Walter Benjamin's thoughts on books
I read this quote online then found it in Walter Benjamin's One-way Street, and Other Writings
And these days, as the current scientific mode of production tells us, the book is already an obsolete link between two different card-file systems. The reason being that all essentials may be found in the paper-slip index of the researcher who completed it, the scholar studying it assimilating those essentials into his own card file.
I have been particularly interested in the idea that we assimilate information by associate what we encounter with what we already know, and then traverse and communicate those association differently across contexts.
Much like the scholar Benjamin refers to, when I read a book I write down the ideas that interest me in my own “card file” (a note-taking app) and reflect on what precisely draws me to them.
I believe Benjamin is suggesting that the book is only one way of organizing research, and that accessing the researcher’s collection of ideas more directly might be a more effective way of transmitting and developing those ideas than the book itself.
