One of the clearest predecessors to the modern practice of knowledge management are “commonplace books” – centralized, personally curated, and continuously maintained collections of information from various sources that rose to popularity during the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution in Europe. These books helped educated people cope with the “information explosion” unleashed by the printing press and industrialization. They were highly idiosyncratic, personalized texts used to make sense of a new world of intercontinental trade, long-distance communication, and mass media. Commonplace books could contain recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas, notes from sermons, and remedies for common maladies, among many other things. Commonplacers would transcribe interesting or inspirational passages from their reading, assembling a personalized encyclopedia of quotations, ideas, anecdotes, observations and other information they came across. **The purpose of the book could range from personal recollection and reflection, to source material for writing, speaking, politics, or business. **
Commonplace books as physical artifacts, and how our digital notes will be left behind locked away behind passwords on hard drives.