index of ends

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while or who know me know that for a long time I've been maintaining a complicated index-card file for a long time now (ten years this summer!). It's full of notes on books and things I read on the web and recipes and recommendations for albums and films and what have you.

I've been in the process of digitizing the index card file (into Access) for about two and a half years now, working at it sporadically in fits and starts throughout that time. The work is tedious, but the benefits are obvious. As I wrote in this note from 2004, "being able to use the processing power of a computer to filter and shuffle the thousands of cards I have on file will be super-fun, and if I get a version up-and-running on a laptop the entire card file will essentially become portable."

But of course, the real grail would be to get it all online, and thus independent of even a laptop—which would be handy when I wanted to, say, access my list of books I wanted to read from the middle of a library. I know there are ways to integrate websites with databases, but I didn't really want to have to learn SQL scripting: just thinking about reading a book like this makes my eyes begin to glaze over. Del.icio.us has the great advantage of being built around a multiple-keyword system like the one I use for the cards, but the prospect of cutting-and-pasting all the card text into del.icio.us seemed even more daunting. So this, I thought, this is something that will need to wait for a while. I thought I'd have to resort to the day when Google would roll out some sort of Access-killer (to join up with its already-extant Word and Excel killers).

Then I watched this demo for a Web-based database application called Dabble DB. Within about the first minute I was convinced that I wanted to use this product; the remaining six minutes made my jaw pretty much literally drop open. It's subscription-based, at a fairly steep $10 a month, but I think that's a fair price to pay considering the value of having ten years of note-taking available from any Web browser. (Note to Google: buy this app and make it free to everyone.)

I hunkered down over the weekend and started playing with it; there are some quibbles and minor things I'd change, but by-and-large I was incredibly impressed: the fact that I got the whole thing imported from Access, online and working with basically a single copy-and-paste command basically floored me. Additionally, the export function works wonderfully: with a single click you can export and publish the data in multiple formats: HTML, RSS, PDF, etc. So, for instance, here's a dynamic webpage that updates with new cards tagged "To Read;" another experiment is here, which are all my notes on a specific book from my library, Eviatar Zerubavel's Time Maps. (Expect the book-log page to eventually be ornamented with links to various Dabble exports like this.)

The entire database (at least what's been digitized so far, lives here. I've arranged it so that the most "recently modified" are on top, and I'm still entering old cards, which explains why what's on top as of this writing are cards from 2003. Sadly, you, the casual browser, won't be able to sort or filter these cards, because you can't apply database functions to these export pages: you'd need to be cleared as a "user" of my database to do that, and if I upgrade to five users (instead of single-user only) it's an extra $56 per year. I suppose if I could get four people to PayPal me $14 each for access it would pay for itself, although if you're dying for it that bad I'd say just grab all the data in Comma-Separated Value format (from the export page) and plug it into your own database at home.

Can I just say here how happy this all makes me?

Labels: databases, indexing

Tuesday, February 13, 2007
5:10 PM
0 comments

this week's timesink

Now that I'm able to publish this blog again (see rant), I'm going through and adding "labels" (aka tags) to all the posts in the archives. This blog recently turned five years old, though, so it might take a while... but I've never been one to shy away from a project, especially if it involves elaborate indexing.

As part of the overall improvement-making, I've also set up an Atom feed for those of you who want to read the blog through an aggregator. That's accessible over there in the sidebar, or direct through this link:

http://www.imaginaryyear.com/raccoon/atom.xml

If you'd prefer an RSS feed, try this one, provided via LiveJournal:

http://sleepingjpb.livejournal.com/data/rss

Also note: the combo of Atom feed and Blogger labels allows people to make their own feeds for a specific label. The syntax for that is this:

http://beta.blogger.com/feeds/3272171/posts/full/-/labelname

Replace "labelname" with one of the labels I'm using. The selection will end up being pretty similar to the selection of tags I'm using at del.icio.us. If I can find a way to make Blogger display all the labels in a list, I'll do it (this currently seems impossible given my current "Classic" template).

Labels: indexing, projects

Saturday, January 20, 2007
3:55 PM
0 comments

unread, unheard

I've been playing around at de.licio.us a lot over the past couple of weeks, and I've now tagged over twenty different pieces of writing online with my "to_read" tag. Sooner or later I should switch gears and actually read some of them instead of just collecting more.

Anyway, here's the full list: if anyone feels especially inclined to write me a series of incisive one-page summaries, e-mail me at the usual address.

The drive that makes me put all of the unread Web stuff in one easy-to-find place seems a little akin to the drive behind having made an "Unheard" playlist on my iPod (a playlist that currently clocks in at a scary 1,605 songs).

It's a little overwhelming, but if I'm to be honest I have to admit that I like having a huge backlog of interesting stuff waiting in the wings: it sure beats the ennui that comes with feeling like the world is tapped-out and dead.

Labels: indexing

Sunday, April 02, 2006
11:47 PM
0 comments

recently

Not too many posts lately, sorry about that. I didn't spend a lot of time on the Web this past week, mostly because I had a guest in town...

I did manage, however, to find enough time to start playing around with del.icio.us, which so far seems like a great solution to my long-standing complaint(s) about the terrible design and flat-out unusability of browser-based "bookmarks." I could rant about this for quite a while, but the short version has to do with the difference between a hierarchy (bookmarks as links buried within folders within folders) and a network (bookmarks as links which can be multiply tagged and thus are "findable" through multiple points of inquiry). Plus the whole "tagging" system integrates almost seamlessly with my already-existing index-card keyword system. Anyway, anyone who wants to check out the assortment of bookmarks I've recently amassed as a preliminary go at the whole del.icio.us thing can check them out here.

New long-form works compliation disc from Rebis should be back from the pressing plant this week; more news about the tour soon (although I will say that my solo set in Philly is sadly now off the schedule).

Labels: indexing

Wednesday, March 15, 2006
9:09 AM
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index-card-based organizational technologies

With the advent of the new year, I'm attempting a new organizational system utilizing the six-pocket Moleskine Accordion File Folder. This system replaces the PDA I was using for a little while (January-May 2005) and makes a cautious attempt to replace the spiral-bound index cards that I've been using for much longer (August 1997-present).

The new system uses the Moleskine's six pockets as follows:

1. blank index cards

2. "active" to-do cards (basically David Seah's Task Progress Tracker condensed (by me) into a 3x5 format that can be printed on Oxford Printable Index Cards)

3. "inactive" to-do cards (each card is dedicated to a different project, and if a project doesn't have any currently "active" task it gets considered dormant until I figure out what the next task is)

4. 3 "calendar cards" (current week, current month, and 12-month), also designed to be printed on those printable index cards

5. three cards for shopping lists (basically grocery store, drug store, and department store)

6. index cards filled out with notes and awaiting archiving

So far, I like using Seah's system for the to-do cards. The big advantage of his system is that the longer you work on a task, the more boxes you get to check. Ostensibly this is to track your progress, but I find that it works as a suitable incentive to take on the longer, more difficult tasks (as well as an incentive to keep working—just another fifteen minutes and you get to check off another box!).

The biggest drawback of this system is that the Moleskine Memo Pockets thingum doesn't have a place to hold a pen (like the spiral-bound index cards do).

I'll let you know how it works out as time skitters on.

Labels: indexing

Tuesday, January 10, 2006
12:54 PM
0 comments

the postal archives

I spent a lot of time this evening looking through and organizing mail. And I'm talking mail that dates back to probably around 1988 or so, when I first started writing letters regularly. I almost never throw a letter away: I still have mail saved from people I haven't been in touch with for a decade or more.

There are some people who I stopped corresponding with more-or-less by accident, and some of them I don't know how to track down: Amanda Doimas? Mark Davis? Lauryn / Lauren Rose (the one from Bucks County, PA, not any of these other fakers)? If any of you are out there Googling yourself some night, and you should stumble upon this, think about dropping Jeremy Bushnell a line [jeremy, at invisible-city dot com projects, at imaginaryyear dot com].

Other relationships represented in my box(es) of mail ended more consciously, or mutually, or whatever, just ended for one reason or another. But I can't seem to let go of the letters. If we ever cared about one another enough to write back and forth rest assured that I still have the letters and I remember how it felt to care about you that way; if, later on, I came to hurt you, rest assured that I remember the way that that felt too.

Because this is a blog that's often about archiving rather than about weepy quasi-sentimental recriminations, I should say that the organizational process went smoother than I expected; all these old letters are actually stored in a fairly orderly way. That said, I could probably use an organizational scheme that's better than my current one, which involves nestling letters inside of brown lunchbags which are then further nestled inside of boxes. Digital scanning is flat out, and I can't think of a good way to scrapbook them: anybody out there on the Web have any especially clever mail-archiving ideas?

Labels: indexing, personal

Wednesday, September 14, 2005
8:17 PM
0 comments

Playing around with the Mac program DEVONthink, which describes itself, among other ways, as a "freeform database." This seems, at first glance, to mean that it functions as a huge data receptacle, one into which you can dump all kinds of raw material, which then gets retrieved not via the normal array of database queries but rather through a sophisticated search interface.

From the documentation:

"With its intelligent organising capabilities, DEVONthink is the number one choice for the 'hunters & collectors' type of people. They tend to store every bit of whatever they get hold of, from text files [to] images, MP3s and Quicktime movies to web pages and bookmarks, and some of them MIGHT even organise it somehow. But most of them won't bother with kinky things like 'groups.'

"And that's all what DEVONthink ... is all about: storing and organising things. So, H&Cs will throw everything they have into the database ... Then, when they look for 'something they are sure they MUST have somewhere,' it's time for DEVONthink to play out its cards: the advanced search functions and the AI-based 'see also' and 'keywords' buttons. ... If the document the H&C is looking for is not [found]. it might at least be similar to one [that is]. One click, and DEVONthink shows a list of all other documents that are similar to the selected one."

I've been seeding DEVONthink with the data from my index card file, and it's been an interesting experience so far. Browsing the cards using this program is different from browsing them in Access, although in ways that are hard to quantify precisely. At this early stage I am prepared to risk falling into the old Mac vs. PC dichotomy by saying that DEVONthink feels "fuzzier" or "more organic" than Access, whereas Access feels more "precise" but also more rigid, and certainly less associational. At this point it's worth it for me to keep both databases up-to-date and active, but I'll let you know if one eclipses the other.

It's worth it to mention that the DEVONthink strategy of relieving the user of the need to categorize by providing a powerful, intuitive, effective search mechanism seems pretty akin to the idea behind the Google Desktop Search hard-drive search utility. Note the way that Google rep Marissa Mayer talks about search vs. directory in the conversation blogged at John Batelle's Searchblog:

"In 1995 ... you could find what you were looking for by browsing a directory like Yahoo. But over time as the web scaled that model didn't scale. It broke, which is why search (became the metaphor for finding things on the web). We are seeing the same thing happening now on personal computers (which have far more storage than even five years ago)."

Labels: databases, indexing

Thursday, October 28, 2004
6:58 PM
0 comments

Had a long, caffeinated discussion about databases this morning with CJO. What makes an effective database, what databases could be used for, etc.

This afternoon I find myself wondering: why is it that the database is not widely recognized as a form for artistic expression? There are certainly times when I feel like the index card file will end up being the best piece of creative output I will ever produce. And databases, in general, are oriented towards fragmentation, discontinuity, heterogeneity, montage, collage, and systematics—major governing principles of contemporary art.

Guy Davenport writes "A work of art is a form that articulates forces, making them intelligible." The database is literally designed to be such a form. So where are the artists striving out in that direction? Milorad Pavic has produced at least one book that points the way...

I suspect there are hypertexts that qualify—almost all hypertexts have, as their back-end, arrays of lexia that could basically be thought of as existing in a sort of database form—although I'm hard-pressed to think of many hypertext works that actually function like databases. Where are the creative works that open within, say, Access, rather than running as independent programs with their own interfaces (such as those generated by a hypertext authoring tool like StorySpace)?

Labels: databases, hypertext, indexing

Saturday, August 21, 2004
2:29 PM
0 comments

I'm enjoying the comments on the Mac thread below, and I thank everybody for their input.

I'm still pretty curious about DevonThink, as the notion of making a "personal encyclopedia" in an open database system is highly appealing. This is a notion that has been of special interest recently, because I have begun the process of digitizing my entire index card file.

This was a project that I've long wanted to undertake, but I've always balked at the sheer amount of data entry that the project will require. I'm only doing it now because the July 3rd hard drive crash forced my hand—in that crash, I lost the Word document that served as the cross-referenced index to the card file, and I figured that if I had to go through the long process of recreating a cross-reference anyway, I might as well put in the extra effort to make a full-text version in a proper database. The advantages of having a full-text digital version are obvious: being able to use the processing power of a computer to filter and shuffle the thousands of cards I have on file will be super-fun, and if I get a version up-and-running on a laptop the entire card file will essentially become portable.

Not to mention reproducible, and thus able to be given away / traded / shared. In Caterina's July 5 post on DevonThink, she talks about how appealing it would be to browse through someone else's database; she goes so far as to suggest that it's a pleasure she'd be willing to pay for / subscribe to. The pleasure of weblogs is, to some degree, the pleasure of reading through someone else's notes, but if you read someone's weblog regularly, it mostly works as a linear process, whereas a database works with multiple points of entry and multiple avenues of potential investigation. The beauty of a weblog is that the entries are arranged in a chronological superstructure (of the sort that I've written about before); the beauty of a database is that the entries are equidistant from one another, and can be endlessly rearranged into different configurations requested by their user. (Half the fun of ITunes is shuffling around the songs in the Library.)

So why aren't more people putting up their notes as Access files for one another to download? Or offering them on the subscription model (each month, receive a "booster pack" of new notes.) Is this happening in a different subculture (say, the subculture of people who trade recipes)? If not, why not?

"And today the book is already, as the present mode of scholarly production demonstrates, an outdated mediation between two different filing systems. For everything that matters is to be found in the card box of the researcher who wrote it, and the scholar studying it assimilates it into his own card index."

—Walter Benjamin

Related: Umberto Eco's fears about a future in which "[w]e could end up with competing encyclopaedias, some of them completely wild." Eco doesn't like it, but (as I've said before) such a future doesn't seem bad to me at all.

Labels: databases, indexing

Monday, July 26, 2004
7:28 PM
0 comments

Those of you who have known me for a while know that I rarely go anywhere without a pack of spiral-bound index cards. Once one of these packs fills up with notes, I tear out the cards and file them according to a rather elaborate system of categorization (the cross-referenced index to the cardfile is a 67-page Word document).

Since I've been working on this system for the better part of the last decade, most new cards can be easily filed under one or more of the hundreds of existing categories. But every once in a while I take a note that doesn't fit comfortably into the system, and then I need to "open up" a new category. At the outset of 2003 I started keeping track of new categories as I added them, so here's 28 topics that I became formally interested in over the last year and a half:

Oral Tradition (3/03)
Suffering (3/03)
American Indians (4/03)
Transgression (4/03)
Borders (4/03)
Conversation (4/03)
Cycles (5/03)
Ecstasy (5/03)
Middle East (5/03)
the Other (5/03)
Complexity (7/03)
Technological Art (7/03)
Installation Art (7/03)
Asia (7/03)
Geometry (7/03)
Artifacts (8/03)
Disease (8/03)
Energy (8/03)
Medicine (8/03)
Military (8/03)
Pleasure (8/03)
Pranks (8/03)
Empathy (9/03)
Fear (9/03)
Prose Poems (11/03)
Rhythm (1/04)
Editing (4/04)
Imagination (5/04)
Instructions (5/04)

Labels: indexing

Wednesday, June 30, 2004
11:52 AM
0 comments

They're throwing away the card catalogs at UIC today.

Now, I recognize that the card catalogs here have, for all practical purposes, been replaced by the computer system, and I've come to terms with that. This doesn't change the fact that, for me, a card catalog is a powerful symbol of knowledge, and so to see them lying helter-skelter in a dumpster feels symbolically wounding (symbolic wounding, by the way, is what I mean when I refer to something as soul-killing, as I have been wont to do lately).

OK, soul-killing aside, the real reason I'm upset about seeing the card catalogs get tossed is that I covet them for myself.

I can say that I would actually put them to good use. Those of you who know me know that I have been maintaining a rather elaborate card-index for the last five years or so... someone bought me a six-drawer card catalog from Ebay a few years ago and it has become one of my favorite possessions, maybe the one thing I would grab in case of fire. I can't help but look at those fifty-drawer monsters in the dumpster and think "one of those would be really handy."

Plus it'd look great in my apartment! They are, after all, beautiful objects.

But: even if I could manage to wrangle out of the dumpster, there's still no way to get it home, plus there's no room in the current apartment (and there's unlikely to be enough room in the next one).

The pain!

Labels: indexing

Tuesday, March 02, 2004
9:45 AM
0 comments

I've always liked this Walter Benjamin quote about books and notes:

"The card index marks the conquest of three-dimensional writing, and so presents an astonishing counterpoint to the three-dimensionality of script in its original form as rune or knot notation. (And today the book is already, as the present mode of scholarly production demonstrates, an outdated mediation between two different filing systems. For everything that matters is to be found in the card box of the researcher who wrote it, and the scholar studying it assimilates it into his own card index.)"

I'm not sure if he's being ironic or not—Benjamin loves the book as much as anyone, as his essays like "Unpacking My Library" suggest, and by the point in this fragment on "Three Dimensional Writing" where he suggests that poets need to master technical diagrams, I'm almost certain his tongue is firmly in his cheek. But on the other hand, he did spend many years working on The Arcades Project, a huge unfinished volume of notes on all sorts of topics, and the original notion of the Passagenwerk was that it would be a work entirely composed of quotations from the works of others...

Labels: indexing, writing

Monday, March 18, 2002
11:41 PM
0 comments

The newest Imaginary Year entry is about memory, sort of.

Browsing for inspiration this morning, I did some Googling on the "art of memory." The practice strikes me as so completely from another time that I have not yet fully wrapped my mind around it.

Fortunately, others have, and they have come up with promising applications of the art in our contemporary time. For instance, here's an interesting-looking abstract focusing on the art of memory as a model for digital archives.

"[This talk will] look at fundamental ideas from the ars memoria -- architectural image placement, the book as nonlinear theatre, encyclopedic culture, the author as technologist-magus -- and then map some of these ideas onto the emerging landscape of the 'global digital archive.'"

Following the abstract is a rather fruitful-looking set of annotated links. And there's these, too.

Labels: indexing, memory

Monday, February 11, 2002
11:03 PM
0 comments