We are on a road trip so I have not really had the opportunity to generate a blog post. I was looking through my old posts and came across a connection to something I have been writing about recently. Recent comments on note taking to create a long-term, external record has involved a review of books written by Sonke Aherns (Smart Notes) and Tiago Forte (Second Brain) explained the origins of their work. Ahrens started with his study of the zettlekasten which was a box for keeping and linking notes taken on what might resemble traditional note cards. Forte started with the commonplace book which was a notebook writers would often use to copy comments from other books and record their own thoughts.
I found that I written about “commonplacing” in 2009 and decided to offer these comments again.
I have been reading Robert Darnton’s “The case for books” on Cindy’s Kindle (there is something quite ironic here, but now is not the time to explore). Tech types may immediately shy away, but Darnton has a very interesting history including working on the Google book digitization project and the commitment of Harvard to offer faculty publications in the public domain.
Anyway, The case for books is a wide ranging exploration of books, writing, authors, and reading. The historical perspective is cool. One concept I picked up is that of a Commonplace book. As I understand the concept, readers attempting to educate themselves would copy passages from various things they read into a notebook and would organize this material into categories and would include personal insights, comments and interpretations. These commonplace books sometimes ended up being published or a least saved as historical artifacts. The commonplace books of Milton, Bacon, etc. are historical treasures.
To me, this sounded very much like blogging – a few personal insights, a few embellished posts focused on the works of others, etc., copied and rearranged (with tags). These activities representing a personal commitment to exploration and always the hope that the process will result in learning or a creative insight. I thought this association was likely new for educational bloggers and it may be, but the connection between blogging and commonplacing is far from original if one searches the web ( e.g, commonplacing on the WWW).
Ahrens, S. (2017). How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking–for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. Sönke Ahrens
Forte, T. (2022). Building a second brain: A proven method to organize your digital life and unlock your creative potential. Atria Books.
