The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.
James Bryce
I have written a few postings about reading digitally, e.g., Reading Digitally: GoodReader + Skim vs Sente, or in one about Reading & Using Literature, but I think that a video probably says more than words and pictures.
(I am still new to videos, so don’t expect too much ;-))
Reading digitally
(Yup, I highlighted a lot, it was the introduction to a topic I do not know that much about — and a demonstration of reading digitally. The highlighted text is cut up into smaller sections later.)
I can highly recommend an iPad for reading fictional and non-fictional literature. Many people cannot read articles on a screen, but reading on an iPad is different, e.g., the position, the handling. That you can take a whole library with you where ever you go, highlight and annotate without the need for pens, and export the highlighted text is invaluable (okay, depending on your reading style). The App used here is GoodReader, an excellent App (costs only a few euros).
Getting the highlighted text/annotations in Circus Ponies Notebook
The second video shows how easy it is to get the highlighted text/annotations, which you have send yourself with the “E-Mail Summary” function of GoodReader, into Circus Ponies Notebook. The step with Using TextWrangler’s Grep Function to tidy up GoodReader Notes is done to remove unnecessary information. Then a page is created in a Circus Ponies Notebook with the authorname_year as name, the text is copied as outline cells (“Paste Text as an Outline” — each paragraph break denotes a new outline cell) and each cell is tagged (keyword) with the authorname_year. This allows you to copy and paste the cells in any order and any Circus Ponies Notebook and keep the source information (depends on which specific copy&paste function of CPN you use).
Anyway, that’s that … have fun reading 🙂
Hi Daniel,
I noticed from the second video that you now used multiple databases for e.g., sources, handbooks, projects, etc instead of groups like you recommend in your -much- earlier post (http://www.organizingcreativity.com/2011/07/devonthink-second-impression-and-some-tips/). Mind sharing your reason? Thanks
I split the material into different databases because I had too many files for a single one to a) work fast and b) keep an overview of the contents. DT relates the files to each other, and esp. with sources (which include dictionaries and other large books) it got slow. As you can open multiple databases with DT (Pro office version), it’s a high-level sorting principle that works well for me. Currently, the databases I use most frequently are: “Collection Inbox” (I like a dedicated database more than the Inbox folder of DT), “Community RSS” (RSS feeds of blogs and journals), “Ideas” (self-explanatory), “Mobile Syncing” (stuff I want to have available on the move, independent of the other databases), “Notebook Alternate” (information not in Circus Ponies Notebooks), “Sources – Private”, “Sources – Web” (DT browser-plugin captured websites as PDF), “Sources – Work”, and “Work Projects”. There are also databases for images, archives, mails, etc., but I use them perhaps once a week or so, and they are not usually open.