Index card
An index card (or record card in
Format
The most common
Uses
Index cards are used for a wide range of applications and environments: in the home to record and store recipes, shopping lists, contact information and other organizational data; in business to record presentation notes, project research and notes, and contact information; in schools as flash cards or other visual aids; and in academic research to hold data such as bibliographical citations or notes in a
An often suggested organization method for bibliographical citations and notes in a
Index cards are used for many events and are helpful for planning.[11]
History
The first early modern card cabinet was designed by 17th-century English inventor Thomas Harrison (c. 1640s). Harrison's manuscript on the "ark of studies"[13] (Arca studiorum) describes a small cabinet that allows users to excerpt books and file their notes in a specific order by attaching pieces of paper to metal hooks labeled by subject headings.[14] Harrison's system was edited and improved by Vincent Placcius in his well-known handbook on excerpting methods (De arte excerpendi, 1689).[12][15] The German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was known to have relied on Harrison's invention in at least one of his research projects.[15]
Carl Linnaeus, an 18th-century naturalist who formalized binomial nomenclature,[16] is said to have "invented the index card" c. 1760[1] in order to help deal with the information overload facing early scientists that occurred from overseas discoveries,[17] though there is room for dispute about whether he alone was the index card's inventor.[18] Linnaeus had to deal with a conflict between needing to bring information into a fixed order for purposes of later retrieval, and needing to integrate new information into that order permanently. His solution was to keep information on particular subjects on separate sheets, which could be complemented and reshuffled. In the mid 1760s Linnaeus refined this into what are now called index cards. Index cards could be selected and moved around at will to update and compare information at any time.[1]
In the late 1890s, edge-notched cards were invented, which allowed for easy sorting of data by means of a needle-like tool. These edge-notched cards were phased out in the 1980s in favor of computer databases, and they are no longer sold.
James Rand, Sr.'s Rand Ledger Company (founded 1898) with its Visible Ledger system, and his son
Library
Many authors have used index cards for the writing of books.[20] Vladimir Nabokov wrote his works on index cards, a practice mentioned in his work Pale Fire.[21]
See also
- Address book – Database used for storing contact details
- Card sorting
- CRC cards– software brainstorming tool
- Edge-notched card – Index card with notches to store data
- Hipster PDA – Pen and paper pad created as a way of criticizing the modern obsession with digital organizers
- Paper size – Standard sizes of paper
- Punched card – Paper-based recording medium
- Rolodex – Rotating card file device
References
- ^ a b c "Carl Linnaeus Invented The Index Card". ScienceDaily. 16 June 2009. Retrieved 2020-07-31.
- ^ Müller-Wille, Staffan; Scharf, Sara (January 2009). Indexing Nature: Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and his Fact-Gathering Strategies (PDF) (Working paper). Department of Economic History, London School of Economics. p. 4. 36/08. See also the summary of the research project: "Rewriting the System of Nature: Linnaeus's Use of Writing Technologies". Centre for Medical History, University of Exeter. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
- ^ Everts, Sarah (2016). "Information Overload". Distillations. 2 (2): 26–33. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
- ^ "Index card sizes compared". Quill. Retrieved 2022-10-13.
- ^ "Business card sizes". Printernational. Retrieved 2022-10-13.
- OCLC 1264058764.
it is better to use different sizes of cards to avoid confusing the bibliographic and subject notes with each other.
- OCLC 679321.
Keep bibliographical entries on 3 × 5 cards [...] Notes taken from sources should be written in ink or typed on either 5 × 8 cards or sheets of loose-leaf paper.
- OCLC 1374221.
Many workers do not use cards at all, but make their notes on bibliography and subject-matter on slips or sheets of paper of uniform size. [...] The use of two cabinets of different sizes, one for bibliography cards and one for subject-matter notes, is likely to prove inconvenient.
- OCLC 14603864.
In extensive library studies, however, it usually saves much time and energy to organize the bibliography cards in one system and all other notes in another system, even though both systems use the same headings and cards of the same size.
- OCLC 53244810.
For all these purposes, experience shows that you must take notes in a uniform manner, on paper or cards of uniform size.
- OCLC 40573268. In this book, index cards appear in instructions for various procedures for facilitating events, including chapters on "Storyboarding Basics", "Brainstorming Variations", "Moderating Focus Groups", "Voting", and "Gantt Chart Planning".
- ^ OCLC 22260654.
- OCLC 1004589834.
- ^ Blei, Daniela (2017-12-01). "How the Index Card Cataloged the World". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 2021-05-08. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
- ^ S2CID 171203209.
- PMID 17436393.
- PMID 22326068.
- PMID 27134642.
- ^ "Kardex". A Dictionary of Nursing. 2008. Retrieved September 11, 2014 – via Encyclopedia.com.
- ^ OCLC 698360129.
- ^ Gold, Herbert (1967). "Vladimir Nabokov, The Art of Fiction No. 40". The Paris Review. Summer-Fall 1967 (41). Retrieved 7 April 2013.
Further reading
- Cevolini, Alberto, ed. (2016). Forgetting Machines: Knowledge Management Evolution in Early Modern Europe. Library of the Written Word. Vol. 53. Leiden; Boston: OCLC 951955805.
- OCLC 1143631587.
- Maxwell, John W.; Armen, Haig (8 September 2013). "A Bird in the Hand: Index Cards and the Handcraft of Creative Thinking". publishing.sfu.ca. Simon Fraser University. Retrieved 18 September 2022.
- Wallace, Patricia E.; Thomas, Violet S. (1987). "Card-Storage Systems". Records Management: Integrated Information Systems (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley. pp. 148–155. OCLC 14272476.
External links
- Media related to Index cards at Wikimedia Commons