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mrennekamp edited this page Nov 2, 2022 · 3 revisions

The Situation

There are plenty ways to manage current libraries and reading lists through software, and record one's history in physical journals, but they do not focus appeal to "academic-hobbyists" (outside of writing and publishing spheres), nor analytics of the transformations of interest. This lies between tracking one's current inventory of nonfiction reading, and finding relationships in-person (say, by involving in a society, or attending a convention).

Inspiration from 'otaku' social cataloging

Started using MyAnimeList after experiencing Neon Genesis Evangelion in 2015 - the first media I recognized the virtue of 'seriousness': at least the signals of interest in the mundane, inability to communicate complicating the pure desires of friendship, and the passion level was above any media I had experienced to that point.

The entertainment of tracking and discovery

  • What brought me to the current reading? Was it referenced/cited (most direct), part of a syllabus, or was I "searching"/browsing for something in that topic?
  • My experience reading textbooks was supposed to fit "prerequisites" for new topics (ex. dimensions of "fundamentality", see map of mathematics). But, the more useful way of reading is to buy something, hopefully track (internally) and understand it, then move to something that covers what I don't understand, or otherwise interested. It's unlikely that between the things I "don't understand" and aren't cited or directly referenced, that I'll know what specific thing to look for. It takes a combination of "period of reflection" and figuring out what to search.
  • Not poised to trust a crowdsourced graph of specific details (ex. in math, 'macro' concept logic with 'micro' truth & falsehood). Mostly, different conceptions or fruitions of prerequisites.
  • Probably sufficient to log "what made you intrested" - short text box for description and/or link, date interested, and separate date start/finish for delay between interest and being able to read (sometimes months!).

Chronological nature of reading and understanding

Sometimes in a particular (or serveral!) library visits, a person will check out more books than can read. No knowledge is gained until it's read! Thus, having a "bookshelf" of unreads is completely irrelevant. Time, however, is valuable in that things seem to work out subconsciously if not understood at the time of reading. Interests also develop parallel to reading, still determined by time.

Value of recording "browsing"

  • That you can track interests over time! Did they evolve, transfer, mutate, etc? What did they transform to, and how did the mechanics work?
  • Another idea is that still, people are listing the things they read, but also creating a repository of all their comments on various documents (such as, thinking about k-12 curriculum and thinking about standards/teaching historiography while reading an Intro to Philosophy book, which the OpenStax version has pdf and online versions)
  • Can we match what parts of literary books are interesting depending on what type of person you are? For example a lot of people find generic Bible stories compelling, but I remember something specific from last year, which isn't a typically told passage. So is it that I find things interesting differently than other people? Like the way if you were to ask my favorite books, or my favorite moments of Harry Potter or something, I might cite a different example than someone who finds another thing quite memorable?