One day, "Request update" or "Revision control" will appear on this list too... https://boffosocko.com/2018/08/30/the-sixth-r-of-open-educational-resources-oer/

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

Robustness principle: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.

https://onehe.org/equity-unbound/

https://edtechmagazine.com/

What does open education tell us about AI in academia?

https://www.byanyothernerd.com/

via What does open education tell us about AI in academia?

Author of How do we respond to generative AI in education? Open educational practices give us a framework for an ongoing process

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

http://zesty.ca/<br /> Ka-Ping Yee

via u/epilys at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/16562do/old_web_demo_i_made_of_sociologist_niklas/

https://epilys.github.io/bibliothecula/web-demo/zettel.html

I wrote this one as a weekend project for fun back in 2021. It was supposed to be a demo for this article that gives a way to use a database software (called sqlite) to create a Zettelkasten:

https://epilys.github.io/bibliothecula/notekeeping.html

http://zesty.ca/crit/

Purple is a suite of tools from 2001 that allow one to create numbered addresses/anchors at the paragraph level of a digital document.

Link: Dave Winer's site still has support for purple numbers.

https://public-supply.com/

Notebook company. Orvis has used them for some of their leather folio refills in the past. (See https://www.orvis.com/leather-folio/26LS.html)

Paxton, Jennifer. 1066: The Year That Changed Everything. The Great Courses 30070. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2020.

Annotation url: urn:x-pdf:95025ce10247406db3d649a9a17fded0

Search annotations: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&addQuoteContext=true&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3A95025ce10247406db3d649a9a17fded0

https://web.hypothes.is/help/annotating-youtube-videos-with-the-hypothesis-lms-app/

Walkthrough for how to add YouTube Videos into LMS assignments for annotation with H.

https://web.hypothes.is/blog/exciting-new-feature-annotate-youtube-videos-with-hypothesis/

Wishing this was easier within YouTube directly instead of hidden within the LMS. Of course, there's always still https://docdrop.org/ for this instead.

Dan Allosso in Retrenchment, Day 27 <br /> (accessed:: 2023-08-29 11:41:06)

Dan Allosso in Retrenchment, Day 26<br /> (accessed:: 2023-08-29 11:38:12)

Dan Allosso in An Actual Historiography Book (accessed:: 2023-08-29 11:33:04)

second hand quote from History: Professional Scholarship in America<br /> John Higham, 1965

https://kingjim.us/flatty-works<br /> Flatty Works A6 size horizontal case<br /> ~$24.00

Acquired green version 2023-04-07<br /> https://boffosocko.com/2023/04/20/review-of-king-jim-a6-size-horizontal-flatty-works-case-5460/

https://www.lochby.com/collections/frontpage/products/venture-pouch<br /> Lochby Venture Pouch<br /> $44.00

Acquired one of these in early 2023 on sale?

several internal sections including for pens. <br /> will easily fit a handful or so of 4 x 6" index cards for quick travel

https://www.rickshawbags.com/travelers-notebook-case#!/graphite/orange-420d-liner/flo-orange/no-mod/no-mod/flo-orange

Rickshaw Bags, Traveler's Notebook Case $59.00

https://www.jetpens.com/Delfonics-Carrying-Bag-M-A5-Dark-Denim/pd/37102

Delfonics Carrying Bag - M (A5) - Dark Denim<br /> $36.00

Perhaps a bit large, but could be used as a mini-portable office to hold a variety of things including 4 x 6" index cards for work on the go.

https://www.jetpens.com/Lihit-Lab-Altna-Carrying-Sleeve-Small-Gray/pd/24824<br /> Lihit Lab Altna Carrying Sleeve - Small - Gray<br /> $30.50

B6 is 4.9 x 6.9 inches, so just slightly larger than 4 x 6 inches

https://www.jetpens.com/Lihit-Lab-Smart-Fit-Carrying-Pouch-A6-Olive/pd/12378

Lihit Lab Smart Fit Carrying Pouch - A6 - Olive<br /> $21.50

https://www.jetpens.com/Delfonics-Carrying-Bag-S-A6-Dark-Blue/pd/38393<br /> Delfonics Carrying Bag - S (A6) - Dark Blue $32.00

https://www.jetpens.com/Kleid-Mesh-Carry-Pouch-Mini-Charcoal/pd/37439

Meant for A6 notebooks, but would likely fit 4 x 6" index cards. $17.00

reply to u/smaczek at https://www.reddit.com/r/notebooks/comments/jjlkh3/hipster_pda_phone_case/

If you or others are still looking, I've been using an A6 Flatty case which easily fits several dozen 4x6" index cards along with my phone and a pen. It's probably a better hand carry (esp. with a pen inside), but will fit into my back pocket. Details:

https://boffosocko.com/2023/04/20/review-of-king-jim-a6-size-horizontal-flatty-works-case-5460/

Alternately, I've looked at Rickshaw Bags' Traveler's Notebook case for this as well: https://www.rickshawbags.com/travelers-notebook-case

https://app.thebrain.com/brain/3d80058c-14d8-5361-0b61-a061f89baf87/3c5a3e87-541a-4e53-9b5a-4e82decc6a12

Why doesn't politics focus on deep relationships?

For those that do both fiction and non-fiction work in their zettelkasten, do you consider the portion dedicated to fiction a "department" or a "compartment" within it? or perhaps something altogether different?

Cast Iron Skillet-Roasted Pears with Caramel Sauce

Saw on Season 5 this pasts weekend and looks interesting.

https://zettelkasten.de/fiction/

The Snowflake Method is more specific, but broadly similar to those who build out plot using index cards.

As examples, see Dustin Lance Black and Benjamin Rowland.

Link to - https://hypothes.is/a/043JIlv5Ee2_eMf1TTV7ig - https://hypothes.is/a/ibFMareUEe2bqSdWdE046g

Ingermanson, Randy. “The Snowflake Method For Designing A Novel.” Advanced Fiction Writing, circa 2013. https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/.

Designing writing in ever more specific and increasing levels. Start with a logline, then a paragraph, then acts, etc.

Roughly the advice I've given many over the years based on screenplay development experience, but with a clever name based on the Koch snowflake.

Similarly for an index card-based outline.

see also: https://hypothes.is/a/kdyvykazEe6z3Ruv2sAgqg

Of course spreadsheets are databases of information and one can easily and profitably put all these details into index cards which are just as easy (maybe even easier) to move around

this=character development

Interesting and specific advice about the source of disasters in act two...

https://imgflip.com/i/7xcqax

reply to m_t_rv_s__n/ at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/164n6qg/is_this_overkill/

First, your system is historically far more traditional than Luhmann's more specific practice. See: https://boffosocko.com/2022/10/22/the-two-definitions-of-zettelkasten/

If you're taking all the notes/highlights from a particular book and keeping them in a single file, then it may be far quicker and more productive to do some high level tagging on the entire book/file itself and then relying on and using basic text search to find particular passages you might use at a later date.

Spending time reviewing over all of your notes and tagging/indexing them individually may be beneficial for some basic review work. But this should be balanced out with your long term needs. If your area is "sociology", for example, and you tag every single idea related to the topic of sociology with #sociology, then it will cease to have any value you to you when you search for it and find thousands of disconnected notes you will need to sift through. Compare this with Luhmann's ZK which only had a few index entries under "sociology". A better long term productive practice, and one which Luhmann used, is indexing one or two key words when he started in a new area and then "tagging" each new idea in that branch or train of though with links to other neighboring ideas. If you forget a particular note, you can search your index for a keyword and know you'll find that idea you need somewhere nearby. Scanning through the neighborhood of notes you find will provide a useful reminder of what you'd been working on and allow you to continue your work in that space or link new things as appropriate.

If it helps to reframe the long term scaling problem of over-tagging, think of a link from one idea to another as the most specific tag you can put on an idea. To put this important idea into context, if you do a Google search for "tagging" you'll find 240,000,000 results! If you do a search for the entirety of the first sentence in this paragraph, you'll likely only find one very good and very specific result, and the things which are linked to it are going to have tremendous specific value to you by comparison.

Perhaps the better portions of your time while reviewing notes would be taking the 150 highlights and finding the three to five most important, useful, and (importantly) reusable ones to write out in your own words and begin expanding upon and linking? These are the excerpts you'll want to spend more time on and tag/index for future use rather than the other hundreds. Over time, you may eventually realize that the hundreds are far less useful than the handful (in management spaces this philosophy is known as the Pareto principle), so spending a lot of make work time on them is less beneficial for whatever end goals you may have. (The make work portions are often the number one reason I see people abandoning these practices because they feel overwhelmed working on raw administrivia instead of building something useful and interesting to themselves.) Naturally though, you'll still have those hundreds sitting around in a file if you need to search, review, or use them. You won't have lost them by not working on them, but more importantly you'll have gained loads of extra time to work on the more important pieces. You should notice that the time you save and the value you create will compound over time.

And as ever, play around with these to see if they work for you and your specific needs. Some may be good and others bad—it will depend on your needs and your goals. Practice, experiment, have fun.

https://fortune.com/well/2023/08/25/when-should-i-get-my-next-covid-booster-omicron-ba5-xbb15-vaccine-ba286-pirola/

What a mish-mash of mixed message here.... ugh.

A Zettelkasten for jokes!

BredenbeckCorp, Hanna. “Up Close and Personal with Phyllis Diller’s Gag File.” National Museum of American History (blog), March 1, 2017. https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/close-and-personal-phyllis-dillers-gag-file.

Hanna BredenbeckCorp numbered and scanned 52,569 index cards from Phyllis Diller's gag file. Prior to this archival effort most estimates for the numbers of cards were in the 40-50,000 range.

Spanning the 1960s to the 1990s roughly. The index was donated in 2003, so there were certainly no

Exact dating on the cards may give a better range, particularly if the text can be searched or if there's a database that can be sorted by date.

Via https://hypothes.is/a/UbW8nERrEe6xjEseEEEy1w we can use the rough dates: 1955-2002 which are the bookends of her career.

This gives us a rough estimate of:<br /> 2002-1955 = 48 years (inclusive) or 17,520 days (at 365 days per year ignoring leap years)

52,569/17520 days gives 3.000513698630137 or almost exactly 3 cards (jokes) per day.

Going further if she was getting 12 laughs (jokes) per minute (her record, see: https://hypothes.is/a/MTLukkRpEe635oPT5lr7qg), then if continuously told, it would have taken her 52,569 jokes/12 jokes/minute = 4,380.75 minutes = 73.0125 hours or 3.0421875 days to tell every joke in her file.

evidence of comedy shift from 50s/60s of one liners to more story-based comedy of the 2000s onward. Some of this may come about through idea links or story links as seen in some of Diller's paperclipped cards (see https://hypothes.is/a/W9Wz-EXsEe6nZxew_8BUCg).

While most of the jokes in Phyllis Diller's gag file were individual, stand-alone cards, the archivist who scanned them noted that there was a surprising number of cards that were associated with one another. (jokerfolgezettel, anyone?) She was able to distinguish jokes which spanned several cards by either their paperclips (when extant), or physical markings (rust/paper bending) which indicated prior paperclipping or other association which had long since been removed.

The potential separation of newspaper clippings from index cards and their attendant annotations/meta data (due to aging of glue) can be a potential source of note loss when creating a physical card index.

Not only a short description of the broad standard form of cards in Phyllis Diller's gag file, but also an enumeration of some of the non-standard cards, many of which are specified because of the issues which they presented in scanning/digitizing for transcription.

The numbers which appear in pencil on the verso of Phyllis Diller's index cards were those added by archivist Hanna BredenbeckCorp prior to scanning them for transcription.

Edwards, Owen. “Comic Phyllis Diller’s Cabinet Keeps the Jokes Coming.” Smithsonian Magazine (blog), March 2007. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/comic-phyllis-dillers-cabinet-keeps-the-jokes-coming-147794613/.

"Fang" was the onstage pet-name Phyllis Diller used for her husband Sherwood.

Topical headings in Phyllis Diller's gag file

Owen Edwards in 2007 compared Phyllis Diller's gag file to a safe.

Py-Lieberman, Beth. “Comic Phyllis Diller, the Betty Friedan of Comedy, Dies at 95.” Online magazine. Smithsonian Magazine (blog), August 20, 2012. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/comic-phyllis-diller-the-betty-friedan-of-comedy-dies-at-95-28360980/.

Curator Dwight Blocker Bowers on Phyllis Diller's organization.

Phyllis Diller analogizing her index card file to a tree.

Some of the topical headings in Phyllis Diller's gag file

Dwight Blocker Bowers in Remembering comedian Phyllis Diller at 2012-08-21<br /> (accessed:: 2023-08-28 01:46:49)

https://collections.si.edu/search/record/edanmdm:nmah_1218386<br /> Phyllis Diller’s Gag File Expansion

https://transcription.si.edu/project/8547

The Transcription Center's Phyllis Diller Gag File repository.

Was this compiled into some other searchable database?

https://collections.si.edu/search/detail/ead_component:sova-sia-fa13-194-refidd1e6139?q=phyllis+diller+gag+file&record=12&hlterm=phyllis%2Bdiller%2Bgag%2Bfile

Phyllis Diller Joke File, 2010

In addition to her larger indexed gag file, it appears that Phyllis Diller donated a separate joke file (box 6 of 8) to the National Museum of American History which contains archival materials and has been restricted for 15 years until 2027-01-01.

ARCHIVAL REPOSITORY: Smithsonian Institution Archives EDAN-URL: ead_component:sova-sia-fa13-194-refidd1e6139

https://collections.si.edu/search/record/edanmdm:nmah_1218385

Phyllis Diller's gag file appears to have been made of 16 standard three-drawer beige Steelmaster (Art Steel Company, Inc.) index card files which were stacked in two columns and enclosed in a matching beige external frame which was mounted on casters. Having overflowed the 48 available drawers, there was an additional 3-drawer file added on top as an expansion.

The Smithsonian dates the files from 1962 to 1994, but perhaps the digitized version can be searched by date to determine the actual earliest and latest dates on included cards as most had at least a month and a year.

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/courcon1.asp

Medieval Sourcebook: Robert de Courçon: Statutes for the University of Paris, 1215 The basic course was in the arts. Of the other faculties theology was best represented at Paris, law at Bologna, and medicine at Salerno. Robert de Courçon's statutes lay down the course in arts and enumerate the books to be studied. Students were expect to be able to teach as well as learn.

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

Ahrens, Sönke. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. Create Space, 2017.

annotation target: url: urn:x-pdf:2ab12de05e842eae8785e54a50c81a63

annotation search: https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?user=chrisaldrich&max=100&exactTagSearch=true&expanded=true&addQuoteContext=true&url=urn%3Ax-pdf%3A2ab12de05e842eae8785e54a50c81a63

Adam Savage's book Every Tool is a Hammer shows a checklist which has square bullets which can be partially filled in to show the level of completion. He learned the method when working at Industrial Light & Magic.

via u/AZORIAN_K129 at https://www.reddit.com/r/NoteTaking/comments/15zgbvr/does_this_technique_have_a_name/

Warburg definitely read Bernheim's Lehrbuch!!! He excerpted it! Though based on the footnote in the text, it may appear that his quotation was from the 1908 edition of Bernheim.

Machine translation of the German:

Warburg assigned another piece of paper to these organicistic considerations about historical development, which follows a »hidden plan« (Menke-Glückert), on which he noted a passage from Ernst Bernheim’s Lehrbuch der Historischen Method in which Wilhelm Wundt is referred to, who explains, as Warburg excerpts, »that historical general processes are applications of general psychological principles, such as e.g. B. the reaction is an application of the principle of "contrast enhancement".

362 Z. 0 02/0 0 0411. Warburg zitier t Wundt, Logik. Eine Untersuchung der Principien der Erkenntnis und der Methode wissenschaf tlicher Forschung, Stuttgar t 1895, Bd. II/2, S. 413, aus Ernst Bernheim, Lehrbuch der Historischen Methode und der Geschichtsphilosophie. Mit Nachweis der wichtigsten Quellen und Hilfsmit tel zum Studium der Geschichte, Leipzig 1908, S. 60 f.

Link to: https://hypothes.is/a/Th2g4kVoEe6OSV9qNo31rQ

Steiner, Benjamin. “Aby Warburgs Zettelkasten Nr. 2 ‘Geschichtsauffassung.’” In Zettelkästen. Maschinen der Phantasie, edited by Heike Gfrereis and Ellen Strittmatter, 154–61. Marbacher Kataloge 66. Marbach am Neckar, 2013. https://www.academia.edu/8637204/Aby_Warburgs_Zettelkasten_Nr_2_Geschichtsauffassung_.

example photos of some of Aby Warburg's zettels, kasten, and a photo of his desk space at home with zettelkasten to one side.

machine translation:

Anyone who follows Warburg's list of notes is following his train of thought; from the banking system in Florence, medieval commercial society, the development of individuality, the restless professional work of the Calvinists and the reformed form of asceticism to Warburg's own origins in an old Jewish banking family. 378 The Zettelkasten is Warburg's Ariadne thread through his labyrinthine library and his labyrinthine thinking: from werewolf to history. A thought, an idea or a new concept does not emerge in a linear progression, but in a process of moving idea units and cross-references back and forth, which lasts until new interfaces and nodes have formed.

Karl Lamprecht was one of Warburg's first teachers in Bonn and Warburg had a section in his zettelkasten dedicated to him. While Warburg wasn't part of the broader public debate on Lamprecht's Methodenstreit (methodological dispute), his notes indicate that he took an active stance on thinking about it.

Consult footnote for more:

59 Vgl. Roger Chickering, »The Lamprecht Controversy«, in: Historiker- kontroversen, hrsg. von Hartmut Lehmann, Göttingen 20 0 0, S. 15 – 29

Aby Warburg's (1866-1929) zettelkasten had references to Ernst Bernheim (1850-1942). Likelihood of his having read Lehrbuch der historischen Methode (1889) as potential inspiration for his own zettelkasten?

When did Warburg start his zettelkasten?

According to Wikipedia, Warburg began his study of art history, history and archaeology in Bonn in 1886. He finished his thesis in 1892, so he may have had access to Bernheim's work on historical method. I'll note that Bernheim taught history at the University of Göttingen and at the University of Bonn after 1875, so they may have overlapped and even known each other. We'll need more direct evidence to establish this connection and a specific passing of zettelkasten tradition, though it may well have been in the "air" at that time.

Warburg had an incongruous seeming section of his zettelkasten relating to the idea of "Werewolf" which was tied into a variety of other ideas.

Steiner considers the order and position of Warburg's notes within his boxes and assumes that they were not meant to be static, but would have been easily reordered, revised, and changed according to Warburg's needs. He describes them as a hodgepodge with a liquid mobility which are granted some form of stability afforded by the internal tabs.

Warburgs slips hold not only his own thoughts along with collections of keywords, but excerpts from books, critical remarks, and diagrams that provide overviews of ideas and their connections.

Warburg's zettelkasten does not appear to be a simple bibliographic classification system according to Steiner. He indicates that the books in Warburg's library are arranged according to Warburg's idea of »guten Nachbarschaft« or "good neighborliness" whereby they followed his subjective interests an ordering that is reflected in the labels of his note boxes and various tabs which subsection notes within them.

Warburg kept zettelkasten both at his library as well as at his private home. A photograph from his home shows boxes ready to hand on the right side side of his desk and another shows boxes lined up on the left hand side.

Warburg had note cases especially designed for travelling with him around Europe as he did research and lectured.

Warburg's zettelkasten consisted of more than 100 boxes decorated in colorful Japanese paper.

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

reply to u/taurusnoises and u/Leander_znsnsj at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/162os2q/how_can_i_use_zettelkasten_as_a_high_school/

I'm generally in the same boat as u/taurusnoises and don't think that a Luhmann-artig ZK is necessarily the right way to go—particularly at the lower levels.

I would suggest that if interested students look closely at the overall set up, they'll find that the literature note portion is almost identical to that of the Cornell note-taking method. The primary differences between them are placing more emphasis on follow-up and review, forcing yourself to answer questions, and doing spaced repetition. (Of course, naturally, there's nothing wrong with doing all your Cornell Notes on index cards despite every version I've ever seen recommending sheets of paper!)

If you do ultimately choose to go with the expanded zettelkasten workflow, I would recommend you spend more time focusing on your own thoughts on the facts and ideas as they relate to the the Cornell portion. Focus more on the area of your major (or particular interests if you're still unsure of your major) in which you're most likely to need to create writing or other particular outputs. One or two good main cards a day with a full class load is a solid start.

Keep in mind that as you enter new areas, you will likely make lots of basic, factual, low level notes while you're learning. Don't worry about this (and don't ignore it either) as working with these ideas will help you to scaffold your knowledge and understand it better. You may not have lots of high quality main notes which will usually come as you get deeper into the nuances of your subject. You should still expect to find and generate insights though and these may be highly valuable as you need to execute projects or write papers.

Good luck!

https://danallosso.substack.com/p/retrenchment-day-25

This is one of the things that doesn't seem to be being explored enough presently, or at least I'm not seeing it outside of the SAG and WGA strikes where it seems to be a side issue rather than a primary issue.

https://danallosso.substack.com/p/retrenchment-day-24

https://danallosso.substack.com/p/retrenchment-day-23

You don't consult with the customer when you're thinking of changing the formula for the soap, I know. But is that the appropriate model for this situation?

https://danallosso.substack.com/p/retrenchment-day-22

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/one-funny-lady-or-how-i-was-killed-by-phyllis-diller-50161108/

So Phyllis Diller is funny??? meh...

From this close up photo, it's more obvious that drawer 49 of Diller's gag file (the extension portion) is dedicated to cartoon strips from The Lockhorns.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/press/fact-sheets/phyllis-diller%E2%80%99s-gag-file

nothing new here

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1218385#

Phyllis Diller's gag file was arranged alphabetically by subject and ranged from "accessories" to "world affairs".

52,569 3x5" index cards!

Equal rights for the sexes will be reached only when totally unqualified women occupy high positions of power. —Phyllis Diller, May 1979, gag file under Women's Liberation

From the Phyllis Diller gag file at https://transcription.si.edu/project/8547<br /> via https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1218385#

https://smithsonian.figshare.com/collections/Phyllis_Diller_Gag_File/6286386

Apparently Rebecca Dikow had a github repository with Phyllis Diller's gag file, but it's no longer active.

https://github.com/kzwa/PhyllisDillerGagFile

Librarian Kate Zwaard of the Library of Congress has a GitHub repo of Phyllis Diller's Gag File.

The Gag File - The Phyllis Diller Gag File - Albert H. Small Documents Gallery (accessed:: 2023-08-26 06:09:54)

Not all of the jokes in Phyllis Diller's collection were written by her. Many include comic strips she collected as well as jokes written by others and sent in to her.

One of the biggest contributors to her collection of jokes was Wisconsin housewife Mary MacBride, the mother of five children. Jokes contributed by others include their names on the individual cards.

In this set, you will find cards from the following category: Lockhorns.

https://transcription.si.edu/project/9431

I had some collections of comic strips in my youth, but sadly didn't keep up the practice or them.

BredenbeckCorp, Hanna. “The Evolution of Phyllis Diller’s Career in 7 Objects.” Smithsonian Institution (blog), March 13, 2017. https://www.si.edu/object/evolution-phyllis-dillers-career-7-objects%3Aposts_f0bf8f9142b02dbb88d3d720517f6697

Some of the cards in Phyllis Diller's gag file were numbered, but the curatorial and collections team at the Smithsonian didn't have enough data to determine what these were or what they meant at the time of transcription.

Brief description of items donated to the Smithsonian by Phyllis Diller.

https://transcription.si.edu/phyllis-diller-cards

Finally a source that indicates the full 51 drawers of Diller's gag file.

National Museum of American History Showcases Life and Laughs of Phyllis Diller - Smithsonian Institution 2011-07-26 press release

Costume items donated by Phyllis Diller to the Smithsonian Institution.

Jacqueline Trescott in The Washington Post [Phyllis Diller’s joke file becomes a Smithsonian exhibit] (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/phyllis-dillers-joke-file-at-the-smithsonian/2011/07/27/gIQAZ0dXjI_story.html)<br /> (accessed:: 2023-08-26 04:59:59)

The National Museum of American History debuted Phyllis Diller's gag file on August 12, 2011 in the Albert H. Small Documents Gallery in an exhibition entitled "Have you Hard the One...? The Phyllis Diller Gag File."

see also: press release https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/national-museum-american-history-showcases-life-and-laughs-phyllis-diller

Repetition of the number 48 for the file drawers in the Phyllis Diller gag file despite photos which show the main file and an additional section with 3 drawers on top.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2839019692842995

00:06:19 segment Laughter in the Vaults from “Famous Donors.” Stories from the Vaults, September 2007. Season 1, Episode 1. The Smithsonian Channel. https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/episodes/1wyzyg/stories-from-the-vaults-famous-donors-season-1-ep-1.

1955 Diller was a suburban housewife with 5 children. Her first stage appearance was at 37 years old at Purple Onion Night Club in San Francisco, CA, and her last show was in 2002 at 84 years old.

Broadway costume from Hello Dolly

Phyllis Diller points to her card index in the video and calls it her "gag file". Curator Dwight Bowers called it her "joke file".

Tom Canavagh, actor/comedian<br /> Dwight Blocker Bowers, curator at Smithsonian

via https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/phyllis-diller-raucous-comic-famous-for-her-withering-oneliners-8069891.html

David Pescovitz in Boing Boing: Help the Smithsonian transcribe Phyllis Diller's jokes at 2017-04-17 (accessed:: 2023-08-26 03:50:15)

Catlin, Roger. “How Many Volunteers Does It Take to Transcribe Phyllis Diller’s 53,000 Jokes?” Smithsonian Magazine, March 6, 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-many-volunteers-does-take-transcribe-phyllis-dillers-jokes-180962384/.

Most of Phyllis Diller's gag files are written one joke to a card, but some have multiple jokes and some even span multiple cards.

(Note this is a secondary source and can/should be verified against the digital files.)

As a preliminary indication, most of Phyllis Diller's index cards were written from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Meghan Ferriter, a project coordinator at the Smithsonian Institution, claimed that the transcription of Phyllis Diller's gag file helped the Smithsonian Transcription Center gain 115 volunteers in a single day.

Phyllis Diller donated her gag file consisting of 51 drawers of Steelmaster card index files (on wheels) along with various dresses, costumes, and wigs to the Smithsonian Institution in 2003.

Note that this source indicates 48 drawers, which is the primary collection/cabinet, but there is also an additional 3 drawer addition which is often pictured, but apparently not counted here). Compare the actual listing: https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=phyllis+diller+gag+file

“Phyllis Diller’s File Of 53,000 Jokes.” Weekend Edition Saturday. NPR, March 11, 2017. https://www.npr.org/2017/03/11/519807672/phyllis-diller-s-file-of-53-000-jokes.

Was this originally hers? I've used a variation of it for decades myself....

Phyllis Diller had an imaginary husband she called "Fang".

Phyllis Diller called her card index a "gag file".

(It would be nice to have separate confirmation of this as it's a journalist ostensibly quoting a second party.)

Diller's manager indicated that she wrote jokes on paper and had her assistants type them up on 3 x 5" index cards.

Liebenson, Donald. “Classic Hollywood: Remembering Phyllis Diller (and 52,569 of Her Jokes) at the Smithsonian.” Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2017, sec. Television. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-ca-st-phyllis-diller-smithsonian-20170512-story.html.

While many sources seem to indicate that Phyllis Diller had approximately 52,000 index cards with jokes, the ultimate tally after the completion of transcription for the Smithsonian Institution seems to have been 52,569 cards.

While the Los Angeles times lists this as the number of jokes, it's far more likely to be the number of cards as some cards I've seen have multiple jokes.

It took three weeks of volunteer effort for transcribers to convert the 52,569 index cards of jokes in Phyllis Diller's gag file into digitized text.

The Smithsonian seems to consistently refer to Phyllis Diller's card index of jokes as a "gag file", but what did Diller herself call it?

quote by Hanna BredenbeckCorp, of Smithsonian on Phyllis Diller's gag file

Quote from Roseanne Barr on Phyllis Diller's card index gag file.

Joke quoted from Phyllis Diller's card index.

Actual origin?

• Susan Wever, a retired librarian from Indianapolis, on Phyllis Diller's card index of jokes.

It took four months for Hanna BredenbeckCorp, a project assistant for the Smithsonian Institution, to scan all of Phyllis Diller's joke cards for subsequent transcription and creation of a searchable digital database.