Edge-Punched Cards for Research Notes

Abstract

THIS BRIEF NOTE is designed to bring to the attention of scholars the profitable utilization of commercially available edge-punched cards for note taking. Although they have been widely used in bibliographical work, they are not well known or used as y~t by academic researchers. Folklorists, however, are beginning to recognize their value in cataloging motifs. Perhaps the simplest way to illustrate the uses of the punch cards would be to mention a specific experience. The author was recently studying British and American literary criticism in some fifty periodicals; the study dealt with fifteen American authors and covered a twentyyear period. Numbers on the cards were assigned to the following divisions of the outline: British criticism, American criticism, each author, each year of the study, each periodical examined, each work published by each author, and a four division rating which indicated the critic's opinion of the author or work under consideration. Additional divisions could have been made, but the scope of the study and the material available made it unnecessary. Regardless of the way the cards were arranged-and they need not be filed but merely placed in the tray or pile at random as the notes are taken-all of the cards containing •material on any one of the topics given above could be selected in a moment. For example, if all of the material on a particular book by Hawthorne were desired, it could be selected directly. If the British criticism had then to be separated from the American, it could be accomplished simply by making another selection with the rod. If the material that had appeared in a particular peri