📽️ Framing note-taking (3/3)
# Notes as structures of knowledge
- Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)
Networked notetaking
Finding ways to make connections within and between the variety of notes we take. These connections are then used to contribute to producing knowledge beyond the sum total of individual notes.
- Not a new technique
A codex from the second half of the 13th century including text, commentary, and other marginalia. Image from
Drucker (2014).
Transcript
But little has been said about the role of structure in the types of knowledges that notes contribute to constructing.
There’s a growing community of note-taking enthusiasts appearing online right now under the moniker of “PKM” or Personal Knowledge Management. This group is united by sharing, discussing, teaching, and selling something I’ve come to call networked note-taking systems.
While there are many different strategies to networked note-taking, it generally focuses on finding ways to make connections within and between the variety of notes we take. These connections are then used to contribute to producing knowledge beyond the sum total of individual notes.
This technique isn’t exactly new–scholars have actually been using tools like index cards with unique reference IDs to make links across their notes since at least the 18th century. And as Johanna Drucker reminds us, books have always been nonlinear, weaving connections between and through text, commentary, and paratext.