part 9: What Makes a Story Good - 01:59:24 Part 10 How to Read a Poem - Shakespeare sonnet 116, "admit" definition - Wordsworth poem about London and nature - 02:12:49 Part 11: Activating Poetry and Plays - 02:26:09 Part 12: How to Read Two Books at the Same Time - 02:39:29 Part 13: The Pyramid of Books

2023-11-29: Since the original video was removed, one can also view the series at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPajsb520dyzNw9mHsZnrzi5w9N_amS7E

suggestion of recombination of individual notes using cards to create something new

(have I remarked on this in krajewski?) ᔥ Johann Jacob Moser commented on the ability to breakdown bodies of information into smaller pieces that might be reshuffled into new configurations as one might in a 'game of cards'.

Zedelmaier, 1992). All the same, a range of figures have tracked and critiqued the trajectory of the ‘noble dream’ of historical and scientific ‘objectivity’ (Appleby, Hunt and Jacob, 1994: 241-70; Daston and Galison, 2007; Novick, 1988).

Lustig categorizes scholarship on card indexes into two modes: understanding of information overload tools and the "trajectory of the 'noble dream' of historical and scientific 'objectivity'".

Gotthard Deutsch didn't adhere to any particular theory of information when it came to the size of his notes. Instead Jason Lustig indicates that his perspective was influenced by his personal motto 'de minimis curat historicus' (history's minutiae matter), and as a result, he was interested in the smallest of distinctions of fact and evidence. ᔥ

Jacob Marcus, ‘The Historian’s Credo’, 1958, AJA Marcus Nearprint File, Box 2.

Here the writer, who doesn't lay out any of the general principles of a zettelkasten practice, automatically presumes one idea per card (presumes it from where? zeitgeist) and then jumps into the question of note size and other semantics.

The simplest and most direct way of bringing home to the reader the truth of this dogmatic assertion of the scientific value of note-taking in sociological investigation...

Beatrice Webb indicates that it is an incontrovertible truth that sociologists should use a card index (zettelkasten) as a primary tool in their research.

We ought to closely notice that she wrote this truism about the field of sociology in a book published in 1926, the year prior to Niklas Luhmann's <s>death</s> birth.

How popular was her book with respect to the remainder of the field of sociology subsequently? What other sociology texts may have had similar ideas? Webb obviously quotes some of this technique in the late 1800s as being popular within the area of history. How evenly was it spread across the humanities in general?

Is Beatrice Webb's card index amongst her papers? Where might they be stored today?

reply to u/ethanzanemiller at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1843k2w/comment/kb4d882/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Presuming you came into this from a search on "history" or a related topic rather than long time experience in this sub?

A card index, fichier boîte (French), or zettelkasten (German) is broadly the use of index cards (or digital versions) for research and writing. (I generally frame it as an extension of keeping a commonplace book.)

But some of it is best described within the area of "historical method" by practicing historians themselves, so also try these texts written by historians on the subject:

Allosso, Dan, and S. F. Allosso. How to Make Notes and Write. Minnesota State Pressbooks, 2022. https://minnstate.pressbooks.pub/write/.

Barzun, Jacques. The Modern Researcher. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1992. http://archive.org/details/modernresearcher00barz_1.

Dow, Earle Wilbur. Principles of a Note-System for Historical Studies. New York: Century Company, 1924.

Eco, Umberto. How to Write a Thesis. Translated by Caterina Mongiat Farina and Geoff Farina. 1977. Reprint, Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2015. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/how-write-thesis.

Gottschalk, Louis Reichenthal. Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method. 1st ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950. https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-History-Louis-Gottschalk/dp/B001OY27L6.

Goutor, Jacques. The Card-File System of Note-Taking. Approaching Ontario’s Past 3. Toronto: Ontario Historical Society, 1980. http://archive.org/details/cardfilesystemof0000gout.

Langlois, Charles Victor, and Charles Seignobos. Introduction to the Study of History. Translated by George Godfrey Berry. First. New York: Henry Holt and company, 1898. http://archive.org/details/cu31924027810286.

Margolin, Victor. The Process of Writing World History of Design, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxyy0THLfuI.

Thomas, Keith. “Diary: Working Methods.” London Review of Books, June 10, 2010. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n11/keith-thomas/diary.

Maybe start with Keith Thomas and Margolin which are short and then jump to either Goutor or Allosso (first half of that text) which are slightly longer but still quick reads. Umberto Eco may be the dean of studies here, though Barzun has been fairly influential. If you prefer, you can practice Luhmann's method, which is very similar though with a twist, and laid out at https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/.

reply to u/atomicnotes at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1843k2w/comment/kaypbk2/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

I'm reasonably certain that most of the transmission of the traditions was specifically from person to person rather than from text to person. Yours is an interesting and important (and rare oral) example of person to person zettelkasten transmission, of which I've been collecting some scant examples. (Other examples appreciated, inquire within.)

Interestingly a lot of this transmission is still happening every day (though now more "visibly" online) in fora like Reddit, zettelkasten.de, Discord, in social media, and even smaller group courses. As Annie Murphy Paul indicates in The Extended Mind, people like to imitate rather than innovate. Perhaps Luhmann, being on his own outside of the establishment, was more likely to innovate because he was on his own and took Heyde's advice, but evolved it to his needs rather than asking questions on Reddit?

reply to u/atomicnotes at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1843k2w/who_uses_a_card_index_top_historians_thats_who/

Nice finds u/atomicnotes.

We can add them to the list of other known historians who used zettelkasten including: - Barbara Tuchman - Victor Margolin - S.D. Goitein - Gotthard Deutsch - Jacques Barzun - Henry F. Graff - Keith Thomas - Jacques Goutor - Umberto Eco - Frederic L. Paxson - Earle W. Dow - Aby Warburg - Frederick Jackson Turner - Theodor Mommsen - Charles Victor Langlois - Charles Seignobos - Ernst Bernheim*

Certainly there are several hundreds (thousands?) I've missed. Those marked with a (*) have written texts covering note taking or historical method.

HA! Apparently my work has been influential for someone. I love that he put it up top like this. 😂

via https://zibaldone.substack.com/p/a-guide-to-zettelkasten-part-2-a

https://zibaldone.substack.com/p/a-guide-to-zettelkasten-part-2-a

I showed up expecting a one pager on zettelkasten method and was surprised to find it was about reading. :)