Talk:Zettelkasten

Ronald Reagan example
A previous edit removed the example of Ronald Reagan included below with the reason given that "no indication that Reagan's cards have the metadata and links that constitute a Zettelkasten". Even given the definition and method on the page, this seems to be too narrow a definition of the broader idea of a Zettelkasten. It is true that he had a sizeable collection of index cards with notes and quotes with tag-like metadata as evinced even in the published version. He also used his collection to compose his speeches and other writing in a manner consistent with the broadest uses of the system by most users.

In the modern view of Zettelkasten it is often assumed that these included more metadata because of the popular example of Luhmann who did include bibliographic information as well as an overly complicated identification system. As this is patently not the case in the historical record, and given that many modern digital versions don't necessarily include these identifiers, Reagan's is an important example, particularly in the English speaking world. It also stands as one of the few (only?) example of a Zettelkasten which was later edited, collated, and published in book form.

"A published version can be seen in the book The Notes: Ronald Reagan's Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom (Harper Collins, 2011). The book, edited by presidential biographer Douglas Brinkley, was compiled from index cards and housed in a three ring binder filing system by Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) throughout most of his life. The original index card collection is owned by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute and held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library."

I recommend the edit be restored.

Snark35 (talk) 06:56, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Definition and inclusion criteria
I'm creating a new subheading here because I think there is a much larger issue than what raised above. The definitional part of this article is poorly sourced; it needs good sources that clearly describe the criteria that differentiate a zettelkasten from other ways of recording notes. These kinds of disputes on Wikipedia are settled by reliable sources.

The book description of Zettelkästen: Maschinen der Phantasie (cited in the article) says: "Der Zettelkasten ist die leibgewordene und vordigitale Variante dieser Phantasiemaschine: Lesefrüchte und Schreibeinfälle werden hier gesammelt und einsortiert, vernetzt und verschachtelt und – durch Glücksaufschläge, Buchstaben- oder Zahlencodes – immer wieder in neue Zusammenhänge gebracht: -Es- denkt und schreibt."

Machine translation: "The zettelkasten is the incarnate and pre-digital variant of this fantasy machine: Reading fruits and writing ideas are collected and sorted, networked and nested and – through lucky impacts, letter or number codes – repeatedly brought into new contexts: It thinks and writes."

Similarly, the article "Alles Wesentliche findet sich im Zettelkasten" (cited in the article) begins: "In die Reihe der sterbenden, wenn nicht der schon gestorbenen Medien darf man den Zettelkasten mit Fug' und Recht einreihen. Dabei stellt die Verzettelungstechnik die vermutlich mächtigste Verwaltungstechnologie des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts dar, die das Bürowesen ebenso revolutioniert hat wie die Bibliotheksverwaltung und als Mindmapping- und Kreativitätswerkzeug an der Wiege einiger der bedeutendsten literarischen und wissenschaftlichen Werke stand. Den Zettelkasten zeichnet aus, dass er als universelles Verweissystem erstmals in der Kulturgeschichte die Technik des Verlinkens etabliert hat. Er diente damit als erste relationale Suchmaschine, die Antwort auf eine der uralten Menschheitsfragen gab: 'Wo stand das noch mal?' Der Zettelkasten ist darum viel mehr als nur ein technisches Medium, er stellt ein geistiges Ordnungsprinzip dar."

Machine translation: "In the list of dying, if not already dead, media, one can justifiably add the zettelkasten. Yet the card indexing technique is probably the most powerful administrative technology of the 19th and 20th centuries, which revolutionized office work as well as library management and, as a mind-mapping and creativity tool, was the cradle of some of the most important literary and scientific works. The zettelkasten is distinguished by the fact that it established the technique of linking for the first time in cultural history as a universal reference system. It thus served as the first relational search engine, providing answers to one of mankind's age-old questions: 'Where did that stand again?' The zettelkasten is therefore much more than just a technical medium; it represents an intellectual principle of order."

Both of these sources, apparently based on the same exhibition, emphasize the zettelkasten as an organizing system, likened to a machine. There may be other definitions of zettelkasten, but we would need to see the reliable sources for them, and we would need to differentiate the variant definitions in the article.

The introduction to the book The Notes: Ronald Reagan's Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom says: "There was no categorical arrangement of the notecards under headings. I devised that method to make it easier for the reader" (p. xv). It is not clear to me what system Reagan used that would qualify his note collection as a zettelkasten. And since the organization system of the book was not used by Reagan but was devised by the editor, I likewise don't see why we would need a description of the book in the article (though I didn't remove it). Biogeographist (talk) 22:36, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Further to Biogeographist's comments about what defines a zettelkasten, someone has also removed the Eminem example (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zettelkasten&type=revision&diff=1105779799&oldid=1105779647) which by the basest of definitions is a zettelkasten being slips of paper literally stored in a box. The continually well-documented path of the intellectual history of the tradition stemming out of the earlier Commonplace book tradition moved from notebooks to slips of paper indicates that many early examples are just this sort of collection. The optional addition of subject headings/topics/tags aided as a finding mechanism for some and was more common historically. Too much of the present definition on the page is dominated by the recently evolved definition of a zettelkasten as specifically practiced by Luhmann, who is the only well known example of a practitioner who heavily interlinked his cards as well as indexed them (though it should be noted that they were only scantly indexed as entry points into the threads of linked cards which followed). The broader historical perspective of the practice is being overly limited by the definition imprinted by a single example, the recent re-discovery of whom, has re-popularized a set of practices dating back to at least the sixteenth century.

It seems obvious that through the examples collected and the scholarship of Blair, Cevollini, Krajewski, and others that collections of notes on slips generally kept in some sort of container, usually a box or filing cabinet of some sort is the minimal definition of the practice. This practice is often supplemented by additional finding and linking methods. Relying on the presence of metadata is both a limiting (and too modern) perspective and not supported by the ever-growing numbers of historical examples within the space.

Beyond this there's also a modern over-reliance (especially in English speaking countries beginning around 2011 and after) on the use and popularity of the German word Zettelkasten which is not generally seen in the historically English and French speaking regions where "card index" and "fichier boîte" have been used for the same practices. This important fact was removed from the top level definition with revision https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zettelkasten&type=revision&diff=1105779647&oldid=1105766061 and should also be reverted to better reflect the broader idea and history.

In short, the definition, construction, and evolution of this page/article overall has been terribly harmed by an early definition based only on Niklas Luhmann's practice as broadly defined within the horribly unsourced and underinformed blogosphere from approximately 2013 onward. Snark35 (talk) 20:13, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Above I quoted from the first two sources cited in the article, which say of a zettelkasten: "reading fruits and writing ideas are collected and sorted, networked and nested" and "distinguished by the fact that it established the technique of linking for the first time in cultural history as a universal reference system ... much more than just a technical medium; it represents an intellectual principle of order". Clearly there was a history that lead up to this sense of zettelkasten, and the article does cover some of that history, but (apparently like who removed Eminem) I'm not convinced that the historical precursors of this sense of zettelkasten justify putting in this article anything that people write on paper and put in a box today. Do you have recent reliable sources on zettelkästen that, contrary to the sources quoted above, support your point of view that this article should be about any kind of note-taking on cards done today? Please provide some quotations. I think the article will be better the more evidence we have to define the inclusion criteria. To be clear, my current position is that the sources I quoted above accurately define the meaning of zettelkasten used today, although it is fine to include historical examples that predated the development of this meaning.
 * I disagree with your complaint that the article's definition of zettelkasten is based only on Niklas Luhmann's practice; the two sources quoted above are not only about Luhmann, and the principles of order that the sources associate with zettelkästen are visible in the research methods manuals mentioned in the article that predate Luhmann.
 * I do agree with you that the unsourced and underinformed blogosphere should not be cited in the article, but it already isn't. Biogeographist (talk) 21:04, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I broadly agree with @Biogeographist's assessment.  Sandstein   08:52, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Move proposal (was: Disambiguation proposal)
Another argument that I am open to entertaining is that this article shouldn't exist, since it's about two different things, and so its content should be split into two separate articles: (1) Personal knowledge base, on personal knowledge management software; and (2), on knowledge management using index cards. Central to this argument, as well as to 's complaint above, is that zettelkasten is just the German word for card box or card file; where the word is applied to personal knowledge management software, it is just being used metaphorically, and can be treated in a section of Personal knowledge base. Therefore this article should just be reduced to a disambiguation page that points to the two separate articles. Thoughts? Biogeographist (talk) 18:58, 26 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I disagree. My understanding of the zettelkasten method, as covered by the sources cited here, is that it is a knowledge management method characterized by metadata-interlinked snippets of information. This does not match the scope of either personal knowledge base or index card, which are methods with which a zettelkasten can be implemented, but which have many other purposes.  Sandstein   19:11, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see, the sources are about . Which sources cited here are you referring to?
 * Based on the current sources, it may be that Zettelkasten should just be a redirect to (i.e., this article should be moved to ), no disambiguation page needed. To be clear,  is currently a redirect to Index card, but I am proposing that it should be a separate article containing the content of this one, with only a few tweaks. Biogeographist (talk) 19:20, 26 August 2022 (UTC) & 19:45, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * One example of many sources that translate zettelkasten as "card file": Johannes Schmidt translates Luhmann as saying: "I started the index card file for the simple reason that I have a poor memory. Initially, I had started to insert slips of paper with the notes that I had taken into books. This led to damaging the bindings of the books. Then, I tried folders. As they became thicker, I couldn’t find anything in them anymore. From 1952 or 1953 on, I started the index card file because it was obvious to me that I would have to plan for a lifetime not for a book" (290). Schmidt comments: "The index card file and its user could enter a productive relationship because the internal structure of the file collection turned it into an innovative mechanism that, although requiring the user to ask questions, gave responses that surprised the asking person, even if that person was the author of cards. ... In talking about his index card file, Luhmann repeatedly highlighted its unique structure, which he claimed to explain its productivity as a 'text generator'" (295). In:
 * Even if Luhmann's own zettelkasten were the paradigmatic one, it is still just a card file, as Schmidt's translation shows. Schmidt, a key scholar of Luhmann's card file, didn't feel a need to give Luhmann's card file a special name or leave the term untranslated, as if a zettelkasten were something other than a card file, which it's not. Biogeographist (talk) 01:31, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, based on the main sources of Personal knowledge base, you are wrong that it refers to an implementation; there are different kinds and implementations of PKB. The metaphorical use of the term zettelkasten would refer to a kind of PKB—hence there could be a section of PKB on this use of the term zettelkasten, if reliable sources could be found. Biogeographist (talk) 19:30, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Above I established that zettelkasten and card file are equivalent terms, so Card file now redirects here, and I edited the lead to accommodate this. See also the new references added in the same edit, which show that zettelkasten and card file are equivalent concepts even when used metaphorically in personal knowledge base software. Since this is English Wikipedia and not German Wikipedia, I still propose that Zettelkasten should redirect to Card file and not vice versa; the German word has no primacy here. Biogeographist (talk) 22:04, 27 August 2022 (UTC)