4 ms·

Love this. I used a similar system in the early 1970s before "upgrading" to the first of several FiloFaxes. However, I'd rather read it as a single document th

• dredmorbius 10y ago
  There is that, though the documentation somewhat resembles a Pile of Index Cards itself. I've been following a similar concept myself, including adopting many of the conventions described by the author of this piece, though not quite to the extent of edge-marking cards (I'm also not using quad-ruled cards). I'd been using a time-ordered "dock", though am in the process of organising one set of cards (associated with ongoing research) into a structure that more closely resembles the ontology I'm using for that project, as well as some administrative elements. Essentially: 1. Planning. 2. Bibliographic cards. Both obtained and unobtained (materials I'm hoping to acquire). 3. Biographic cards. People associated with the topic(s). 4. Organisational cards. 5. Open questions -- for research. 6. Topics -- the project structure itself. 7. Writings -- various pieces being written based on various subsets of cards. I'm still thinking of how to dispose of those cards once I'm done with them. Cards, boxes, and other elements lend themselves to certain types of organisation, including edge marks, conventions, colour-coding, striping (talk to old punch-card hands about deck management policies), etc. It's interesting. There are also affordances (and limitations) of card-based information capture. Search is an obvious compromise, but there's also a much more fluid capability to create and designate conventions than with software-based systems. The ablity to rapidly scan a fairly sizeable card deck (100 - 500 or so cards) beats many electronic formats. The ability to flexibly organise cards on any given surface (desk, table, floor, wallboard, etc.) is another element. I've run across a few further references to card-based research techniques, including: * Carl Linnaeus inventing index cards -- as he was engaged in the process of devising his own ontological classification scheme. His was among the first known cases of information overload. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616080137.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616080137.h... * John McPhee, author, who uses index cards to both find and define the structure of his own works. See "Structure", 2013: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/14/structure http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/14/structure * Nklaus Luhmann, German sociologist. * Vladimir Nobokv. * Garrett Hardin -- his office was an absolute warren of card stacks and boxes, as well as books and papers. Several of these examples are mentioned in a Guardian column by Oliver Burkeman: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/may/09/health-and-wellbeing https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/may/09/health-... The challenge for me has been finding useful organising and management principles (and tools), hence casting about for articles. This one has been posted to HN previously, though the accompanying Flikr stream rather than the blog.
  • scholia 10y ago
    Vladimir Nabokv was my inspiration ;-)