Today is the release day for Roland Allen’s new book The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper (Profile Books, 2023).  Those in the note taking, , , and intellectual history spaces may appreciate it.

Book cover of The Notebook

A multi-layered statement, but let’s reflect for a moment on how the West wholly misses out on a hidden personal knowledge management technique inherent in orality.

Quote card featuring part of the indigenous art-inspired cover of the book Songlines by Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly with the quote "Inuit man Dempsey Bob said, ‘The trouble with whitefellas is that they keep all their brains in books.’"

Replied to a tweet by TfTHacker (Twitter)
There are many historical terms for these tools. Second brain is one of the worst and is primarily a marketing term. See: https://boffosocko.com/2021/07/03/differentiating-online-variations-of-the-commonplace-book-digital-gardens-wikis-zettlekasten-waste-books-florilegia-and-second-brains/#Second%20brain

A smidgen of its use stems from the mistranslation of some Luhmann work which is better read as “secondary memory”.

One of my favorites is Eminem’s “stacking ammo“.