June 20, 2025 • 59 mins
Guest: Roland Allen, author of The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper
First broadcast June 20 2025. Transcript at https://hdl.handle.net/1853/77968
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"You say quite casually that this is the computer age."
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
ROLAND ALLEN (00:06):
We live in a capitalist environment,
and that capitalistenvironment is
entirely shaped by bookkeeping,accountancy, notions
of the company, notionsof profit and loss,
balance sheets, all of that.
And all of those arecompletely tied up
(00:28):
with the use of notebooks.
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:50):
You are listening to WREK Atlanta,
and this is "Lostin the Stacks,"
the research libraryrock and roll radio show.
I'm Charlie Bennett in thevirtual studio with Fred Rascoe,
Marlee Givens, and Alex McGee.
Each week on "Lostin the Stacks,"
we pick a theme and then useit to create a mix of music
and library talk.
Whichever you're herefor, we hope you dig it.
ALEX MCGEE (01:12):
Today's episode is called "The Notebook Age."
As you heard in thecold open, the notebook
is a technology that wasessential to the creation
of the modern capitalist world.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And despite that, I (01:21):
undefined
am a big fan of notebooks.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:24):
Roland Allen, our guest today,
is also a fan of notebooks.
He wrote a pop history bookentitled The Notebook--
A History of ThinkingOn Paper, which
was published in late 2023.
Through a varietyof notebook stories,
from Italian businessledgers in the Renaissance
to modern bulletjournals, Allen explored
the way we use paperto think and remember
(01:45):
outside of our head.
ALEX MCGEE (01:47):
We spoke with Roland about thinking on paper,
using notebooks, and why wemight call our current era
the Notebook Age.
FRED RASCOE (01:54):
In our conversation, the idea of memory
kept popping up.
So our songs today are aboutmemories, memories in notebooks,
memories of other people,and memories that we just
can't keep in our minds.
Let's start with a song aboutjust how powerful memory can be
and why maybe you shouldoffload it into a notebook.
This is "Memories Can't Wait"by talking heads right here
(02:16):
on "Lost in the Stacks."
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:28):
That was "Memories Can't Wait"
by Talking Heads.
Our show today is called"The Notebook Age."
Our guest is Roland Allen,the author of The Notebook--
A History of Thinking OnPaper, published in 2023
by Profile Books andin 2024 by Biblioasis.
That's UK andCanada, respectively.
FRED RASCOE (02:49):
We started by asking,
what does the phrase thinkingon paper mean to you?
ROLAND ALLEN (02:55):
Well, it's meant different things over time,
but I guess what it meansfor me now is any process--
and by that, I mean writing butalso drawing or writing down
numbers or phone numbers orlittle sums or shopping lists,
anything like that--
when you're takingit out of your head
and putting it onpaper and ultimately
when you're committingsomething which
(03:17):
you want to remember to paper.
But that can be anykind of shape of mark.
I don't restrict it to writing.
And then once it'sdown on paper and you
don't have to holdit in your mind,
you don't have to be rememberingit, then you can play with it.
And it's that playful nature ofthinking on paper which I really
enjoy, I think, and Ithink a lot of people
do whether or not theyrealize that they're doing it.
(03:40):
So when they're doodlingor listing or diary
writing or whatever,I think that all
comes under the broadheading of thinking on paper.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Do you separate out (03:48):
undefined
the mathematicalstuff from language
when you think aboutthinking on paper?
You included itin the definition,
but are those twodifferent things?
ROLAND ALLEN (03:59):
No, not really.
I think you're dealing with thesame fundamental problem, which
is that you're much worseat remembering stuff
than you think you are.
Like, you're really badat remembering stuff,
and I don't-- please don'ttake that personally.
I'm not talking to youpersonally, but we just all are.
So if I shout a phonenumber to you right now,
you will forget it in tens.
And if I shout out myshopping list to you,
(04:20):
three items you'llremember, four at a stretch
maybe if they'reparticularly conspicuous.
But five or six, you'regoing to forget one.
So ultimately, whateverit is to write down
whatever it is to rememberto hold in your mind
so that you can manipulateit or play with it
or just recall it accurately,getting it down on paper
(04:41):
is the process.
So the same thing appliesto numbers or words.
So yeah, so in my work life,I do a lot of calculations,
if you like-- you know,profit and loss type.
And it's that kind ofscratch pad calculation which
you have to do on the hoofall the time in business
of any kind.
Can we afford to do this?
Is this going to be a good idea?
(05:02):
And those, of course, getmixed up with diary notes
or with my day to day orwith the shopping list
or with whatever thingsto-do list I've got planned.
So yeah.
So everything goes onto thesame kind of page, I would say.
CHARLIE BENNETT (05:15):
And you said it's changed, your idea of it.
Were you always in thatkind of messy everything
together attitude,or did you not
respect thinking on paperas much as you do now?
ROLAND ALLEN (05:27):
Oh, I definitely didn't.
I did not understand.
I did not have a clue,really, about how versatile
and how useful it could be.
I suppose-- I mean,obviously I was
interested in notebooks when Istarted researching the book.
And obviously, I hadhalf an idea of that.
It was going to be aninteresting subject.
(05:49):
Otherwise, I wouldn'thave looked at it.
And I'd been workingin a creative industry
not doing a particularlycreative job
because I'm a sales guy.
But I'd been workingin book publishing
for quite a long time.
So I'd seen a lot of people withsketchbooks and design notebooks
and quite interesting notebooks.
But I'd never reallyhad one myself.
And then when I startedresearching the book
(06:11):
and found out howpeople used them
and how they worked in practice,then it just-- a switch clicked.
And then I really wantedto start doing it myself.
So in the process ofwriting this book,
I went from usingone or two notebooks
at once and justwriting everything down
in the order I came across tobeing quite analytical about it
(06:34):
and being quite focusedabout it and saying,
right, I'm going to start anew notebook for this chapter,
and I will be listing things,and I will stick a map in,
and I will do a timelineand a spider diagram
and then a word cloud andall of these things, which
were little tips and techniqueswhich I'd picked up on the way
and which turnedout to be, I think,
really useful or veryuseful for me, anyway.
(06:55):
So yeah, it did changeas I was looking into it.
CHARLIE BENNETT (06:59):
I played a little bit
with sketching into mynotebooks after I read the book.
I've never been aperson who drew,
and I never used sketchesreally to think things out,
but it was a veryenticing description
you had of a notebook with otherstuff in it, with drawings.
And so I did one page, and Ihaven't done another one since.
(07:21):
Were there parts of thethings you read about
that you tried, but kind ofyour thought patterns resisted?
ROLAND ALLEN (07:30):
Yeah, I've been a big doodler.
But what I always doodleis letters and word shapes.
So I doodle, like, a niceserif alphabet or something
when I'm stuck in a meetingand I can't get out of it,
and that's a way of notdoodling anything accidentally
(07:50):
offensive in the meeting wherepeople can see it, just doodling
letterforms instead.
No, I'm not one ofthose notebookers
who can jump from sketchto sort of word notes.
And funnily enough, I justliterally half an hour
ago was reading the newsletterfrom Austin Kleon, who's
(08:11):
a writer we actuallyfeature in the book,
or we use one of his pictures.
He's a great graphic designer.
He's, I think, based in Texas.
And he does that.
So every page of hisnotebook is always
covered with sketches andlittle diagrams and drawings.
I can't really do it,but it doesn't matter.
I mean, everyonehas their own style,
I think, when they get into it.
FRED RASCOE (08:33):
As we're interviewing here,
I am writing things down.
We talk about thetools that we're using.
I'm not using a notebook.
I'm using a little Post-Itpad because you're right.
My memory is terrible, and Ijust jot down little things
that you say that might sparka spark a question later.
And so in the process of youthinking about thinking on paper
(08:58):
and writing about it, howdo the different tools
that you use to write affecthow you're actually thinking?
I know I use Post-Itnotes, but I haven't really
delved into why I'm usinga Post-It note for this
rather than a notebookor something like that.
ROLAND ALLEN (09:13):
I've got lots of little rituals
now for different kindsof writing, and my wife,
I recently had a birthday,and my wife gave me
a really nice pen which iskind of a slight novelty, which
is brass.
So it's very heavyand permanent feeling,
but then you can changethe different tips on it.
And so I've set it up as a felttip pen, which is ridiculous
because it's like this obviouslyquite expensive, precious brass
(09:36):
thing, and I've set it up as thecheapest, nastiest kind of pen
that there is.
But I'm going to use that fora particular of note taking,
I'd said to her.
This is going to be big, boldideas scratched across the page.
When I'm revising a manuscript,which I'm doing at the moment,
it's always pencil.
When I'm makingnotes from sources,
(09:59):
when I'm sort of writingnotes from a book,
then I try and mixup colors on the page
so they'll have blue and blackand red all on the same page.
But then when I'mwriting my diary,
I'm absolutely particularabout it's black.
It has to be black, andI get quite upset if I
have to leave black behind.
So yeah, I mean, definitely.
And these in a way, then,become little triggers.
(10:22):
So when I'm doing a timeline,I like it to be lovely
and multi-colored,and that helps it--
makes it easier for me tonavigate it when I come back
to revisit it, for instance.
So yeah, there isdefinitely an instrument
for each moment inthe noting life.
FRED RASCOE (10:39):
Maybe I'm looking for analysis
of why I'm using a Post-Itnote rather than a notebook
and what it says about me.
ROLAND ALLEN (10:46):
I love Post-It notes, actually, and what I like
is the way you canmake a list which
rolls over from day to day.
So, I mean, just thismorning, I was doing exactly
that because I've got a list ofquite substantial tasks to do.
I'm not going to dothem all in one day.
So I've pasted it down ontoday's page in my diary
and crossed a couple off,move it over a couple of days,
without having to destroypages of diary with one
(11:09):
fairly simple list.
MARLEE GIVENS (11:11):
This is "Lost in the Stacks,"
and we'll be back withmore from Roland Allen,
author of The Notebook--
A history of Thinking OnPaper after a music set.
ALEX MCGEE (11:21):
File this set under BF575.S37 no dot W334.
[THE ZOMBIES, "REMEMBER YOU"]
(SINGING) I rememberyour face when I think--
[MORPHINE, "THE WAY WE MET"]
[VOCALIZING]
MARLEE GIVENS (11:47):
That was "The Way We Met"
by Morphine and, before that,"Remember You" by The Zombies,
songs about memoriesof your partner.
This is Lost in the Stacks,and today's show is called
"The Notebook age."
Our guest is RolandAllen, author of the book
The Notebook--
A History of Thinking On Paper.
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:08):
So you mentioned diary,
and I think that means differentthings to different people.
You have now dealt with a lot ofvery specific kind of notebooks
and practices and definitions.
So how do you define diary now?
ROLAND ALLEN (12:24):
I try not to.
The big distinction, and peoplehave very strong opinions
about this, is whenis a diary a journal
or when is a journal a diary.
And I personallythink that there
isn't a meaningfuldifference or it's
impossible to carve one out.
If you're writingabout things which
are happening to youin the recent past
and you're involvedin them, then it's
(12:47):
either a diary or ajournal, and I don't
see a particular difference.
I think that the keything with either of them
is that you have to bewritten into the story.
If you're just writingabout the news--
and lots of peopledid this in history.
The Italian towns, for instance,would pay someone typically
to keep a daily chronicle ofevents in Venice or Florence
(13:08):
or whatever.
Then that's great.
But I think that'sa sort of chronicle.
That's a different thing.
You have to writeyourself into the story,
and that's when it becomesa diary or a journal.
It becomes what Isaw, what I thought,
felt about something,what it means for me.
It doesn't have to be terriblyintrospective or analytical,
(13:28):
but it just has to be.
I was there.
I saw this.
I'm part of it.
And then it becomes, I think,a really interesting kind
of document.
They call them egodocuments, the scholars.
And I find it fascinating.
This is a big questionfor me that these things
come up very late in history.
We've been writing stuffdown for thousands of years.
(13:50):
We've had kindsof notebook, kinds
of ways of keeping a diaryfor a very, very long time.
And we only started doingit 400 or 500 years ago,
and no one seems to have areally good answer for why
that is.
I think a diary isa journal is a diary
is a journal so long as you'rewritten into it yourself.
And then it can be any shape.
(14:11):
It can be five words a day.
I love those littlefive lines a day
diaries which runfor years and years.
Or it could be likemy current one, which
is hundreds of words every day.
Or you could be like one ofthese epic Victorian journal
keepers who just wrotemillions of words.
CHARLIE BENNETT (14:27):
They had a lot more time on their hands than--
ROLAND ALLEN (14:29):
They didn't have TV.
Yeah, or the internetor any of that.
So their lives were different.
So yeah, so I tried to avoiddefining it wherever I can.
MARLEE GIVENS (14:39):
Are these diaries things that you return to?
Do you have a regularpractice of going back
to refresh yourself?
ROLAND ALLEN (14:48):
I have done, yeah.
So sometimes, justto amuse myself,
I will say, what was Idoing 10 years ago today?
What was I doing on April 14?
And it's interesting becausethe entry is normally
pretty minimal.
And obviously, mostdays are pretty similar.
You go to work.
You look after thekids, et cetera.
(15:09):
And so you don't necessarilyget all of it back,
but they nearlyalways prod a memory,
some kind of specific memory.
And you will remember ameal or a conversation
or an argument orsomething that happens.
The other time, it has happenedrecently, was my daughter.
(15:30):
So I've got twokids, and there's
a big gap between them,an eight year gap.
And my daughter,who's now 21, and I
were reminiscing about thearrival of her younger brother.
And she couldn'tremember how she
had felt when sheheard that she was
going to get a younger brother,which she really, really longed
for.
And I was able to go back20 odd years to my diary
(15:53):
and find out exactly how itwas that she learned about it
and exactly how we toldher and all this stuff.
And it was really,actually, incredibly moving,
because these had beenlovely moments in our lives
which had beencompletely forgotten.
So that was amazing and, Ithink for her, quite moving.
So yeah, so there is a kindof recreational aspect to it.
But then just occasionally, yougo back and look at something
(16:15):
important.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:16):
Have you ever read the book
Budding Prospects by TC Boyle?
ROLAND ALLEN (16:21):
I have not, but I'd love to read TC Boyle.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:23):
Yeah, that's a good start.
It's about marijuana.
But one of the bits in thebook that he returns to is he's
got a friend who has writtenalmost compulsive diaries of all
their time together, andhe'll call up this friend
and say, just readsome of it to me.
And his friend will readthese detailed memories to him
(16:46):
and soothe him and settle him.
And it's quite beautiful.
And I won't spoilthe rest of that ,
but it's a strikingbook for many reasons,
and that one is whatjust made me think of it.
ROLAND ALLEN (16:59):
That's very relatable.
Before I startedkeeping a diary, when--
I had lots of fun times,obviously, as a young man,
but one of the most fun wasgoing on a very long trip around
the world with my best friend,and he kept a diary of that,
and I didn't.
And then a few yearslater, I was just--
I'm curious aboutsomething that we'd done.
(17:21):
And I just said to him, oh,could you read me your diary
or could you let me have yourdiary for those few days when
we--
we were in Montana, I think.
And he said, no, hard no,definitely not, never.
And I've known himsince I was three.
So I like to think we don'thave too many secrets.
But no, he definitelywas not going to share.
(17:42):
So yeah, it was quitesoon after that I
started keeping my own diary.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:45):
He wasn't going to share the object or what
he wrote in it?
ROLAND ALLEN (17:48):
He wasn't going to share what he'd written.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:51):
Yeah, wow.
That makes me think of somethingabout the mixing of math
and shopping lists anddiary and all that.
It makes me edgy in aprivacy kind of way.
Like, if I have anotebook that has things
that are important for work,but then on another page,
it has some notes aftera therapy session,
(18:12):
I think I would feeltoo vulnerable to open
that in a meeting.
I wonder if there are somehard lines for you of what
goes into various notebooks.
ROLAND ALLEN (18:28):
There are.
Well, the firstone is that I tend
to write very-- when I'm writingmy diary, it's very small.
The handwriting is terrible,and it's not the sort of thing
where you couldlook over a shoulder
and discern what I've written.
Of course, youcould puzzle it out,
but you'd have to reallytry to read my diary.
So there's a certainlevel of security there.
If there's somethingreally intimate
(18:48):
and which I definitelydon't want anyone to read,
I will write it in Polishbut particularly bad Polish.
I'm not a native speaker.
So.
I like to think it's so badthat not even a Pole would
be able to read it orrecognize it as such.
But I don't actually takemy personal diary out
(19:10):
in a work context anymore.
I used to.
I used to mix up my notebooksto that extent, but I don't now.
I've separated those two out.
FRED RASCOE (19:18):
You are listening to "Lost in the Stacks,"
and we'll hear more about thenotebook age on the left side
of the hour.
Ian McKaye (19:31):
Hello, good people.
You are "Lost in the Stacks"With Ian McKaye here on WREK
in Atlanta.
CHARLIE BENNETT (19:53):
Today's show is called "The Notebook Age,"
and our guest is RolandAllen, who wrote a book about
notebooks-- who used them,what they did, and why.
I'd like to read to youan excerpt in which Roland
traces some of the thinkingthat led to the book.
I started keeping myown journal in 2002
(20:16):
and each year added toa steadily growing heap
of battered notebooks.
Writing a diary made me happier.
Keeping things to-do listsmade me more reliable,
which in turn madethose around me happier.
And I learned never to goto a doctor's appointment
or a meeting of any kind withouttaking notes of what I heard.
(20:37):
But there appeared to becreative benefits too.
Every artist I met seemed tohave a sketchbook to hand,
as did graphic designers andeven web designers, whose
product was entirely digital.
Authors all kept notebooks,as did journalists, critics,
and other creative types.
And the more assiduouslythey used those notebooks,
(20:58):
the better theirwork seemed to be.
The same applied tomy colleague's work.
Playful lists,diagrams, and sketches
regularly disgorgedsurprisingly good ideas.
How did this happen?
Was there a connection betweennotebooks and creativity?
What other parts did theyplay in culture and industry?
What could someone'snotebook tell us about them?
(21:20):
Why did keeping a diarybring happiness or at least
contentment?
Is it significantthat we keep a diary
as we keep an animal,a promise, or a secret?
Did the notebook's physicalconstraints paradoxically
make it more useful than anunlimited digital device?
(21:43):
And most fundamentally ofall, where had notebooks
actually come from?
Who had invented them?
ALEX MCGEE (21:52):
That was from The Notebook--
A History of Thinking OnPaper by Roland Allen.
FRED RASCOE (21:58):
And you can file this set under PR6065615b58.
[MUSIC PLAYING] (SINGING)Black, black coffee in bed
Coffee in bed
Black, black,black coffee in bed
(22:21):
Black coffee in bed.
You just heard "Black Coffee in Bed"
by Squeeze, a songabout a notebook.
MARLEE GIVENS (22:31):
And some other stuff.
FRED RASCOE (22:33):
Oh, yeah, you're right.
Let me do that again--
a song about a notebookwith a coffee stain.
ALEX MCGEE (22:42):
This is "Lost in the Stacks,"
and today's episodeis "The Notebook Age."
Our guest is Roland Allen,author of The Notebook--
A History of Thinking On Paper.
CHARLIE BENNETT (22:51):
So we've completely ignored the fact
that we're talking aboutpaper and notebooks
in the computer age.
How are you feeling aboutlaptops and computers
and the electronicnature of work
right now, after puttingso much thought into paper
and being paper-basedin so many ways?
ROLAND ALLEN (23:12):
I'm going to push back, actually.
You say quite casually,this is the computer age.
And just to becontrary, I'm going
to say no, this isthe notebook age.
We live in acapitalist environment.
And let's be honest.
And that capitalistenvironment is
entirely shaped by bookkeeping,accountancy, notions
of the company, notionsof profit and loss,
(23:34):
balance sheets, all of that.
And all of those arecompletely, completely tied up
with the use ofnotebooks in bookkeeping,
the practice of bookkeeping.
And we do that now virtually.
I guess we do it with Sage anddifferent computer programs.
But inasmuch as we arechildren of capitalism,
(23:56):
we're definitelyliving in a world
which is sculpted by thepotential of the notebook.
OK, now, that's justme being contrary.
I know what you mean.
We are definitely livingin a digital world.
Where do I see the notebookfitting in with that?
It's definitely goingto be more, I think,
where people go to expressthemselves because there
is a level of expressionand externalization
(24:21):
which you can't do on a screen,and you're tempted to do it.
You think that you can do it.
But then it turnsout to be different.
And they know now whyor many of the reasons
why this isdifferent, why people
don't fall in lovewith sketching
on an iPad in the same way asthey do with sketching in a pad,
for instance.
Some people do love it, Iknow, but most people don't.
(24:42):
Most artists don't.
Or why people don't keep diarieson their desktop computer,
but they stillwrite them by hand--
and it's to do with--
partly to do with thejoy of making something.
I compare this to drinkingyour coffee from a mug
that you've thrown yourself,which is a particularly,
(25:02):
I think, unique pleasure.
That's going to be a bettercup of coffee than one
you drink from a mug that yougot down the road at Walmart
or wherever youget your crockery.
So there's that.
There's the idea that makingsomething which you then
interact with is a good thingto do and more interesting
than just pixels on a screen.
Then there's theother thing, which
is whatever you doon a digital device,
(25:25):
the second you scroll awayfrom it, you close the window,
or you just scroll downthe page, it vanishes.
And they now knowthat it vanishes
in a really deep way to usbecause the geographical part
of our mind likes tothink about notebooks
as places as well as things.
So you write somethingdown in a notebook,
and it gets filed in yourmental map, the same thing which
(25:47):
takes you to workor to the store
or whatever reliably anddoesn't get you lost.
But if that happens, ifyou're saving information
on a computer, it doesn'tgo into that mental map
because the computer is just abox, and your phone or your iPad
are just boxes.
And so whatever it isyou've written there,
(26:07):
you lose that littleextra association with it,
that little extralocation which,
in the bottom of your brain inthe hippocampus, will help you
find it again.
So those are tworeasons why, I think,
there will always be a placefor note taking and note
keeping on paper.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:26):
That description of spatially placing
the information, Ihave felt so frustrated
with the movement incontemporary personal computing
to have everythingin one big bucket.
And I'm even using a materialmetaphor, but everything in one
place and use search functions.
(26:47):
I used to love and benefit fromcreating folders and folder
hierarchies thatkind of laid out
how I was thinkingabout the work
that I was saving digitally.
But then that makes methink there's also, then,
the everything in onenotebook kind of style.
And I think that's maybewhy at the beginning,
(27:08):
I was saying, where's the line?
Because I wantthere to be a line.
I want to separate some kindsof information from each other.
I actually have-- andthis is your fault.
I have five notebooks going now.
ROLAND ALLEN (27:21):
That's good, and that's nothing.
It's fine.
You have room to grow.
CHARLIE BENNETT (27:26):
OK, tell me.
How many have you got going?
ROLAND ALLEN (27:29):
OK, I can see most of them from here.
So I've got, at themoment in my process,
where I'm at is I'mcurrently writing
a chapter of a book which I havealready taken all the notes for.
So I am referringto one notebook
where I have all of thebook notes for that chapter.
I'm referring toone where I have
the plan for thatchapter, the scheme,
(27:51):
and other parts of the book.
I guess, two orthree other notebooks
are being pulled out becausethey've got random fragments in.
So that makes four or five.
I've got my regulardiary, which makes six.
I've got a work notebook,which makes seven.
And then I've got two orthree little notebooks,
which I use for preparingthings like this,
(28:14):
although I haven't made anynotes for this conversation
because your questionslooked so fun.
When I need to do abit of public speaking,
I keep the notes in alittle pocket notebook
so I can just slipit out and speak.
And so that makes what, abouteight or nine, I'm going to say.
I'm sure I've forgotten one.
My record-- not my record,but the record note taker
(28:36):
I discovered inmy investigations
was Sir Francis Bacon, theElizabethan Jacobian English
thinker and politician.
He counted up once 28 inuse, not counting the one
he was actually writing in.
So that makes 29.
And he had a job, apurpose for all of them,
(28:57):
and I take my hat off to him.
I'd love to have 29notebooks on the go.
So five, you're doingwell, but you have room.
CHARLIE BENNETT (29:03):
Yeah, I could do better.
Well, we're almostout of time, and I
don't want to just ignoretotally the book that you wrote.
You kind of started to talkabout the things you thought
about in there when youtalked about ledgers
and the sort of capitalismcreating notebook culture.
Can you think of what isright now your favorite story
(29:27):
or profile from your bookand summarize it for us?
ROLAND ALLEN (29:33):
I guess the story, which
I came upon quite early inwriting the book, which turned
out to be one ofthe chapters anyway,
which people love in thebook, is patient diaries.
And I was writing or I startedwriting the book during COVID.
It was lockdown.
There were, however,people who had recovered
(29:53):
from COVID who were out andabout in the world who had
been in intensive care units.
And through their stories, Icame across the patient diary.
And the patientdiary is incredible.
It turns out that when youare in a coma, effectively,
in an ICU, if you're sufferingfrom anything but COVID,
(30:14):
for instance, in intensivecare, your brain under all
of those drugs can begoing absolutely mental,
and you lose all track of time.
You might behallucinating like crazy.
You may find it when youcome round from that coma,
very, very difficult toget a handle on your life,
and you've lost a lot of time.
It could be weeks of yourlife when you're under.
(30:37):
Patient diariesnurses keep them.
They keep the diary foryou while you're under.
So they say you moved.
We washed you.
We cared for you.
We changed your pipes.
We gave you a bed bath.
We changed your pajamas.
Your grandmother came tovisit, any of this stuff.
They write a diary for you.
So when you comearound, it's all there.
(30:57):
So you might have beenunder for two weeks,
and there is a diaryof what happens to you
for those two weeks.
And it is impossibleto overstate
how much people treasure those.
They love them, and they involvethe carers with their patients.
They involve the familywhen they come to visit,
and they tend to use them inthe cheapest possible little
(31:18):
notebooks, $0.50 notebookswith any kind of Biro,
which is to hand theylook incredibly scrappy.
So they cost nothingand they really,
really help people get overthese traumatic experiences.
And it turns out that outside ofintensive care units, no one's
heard of these things.
And so that was a greatstory to be able to tell,
(31:38):
this really ingenious newuse of a notebook which
no one had heard aboutand turned out to be,
I think, really moving.
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:47):
Roland, thanks so much for your time today.
ROLAND ALLEN (31:50):
Thank you.
It's been a real pleasure.
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:52):
This is "Lost in the Stacks,"
and today's show was"The Notebook Age."
Our guest was Roland Allen,author of The Notebook--
A History of ThinkingOn Paper, out now
from profile booksand Biblioasis.
MARLEE GIVENS (32:07):
File this set under C947.L67.
That was "memory Lane" byEddy Current Suppression Ring
(32:32):
and, before that, "Can YouGet To That" by Funkadelic,
songs about memories that maybearen't what they're supposed
to be.
CHARLIE BENNETT (32:48):
Today's episode is called "The Notebook Age."
We spoke to Roland Allen,author of The Notebook--
A History of ThinkingOn Paper, all
about how peoplehave used notebooks
for memory, organization,and identity, not
to mention capitalism,advocacy, and history.
So what is one way you areusing notebooks right now?
After reading Roland's book,I started a work diary,
(33:11):
a marble cover compositionnotebook with daily to-do lists
and notes on work each day.
How about you, Fred?
FRED RASCOE (33:18):
My daily work and to do lists
are generally on myonline Outlook calendar,
but I do have a notebookthat I'm currently keeping.
I just decided, forreasons I don't know,
to keep a notebook ofthe different albums
that I listened to on Spotify.
Sometimes I justlisten to random songs,
(33:39):
but I like to listen to atleast one or two albums a day.
And I've just beenkeeping track of that.
I don't know why or whatI'm going to do with it,
but it's in a paper notebook.
MARLEE GIVENS (33:49):
I too have a work notebook.
I actually have two of them.
One of them is a weeklyplanner, and I actually
go in and write downeverything that's
also on my Outlookcalendar because I also
need those electronicreminders and a small
to do list for the week.
Then I have the notebook where Iactually take notes in meetings,
(34:11):
and that is where I keepmy monthly to-do list.
And I use post-its to bookmarkwhere the monthly to do-lists
live so I can go backand refer to them.
But I started thishabit, I guess,
during the pandemicwhen I was at home,
and it made me happy tohave some fancy stationery
to do all this in.
(34:32):
And I used to actuallyhave a separate daily
to do list that I wouldtear off a piece of paper
from a pad that was formattedfor a daily to-do list,
and, and that was just fun.
And I don't know why I don'tdo that anymore, but I don't.
What about you, Alex?
ALEX MCGEE (34:47):
So I guess mine's going to be a different flavor
than y'all's.
So I have something I gotfrom this company called Kept,
and it is a specific notebookthat has a title "Childhood
history," and it isfor my son, Teddy.
Spoiler, I had a babylast year, and it
is supposed to be 0 months to18 years of documenting moments,
(35:12):
memories, thoughts abouthim as he evolves and grows.
And there's differentfun prompts of, like,
favorite recent trip orthings you like right now,
things you don't like right now.
And so that isprobably the thing
I turn to the most thatwould be considered
a notebook of some sort.
CHARLIE BENNETT (35:30):
I love that.
That's like a patient notebookbut for a baby who's not yet
putting the memories together.
ALEX MCGEE (35:36):
Yeah.
Eventually, I thinkhe'll help me.
So--
CHARLIE BENNETT (35:39):
I love those answers.
Let's roll the credits
ALEX MCGEE (35:53):
"Lost in the Stacks" is a collaboration between WREK
Atlanta and the Georgia TechLibrary Written and produced
by Alex McGee, Charlie Bennett,Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
CHARLIE BENNETT (36:05):
Legal counsel and creative,
what else, legal-sizednotebooks were provided
by the Burrus IntellectualProperty Law Group
in Atlanta, Georgia.
MARLEE GIVENS (36:14):
Special thanks to Roland
for being on the show, tothe makers of notebooks that
are big, small, cheap,expensive, trendy, classic, and
even trashy, andthanks, as always,
to each and every oneof you for listening.
ALEX MCGEE (36:28):
Our web page is library.gatech.e
du/lostinthestacks, where you'llfind our most recent episode,
a link to our podcastfeed, and a web form
if you want to getin touch with us.
MARLEE GIVENS (36:38):
On next week's show,
we learn about whathappens when DOGE shows up
at the office of anindependent federal agency.
FRED RASCOE: Doesn't sound great. (36:46):
undefined
Time for our last song today.
To finish the episode,we need a song
that really sums upthe notebook age,
writing out our thoughts togive us room to play with them,
offloading memories togive them stability,
creating sanctuariesfor our experiences
so we can share them,and a little bit
of whimsicalappreciation for it all.
(37:08):
So here it is--
"I Can't Remember the Dream"by They Might be Giants.
Have a great weekendeveryone, and remember,
you can write it out andunderline the highlights.
ROLAND ALLEN (00:06):
We live in a capitalist environment,
and that capitalistenvironment is
entirely shaped by bookkeeping,accountancy, notions
of the company, notionsof profit and loss,
balance sheets, all of that.
And all of those arecompletely tied up
(00:28):
with the use of notebooks.
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:50):
You are listening to WREK Atlanta,
and this is "Lostin the Stacks,"
the research libraryrock and roll radio show.
I'm Charlie Bennett in thevirtual studio with Fred Rascoe,
Marlee Givens, and Alex McGee.
Each week on "Lostin the Stacks,"
we pick a theme and then useit to create a mix of music
and library talk.
Whichever you're herefor, we hope you dig it.
ALEX MCGEE (01:12):
Today's episode is called "The Notebook Age."
As you heard in thecold open, the notebook
is a technology that wasessential to the creation
of the modern capitalist world.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And despite that, I (01:21):
undefined
am a big fan of notebooks.
MARLEE GIVENS (01:24):
Roland Allen, our guest today,
is also a fan of notebooks.
He wrote a pop history bookentitled The Notebook--
A History of ThinkingOn Paper, which
was published in late 2023.
Through a varietyof notebook stories,
from Italian businessledgers in the Renaissance
to modern bulletjournals, Allen explored
the way we use paperto think and remember
(01:45):
outside of our head.
ALEX MCGEE (01:47):
We spoke with Roland about thinking on paper,
using notebooks, and why wemight call our current era
the Notebook Age.
FRED RASCOE (01:54):
In our conversation, the idea of memory
kept popping up.
So our songs today are aboutmemories, memories in notebooks,
memories of other people,and memories that we just
can't keep in our minds.
Let's start with a song aboutjust how powerful memory can be
and why maybe you shouldoffload it into a notebook.
This is "Memories Can't Wait"by talking heads right here
(02:16):
on "Lost in the Stacks."
CHARLIE BENNETT (02:28):
That was "Memories Can't Wait"
by Talking Heads.
Our show today is called"The Notebook Age."
Our guest is Roland Allen,the author of The Notebook--
A History of Thinking OnPaper, published in 2023
by Profile Books andin 2024 by Biblioasis.
That's UK andCanada, respectively.
FRED RASCOE (02:49):
We started by asking,
what does the phrase thinkingon paper mean to you?
ROLAND ALLEN (02:55):
Well, it's meant different things over time,
but I guess what it meansfor me now is any process--
and by that, I mean writing butalso drawing or writing down
numbers or phone numbers orlittle sums or shopping lists,
anything like that--
when you're takingit out of your head
and putting it onpaper and ultimately
when you're committingsomething which
(03:17):
you want to remember to paper.
But that can be anykind of shape of mark.
I don't restrict it to writing.
And then once it'sdown on paper and you
don't have to holdit in your mind,
you don't have to be rememberingit, then you can play with it.
And it's that playful nature ofthinking on paper which I really
enjoy, I think, and Ithink a lot of people
do whether or not theyrealize that they're doing it.
(03:40):
So when they're doodlingor listing or diary
writing or whatever,I think that all
comes under the broadheading of thinking on paper.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Do you separate out (03:48):
undefined
the mathematicalstuff from language
when you think aboutthinking on paper?
You included itin the definition,
but are those twodifferent things?
ROLAND ALLEN (03:59):
No, not really.
I think you're dealing with thesame fundamental problem, which
is that you're much worseat remembering stuff
than you think you are.
Like, you're really badat remembering stuff,
and I don't-- please don'ttake that personally.
I'm not talking to youpersonally, but we just all are.
So if I shout a phonenumber to you right now,
you will forget it in tens.
And if I shout out myshopping list to you,
(04:20):
three items you'llremember, four at a stretch
maybe if they'reparticularly conspicuous.
But five or six, you'regoing to forget one.
So ultimately, whateverit is to write down
whatever it is to rememberto hold in your mind
so that you can manipulateit or play with it
or just recall it accurately,getting it down on paper
(04:41):
is the process.
So the same thing appliesto numbers or words.
So yeah, so in my work life,I do a lot of calculations,
if you like-- you know,profit and loss type.
And it's that kind ofscratch pad calculation which
you have to do on the hoofall the time in business
of any kind.
Can we afford to do this?
Is this going to be a good idea?
(05:02):
And those, of course, getmixed up with diary notes
or with my day to day orwith the shopping list
or with whatever thingsto-do list I've got planned.
So yeah.
So everything goes onto thesame kind of page, I would say.
CHARLIE BENNETT (05:15):
And you said it's changed, your idea of it.
Were you always in thatkind of messy everything
together attitude,or did you not
respect thinking on paperas much as you do now?
ROLAND ALLEN (05:27):
Oh, I definitely didn't.
I did not understand.
I did not have a clue,really, about how versatile
and how useful it could be.
I suppose-- I mean,obviously I was
interested in notebooks when Istarted researching the book.
And obviously, I hadhalf an idea of that.
It was going to be aninteresting subject.
(05:49):
Otherwise, I wouldn'thave looked at it.
And I'd been workingin a creative industry
not doing a particularlycreative job
because I'm a sales guy.
But I'd been workingin book publishing
for quite a long time.
So I'd seen a lot of people withsketchbooks and design notebooks
and quite interesting notebooks.
But I'd never reallyhad one myself.
And then when I startedresearching the book
(06:11):
and found out howpeople used them
and how they worked in practice,then it just-- a switch clicked.
And then I really wantedto start doing it myself.
So in the process ofwriting this book,
I went from usingone or two notebooks
at once and justwriting everything down
in the order I came across tobeing quite analytical about it
(06:34):
and being quite focusedabout it and saying,
right, I'm going to start anew notebook for this chapter,
and I will be listing things,and I will stick a map in,
and I will do a timelineand a spider diagram
and then a word cloud andall of these things, which
were little tips and techniqueswhich I'd picked up on the way
and which turnedout to be, I think,
really useful or veryuseful for me, anyway.
(06:55):
So yeah, it did changeas I was looking into it.
CHARLIE BENNETT (06:59):
I played a little bit
with sketching into mynotebooks after I read the book.
I've never been aperson who drew,
and I never used sketchesreally to think things out,
but it was a veryenticing description
you had of a notebook with otherstuff in it, with drawings.
And so I did one page, and Ihaven't done another one since.
(07:21):
Were there parts of thethings you read about
that you tried, but kind ofyour thought patterns resisted?
ROLAND ALLEN (07:30):
Yeah, I've been a big doodler.
But what I always doodleis letters and word shapes.
So I doodle, like, a niceserif alphabet or something
when I'm stuck in a meetingand I can't get out of it,
and that's a way of notdoodling anything accidentally
(07:50):
offensive in the meeting wherepeople can see it, just doodling
letterforms instead.
No, I'm not one ofthose notebookers
who can jump from sketchto sort of word notes.
And funnily enough, I justliterally half an hour
ago was reading the newsletterfrom Austin Kleon, who's
(08:11):
a writer we actuallyfeature in the book,
or we use one of his pictures.
He's a great graphic designer.
He's, I think, based in Texas.
And he does that.
So every page of hisnotebook is always
covered with sketches andlittle diagrams and drawings.
I can't really do it,but it doesn't matter.
I mean, everyonehas their own style,
I think, when they get into it.
FRED RASCOE (08:33):
As we're interviewing here,
I am writing things down.
We talk about thetools that we're using.
I'm not using a notebook.
I'm using a little Post-Itpad because you're right.
My memory is terrible, and Ijust jot down little things
that you say that might sparka spark a question later.
And so in the process of youthinking about thinking on paper
(08:58):
and writing about it, howdo the different tools
that you use to write affecthow you're actually thinking?
I know I use Post-Itnotes, but I haven't really
delved into why I'm usinga Post-It note for this
rather than a notebookor something like that.
ROLAND ALLEN (09:13):
I've got lots of little rituals
now for different kindsof writing, and my wife,
I recently had a birthday,and my wife gave me
a really nice pen which iskind of a slight novelty, which
is brass.
So it's very heavyand permanent feeling,
but then you can changethe different tips on it.
And so I've set it up as a felttip pen, which is ridiculous
because it's like this obviouslyquite expensive, precious brass
(09:36):
thing, and I've set it up as thecheapest, nastiest kind of pen
that there is.
But I'm going to use that fora particular of note taking,
I'd said to her.
This is going to be big, boldideas scratched across the page.
When I'm revising a manuscript,which I'm doing at the moment,
it's always pencil.
When I'm makingnotes from sources,
(09:59):
when I'm sort of writingnotes from a book,
then I try and mixup colors on the page
so they'll have blue and blackand red all on the same page.
But then when I'mwriting my diary,
I'm absolutely particularabout it's black.
It has to be black, andI get quite upset if I
have to leave black behind.
So yeah, I mean, definitely.
And these in a way, then,become little triggers.
(10:22):
So when I'm doing a timeline,I like it to be lovely
and multi-colored,and that helps it--
makes it easier for me tonavigate it when I come back
to revisit it, for instance.
So yeah, there isdefinitely an instrument
for each moment inthe noting life.
FRED RASCOE (10:39):
Maybe I'm looking for analysis
of why I'm using a Post-Itnote rather than a notebook
and what it says about me.
ROLAND ALLEN (10:46):
I love Post-It notes, actually, and what I like
is the way you canmake a list which
rolls over from day to day.
So, I mean, just thismorning, I was doing exactly
that because I've got a list ofquite substantial tasks to do.
I'm not going to dothem all in one day.
So I've pasted it down ontoday's page in my diary
and crossed a couple off,move it over a couple of days,
without having to destroypages of diary with one
(11:09):
fairly simple list.
MARLEE GIVENS (11:11):
This is "Lost in the Stacks,"
and we'll be back withmore from Roland Allen,
author of The Notebook--
A history of Thinking OnPaper after a music set.
ALEX MCGEE (11:21):
File this set under BF575.S37 no dot W334.
[THE ZOMBIES, "REMEMBER YOU"]
(SINGING) I rememberyour face when I think--
[MORPHINE, "THE WAY WE MET"]
[VOCALIZING]
MARLEE GIVENS (11:47):
That was "The Way We Met"
by Morphine and, before that,"Remember You" by The Zombies,
songs about memoriesof your partner.
This is Lost in the Stacks,and today's show is called
"The Notebook age."
Our guest is RolandAllen, author of the book
The Notebook--
A History of Thinking On Paper.
CHARLIE BENNETT (12:08):
So you mentioned diary,
and I think that means differentthings to different people.
You have now dealt with a lot ofvery specific kind of notebooks
and practices and definitions.
So how do you define diary now?
ROLAND ALLEN (12:24):
I try not to.
The big distinction, and peoplehave very strong opinions
about this, is whenis a diary a journal
or when is a journal a diary.
And I personallythink that there
isn't a meaningfuldifference or it's
impossible to carve one out.
If you're writingabout things which
are happening to youin the recent past
and you're involvedin them, then it's
(12:47):
either a diary or ajournal, and I don't
see a particular difference.
I think that the keything with either of them
is that you have to bewritten into the story.
If you're just writingabout the news--
and lots of peopledid this in history.
The Italian towns, for instance,would pay someone typically
to keep a daily chronicle ofevents in Venice or Florence
(13:08):
or whatever.
Then that's great.
But I think that'sa sort of chronicle.
That's a different thing.
You have to writeyourself into the story,
and that's when it becomesa diary or a journal.
It becomes what Isaw, what I thought,
felt about something,what it means for me.
It doesn't have to be terriblyintrospective or analytical,
(13:28):
but it just has to be.
I was there.
I saw this.
I'm part of it.
And then it becomes, I think,a really interesting kind
of document.
They call them egodocuments, the scholars.
And I find it fascinating.
This is a big questionfor me that these things
come up very late in history.
We've been writing stuffdown for thousands of years.
(13:50):
We've had kindsof notebook, kinds
of ways of keeping a diaryfor a very, very long time.
And we only started doingit 400 or 500 years ago,
and no one seems to have areally good answer for why
that is.
I think a diary isa journal is a diary
is a journal so long as you'rewritten into it yourself.
And then it can be any shape.
(14:11):
It can be five words a day.
I love those littlefive lines a day
diaries which runfor years and years.
Or it could be likemy current one, which
is hundreds of words every day.
Or you could be like one ofthese epic Victorian journal
keepers who just wrotemillions of words.
CHARLIE BENNETT (14:27):
They had a lot more time on their hands than--
ROLAND ALLEN (14:29):
They didn't have TV.
Yeah, or the internetor any of that.
So their lives were different.
So yeah, so I tried to avoiddefining it wherever I can.
MARLEE GIVENS (14:39):
Are these diaries things that you return to?
Do you have a regularpractice of going back
to refresh yourself?
ROLAND ALLEN (14:48):
I have done, yeah.
So sometimes, justto amuse myself,
I will say, what was Idoing 10 years ago today?
What was I doing on April 14?
And it's interesting becausethe entry is normally
pretty minimal.
And obviously, mostdays are pretty similar.
You go to work.
You look after thekids, et cetera.
(15:09):
And so you don't necessarilyget all of it back,
but they nearlyalways prod a memory,
some kind of specific memory.
And you will remember ameal or a conversation
or an argument orsomething that happens.
The other time, it has happenedrecently, was my daughter.
(15:30):
So I've got twokids, and there's
a big gap between them,an eight year gap.
And my daughter,who's now 21, and I
were reminiscing about thearrival of her younger brother.
And she couldn'tremember how she
had felt when sheheard that she was
going to get a younger brother,which she really, really longed
for.
And I was able to go back20 odd years to my diary
(15:53):
and find out exactly how itwas that she learned about it
and exactly how we toldher and all this stuff.
And it was really,actually, incredibly moving,
because these had beenlovely moments in our lives
which had beencompletely forgotten.
So that was amazing and, Ithink for her, quite moving.
So yeah, so there is a kindof recreational aspect to it.
But then just occasionally, yougo back and look at something
(16:15):
important.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:16):
Have you ever read the book
Budding Prospects by TC Boyle?
ROLAND ALLEN (16:21):
I have not, but I'd love to read TC Boyle.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:23):
Yeah, that's a good start.
It's about marijuana.
But one of the bits in thebook that he returns to is he's
got a friend who has writtenalmost compulsive diaries of all
their time together, andhe'll call up this friend
and say, just readsome of it to me.
And his friend will readthese detailed memories to him
(16:46):
and soothe him and settle him.
And it's quite beautiful.
And I won't spoilthe rest of that ,
but it's a strikingbook for many reasons,
and that one is whatjust made me think of it.
ROLAND ALLEN (16:59):
That's very relatable.
Before I startedkeeping a diary, when--
I had lots of fun times,obviously, as a young man,
but one of the most fun wasgoing on a very long trip around
the world with my best friend,and he kept a diary of that,
and I didn't.
And then a few yearslater, I was just--
I'm curious aboutsomething that we'd done.
(17:21):
And I just said to him, oh,could you read me your diary
or could you let me have yourdiary for those few days when
we--
we were in Montana, I think.
And he said, no, hard no,definitely not, never.
And I've known himsince I was three.
So I like to think we don'thave too many secrets.
But no, he definitelywas not going to share.
(17:42):
So yeah, it was quitesoon after that I
started keeping my own diary.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:45):
He wasn't going to share the object or what
he wrote in it?
ROLAND ALLEN (17:48):
He wasn't going to share what he'd written.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:51):
Yeah, wow.
That makes me think of somethingabout the mixing of math
and shopping lists anddiary and all that.
It makes me edgy in aprivacy kind of way.
Like, if I have anotebook that has things
that are important for work,but then on another page,
it has some notes aftera therapy session,
(18:12):
I think I would feeltoo vulnerable to open
that in a meeting.
I wonder if there are somehard lines for you of what
goes into various notebooks.
ROLAND ALLEN (18:28):
There are.
Well, the firstone is that I tend
to write very-- when I'm writingmy diary, it's very small.
The handwriting is terrible,and it's not the sort of thing
where you couldlook over a shoulder
and discern what I've written.
Of course, youcould puzzle it out,
but you'd have to reallytry to read my diary.
So there's a certainlevel of security there.
If there's somethingreally intimate
(18:48):
and which I definitelydon't want anyone to read,
I will write it in Polishbut particularly bad Polish.
I'm not a native speaker.
So.
I like to think it's so badthat not even a Pole would
be able to read it orrecognize it as such.
But I don't actually takemy personal diary out
(19:10):
in a work context anymore.
I used to.
I used to mix up my notebooksto that extent, but I don't now.
I've separated those two out.
FRED RASCOE (19:18):
You are listening to "Lost in the Stacks,"
and we'll hear more about thenotebook age on the left side
of the hour.
Ian McKaye (19:31):
Hello, good people.
You are "Lost in the Stacks"With Ian McKaye here on WREK
in Atlanta.
CHARLIE BENNETT (19:53):
Today's show is called "The Notebook Age,"
and our guest is RolandAllen, who wrote a book about
notebooks-- who used them,what they did, and why.
I'd like to read to youan excerpt in which Roland
traces some of the thinkingthat led to the book.
I started keeping myown journal in 2002
(20:16):
and each year added toa steadily growing heap
of battered notebooks.
Writing a diary made me happier.
Keeping things to-do listsmade me more reliable,
which in turn madethose around me happier.
And I learned never to goto a doctor's appointment
or a meeting of any kind withouttaking notes of what I heard.
(20:37):
But there appeared to becreative benefits too.
Every artist I met seemed tohave a sketchbook to hand,
as did graphic designers andeven web designers, whose
product was entirely digital.
Authors all kept notebooks,as did journalists, critics,
and other creative types.
And the more assiduouslythey used those notebooks,
(20:58):
the better theirwork seemed to be.
The same applied tomy colleague's work.
Playful lists,diagrams, and sketches
regularly disgorgedsurprisingly good ideas.
How did this happen?
Was there a connection betweennotebooks and creativity?
What other parts did theyplay in culture and industry?
What could someone'snotebook tell us about them?
(21:20):
Why did keeping a diarybring happiness or at least
contentment?
Is it significantthat we keep a diary
as we keep an animal,a promise, or a secret?
Did the notebook's physicalconstraints paradoxically
make it more useful than anunlimited digital device?
(21:43):
And most fundamentally ofall, where had notebooks
actually come from?
Who had invented them?
ALEX MCGEE (21:52):
That was from The Notebook--
A History of Thinking OnPaper by Roland Allen.
FRED RASCOE (21:58):
And you can file this set under PR6065615b58.
[MUSIC PLAYING] (SINGING)Black, black coffee in bed
Coffee in bed
Black, black,black coffee in bed
(22:21):
Black coffee in bed.
You just heard "Black Coffee in Bed"
by Squeeze, a songabout a notebook.
MARLEE GIVENS (22:31):
And some other stuff.
FRED RASCOE (22:33):
Oh, yeah, you're right.
Let me do that again--
a song about a notebookwith a coffee stain.
ALEX MCGEE (22:42):
This is "Lost in the Stacks,"
and today's episodeis "The Notebook Age."
Our guest is Roland Allen,author of The Notebook--
A History of Thinking On Paper.
CHARLIE BENNETT (22:51):
So we've completely ignored the fact
that we're talking aboutpaper and notebooks
in the computer age.
How are you feeling aboutlaptops and computers
and the electronicnature of work
right now, after puttingso much thought into paper
and being paper-basedin so many ways?
ROLAND ALLEN (23:12):
I'm going to push back, actually.
You say quite casually,this is the computer age.
And just to becontrary, I'm going
to say no, this isthe notebook age.
We live in acapitalist environment.
And let's be honest.
And that capitalistenvironment is
entirely shaped by bookkeeping,accountancy, notions
of the company, notionsof profit and loss,
(23:34):
balance sheets, all of that.
And all of those arecompletely, completely tied up
with the use ofnotebooks in bookkeeping,
the practice of bookkeeping.
And we do that now virtually.
I guess we do it with Sage anddifferent computer programs.
But inasmuch as we arechildren of capitalism,
(23:56):
we're definitelyliving in a world
which is sculpted by thepotential of the notebook.
OK, now, that's justme being contrary.
I know what you mean.
We are definitely livingin a digital world.
Where do I see the notebookfitting in with that?
It's definitely goingto be more, I think,
where people go to expressthemselves because there
is a level of expressionand externalization
(24:21):
which you can't do on a screen,and you're tempted to do it.
You think that you can do it.
But then it turnsout to be different.
And they know now whyor many of the reasons
why this isdifferent, why people
don't fall in lovewith sketching
on an iPad in the same way asthey do with sketching in a pad,
for instance.
Some people do love it, Iknow, but most people don't.
(24:42):
Most artists don't.
Or why people don't keep diarieson their desktop computer,
but they stillwrite them by hand--
and it's to do with--
partly to do with thejoy of making something.
I compare this to drinkingyour coffee from a mug
that you've thrown yourself,which is a particularly,
(25:02):
I think, unique pleasure.
That's going to be a bettercup of coffee than one
you drink from a mug that yougot down the road at Walmart
or wherever youget your crockery.
So there's that.
There's the idea that makingsomething which you then
interact with is a good thingto do and more interesting
than just pixels on a screen.
Then there's theother thing, which
is whatever you doon a digital device,
(25:25):
the second you scroll awayfrom it, you close the window,
or you just scroll downthe page, it vanishes.
And they now knowthat it vanishes
in a really deep way to usbecause the geographical part
of our mind likes tothink about notebooks
as places as well as things.
So you write somethingdown in a notebook,
and it gets filed in yourmental map, the same thing which
(25:47):
takes you to workor to the store
or whatever reliably anddoesn't get you lost.
But if that happens, ifyou're saving information
on a computer, it doesn'tgo into that mental map
because the computer is just abox, and your phone or your iPad
are just boxes.
And so whatever it isyou've written there,
(26:07):
you lose that littleextra association with it,
that little extralocation which,
in the bottom of your brain inthe hippocampus, will help you
find it again.
So those are tworeasons why, I think,
there will always be a placefor note taking and note
keeping on paper.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:26):
That description of spatially placing
the information, Ihave felt so frustrated
with the movement incontemporary personal computing
to have everythingin one big bucket.
And I'm even using a materialmetaphor, but everything in one
place and use search functions.
(26:47):
I used to love and benefit fromcreating folders and folder
hierarchies thatkind of laid out
how I was thinkingabout the work
that I was saving digitally.
But then that makes methink there's also, then,
the everything in onenotebook kind of style.
And I think that's maybewhy at the beginning,
(27:08):
I was saying, where's the line?
Because I wantthere to be a line.
I want to separate some kindsof information from each other.
I actually have-- andthis is your fault.
I have five notebooks going now.
ROLAND ALLEN (27:21):
That's good, and that's nothing.
It's fine.
You have room to grow.
CHARLIE BENNETT (27:26):
OK, tell me.
How many have you got going?
ROLAND ALLEN (27:29):
OK, I can see most of them from here.
So I've got, at themoment in my process,
where I'm at is I'mcurrently writing
a chapter of a book which I havealready taken all the notes for.
So I am referringto one notebook
where I have all of thebook notes for that chapter.
I'm referring toone where I have
the plan for thatchapter, the scheme,
(27:51):
and other parts of the book.
I guess, two orthree other notebooks
are being pulled out becausethey've got random fragments in.
So that makes four or five.
I've got my regulardiary, which makes six.
I've got a work notebook,which makes seven.
And then I've got two orthree little notebooks,
which I use for preparingthings like this,
(28:14):
although I haven't made anynotes for this conversation
because your questionslooked so fun.
When I need to do abit of public speaking,
I keep the notes in alittle pocket notebook
so I can just slipit out and speak.
And so that makes what, abouteight or nine, I'm going to say.
I'm sure I've forgotten one.
My record-- not my record,but the record note taker
(28:36):
I discovered inmy investigations
was Sir Francis Bacon, theElizabethan Jacobian English
thinker and politician.
He counted up once 28 inuse, not counting the one
he was actually writing in.
So that makes 29.
And he had a job, apurpose for all of them,
(28:57):
and I take my hat off to him.
I'd love to have 29notebooks on the go.
So five, you're doingwell, but you have room.
CHARLIE BENNETT (29:03):
Yeah, I could do better.
Well, we're almostout of time, and I
don't want to just ignoretotally the book that you wrote.
You kind of started to talkabout the things you thought
about in there when youtalked about ledgers
and the sort of capitalismcreating notebook culture.
Can you think of what isright now your favorite story
(29:27):
or profile from your bookand summarize it for us?
ROLAND ALLEN (29:33):
I guess the story, which
I came upon quite early inwriting the book, which turned
out to be one ofthe chapters anyway,
which people love in thebook, is patient diaries.
And I was writing or I startedwriting the book during COVID.
It was lockdown.
There were, however,people who had recovered
(29:53):
from COVID who were out andabout in the world who had
been in intensive care units.
And through their stories, Icame across the patient diary.
And the patientdiary is incredible.
It turns out that when youare in a coma, effectively,
in an ICU, if you're sufferingfrom anything but COVID,
(30:14):
for instance, in intensivecare, your brain under all
of those drugs can begoing absolutely mental,
and you lose all track of time.
You might behallucinating like crazy.
You may find it when youcome round from that coma,
very, very difficult toget a handle on your life,
and you've lost a lot of time.
It could be weeks of yourlife when you're under.
(30:37):
Patient diariesnurses keep them.
They keep the diary foryou while you're under.
So they say you moved.
We washed you.
We cared for you.
We changed your pipes.
We gave you a bed bath.
We changed your pajamas.
Your grandmother came tovisit, any of this stuff.
They write a diary for you.
So when you comearound, it's all there.
(30:57):
So you might have beenunder for two weeks,
and there is a diaryof what happens to you
for those two weeks.
And it is impossibleto overstate
how much people treasure those.
They love them, and they involvethe carers with their patients.
They involve the familywhen they come to visit,
and they tend to use them inthe cheapest possible little
(31:18):
notebooks, $0.50 notebookswith any kind of Biro,
which is to hand theylook incredibly scrappy.
So they cost nothingand they really,
really help people get overthese traumatic experiences.
And it turns out that outside ofintensive care units, no one's
heard of these things.
And so that was a greatstory to be able to tell,
(31:38):
this really ingenious newuse of a notebook which
no one had heard aboutand turned out to be,
I think, really moving.
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:47):
Roland, thanks so much for your time today.
ROLAND ALLEN (31:50):
Thank you.
It's been a real pleasure.
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:52):
This is "Lost in the Stacks,"
and today's show was"The Notebook Age."
Our guest was Roland Allen,author of The Notebook--
A History of ThinkingOn Paper, out now
from profile booksand Biblioasis.
MARLEE GIVENS (32:07):
File this set under C947.L67.
That was "memory Lane" byEddy Current Suppression Ring
(32:32):
and, before that, "Can YouGet To That" by Funkadelic,
songs about memories that maybearen't what they're supposed
to be.
CHARLIE BENNETT (32:48):
Today's episode is called "The Notebook Age."
We spoke to Roland Allen,author of The Notebook--
A History of ThinkingOn Paper, all
about how peoplehave used notebooks
for memory, organization,and identity, not
to mention capitalism,advocacy, and history.
So what is one way you areusing notebooks right now?
After reading Roland's book,I started a work diary,
(33:11):
a marble cover compositionnotebook with daily to-do lists
and notes on work each day.
How about you, Fred?
FRED RASCOE (33:18):
My daily work and to do lists
are generally on myonline Outlook calendar,
but I do have a notebookthat I'm currently keeping.
I just decided, forreasons I don't know,
to keep a notebook ofthe different albums
that I listened to on Spotify.
Sometimes I justlisten to random songs,
(33:39):
but I like to listen to atleast one or two albums a day.
And I've just beenkeeping track of that.
I don't know why or whatI'm going to do with it,
but it's in a paper notebook.
MARLEE GIVENS (33:49):
I too have a work notebook.
I actually have two of them.
One of them is a weeklyplanner, and I actually
go in and write downeverything that's
also on my Outlookcalendar because I also
need those electronicreminders and a small
to do list for the week.
Then I have the notebook where Iactually take notes in meetings,
(34:11):
and that is where I keepmy monthly to-do list.
And I use post-its to bookmarkwhere the monthly to do-lists
live so I can go backand refer to them.
But I started thishabit, I guess,
during the pandemicwhen I was at home,
and it made me happy tohave some fancy stationery
to do all this in.
(34:32):
And I used to actuallyhave a separate daily
to do list that I wouldtear off a piece of paper
from a pad that was formattedfor a daily to-do list,
and, and that was just fun.
And I don't know why I don'tdo that anymore, but I don't.
What about you, Alex?
ALEX MCGEE (34:47):
So I guess mine's going to be a different flavor
than y'all's.
So I have something I gotfrom this company called Kept,
and it is a specific notebookthat has a title "Childhood
history," and it isfor my son, Teddy.
Spoiler, I had a babylast year, and it
is supposed to be 0 months to18 years of documenting moments,
(35:12):
memories, thoughts abouthim as he evolves and grows.
And there's differentfun prompts of, like,
favorite recent trip orthings you like right now,
things you don't like right now.
And so that isprobably the thing
I turn to the most thatwould be considered
a notebook of some sort.
CHARLIE BENNETT (35:30):
I love that.
That's like a patient notebookbut for a baby who's not yet
putting the memories together.
ALEX MCGEE (35:36):
Yeah.
Eventually, I thinkhe'll help me.
So--
CHARLIE BENNETT (35:39):
I love those answers.
Let's roll the credits
ALEX MCGEE (35:53):
"Lost in the Stacks" is a collaboration between WREK
Atlanta and the Georgia TechLibrary Written and produced
by Alex McGee, Charlie Bennett,Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
CHARLIE BENNETT (36:05):
Legal counsel and creative,
what else, legal-sizednotebooks were provided
by the Burrus IntellectualProperty Law Group
in Atlanta, Georgia.
MARLEE GIVENS (36:14):
Special thanks to Roland
for being on the show, tothe makers of notebooks that
are big, small, cheap,expensive, trendy, classic, and
even trashy, andthanks, as always,
to each and every oneof you for listening.
ALEX MCGEE (36:28):
Our web page is library.gatech.e
du/lostinthestacks, where you'llfind our most recent episode,
a link to our podcastfeed, and a web form
if you want to getin touch with us.
MARLEE GIVENS (36:38):
On next week's show,
we learn about whathappens when DOGE shows up
at the office of anindependent federal agency.
FRED RASCOE: Doesn't sound great. (36:46):
undefined
Time for our last song today.
To finish the episode,we need a song
that really sums upthe notebook age,
writing out our thoughts togive us room to play with them,
offloading memories togive them stability,
creating sanctuariesfor our experiences
so we can share them,and a little bit
of whimsicalappreciation for it all.
(37:08):
So here it is--
"I Can't Remember the Dream"by They Might be Giants.
Have a great weekendeveryone, and remember,
you can write it out andunderline the highlights.
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