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Commonplace Books
- Alekhine 6y agoI've tried this before. It's hard work to write everything you encounter down on paper. Thank god for laptops. It's an interesting practice, a sign of a time when information was a more precious commodity and had to be seized when it was found, lest you forget. Thankfully, it's easier than ever to do today with digital tech. "Commonplace books were used by scientists and other thinkers in the same way that a database might now be used: Carl Linnaeus, for instance, used commonplacing techniques to invent and arrange the nomenclature of his Systema Naturae (which is the basis for the system used by scientists today)." Nowadays, a browser bookmark system plus a few other tools like Calibre serve the same function for me; to store all the information I come across into a single repository. It's an important task for any knowledge-seeking person today to figure out how to store and organize the vast amount of useful info there is to find.