This semester I’m getting to teach my Faith & Literature class.  I require my students to keep a commonplace book throughout the semester that includes significant quotes and reflections.  The last time the class ran, my students had to take the idea of a commonplace book “on faith.”  This time around, though, I had a solid essay by Alan Jacobs about the history of the concept and its mutation throughout recent history.  Consider:

It was in the sixteenth century, especially in England, that the practice of such recording became widespread and recommended by the learned to all thoughtful and literate persons. This happened for two reasons. First, in that time paper became more widely available and considerably cheaper than it had been”developments prompted by the invention of the printing press but that benefited the private scribbler as well. And the printing press had another consequence: By making it so much faster and easier to disseminate texts of every kind” from Bibles (and commentaries thereon) to ghost stories, breathless accounts of notorious murders, and scurrilous poems on leading politicians”the world of print created a panic, the kind of panic distinctive to people who feel swamped by information.

Jacobs draws a line from commonplace books to journals to blogs and often revisits the idea of “information overload” and the need to keep record of “the most important things.”  Sometimes its quote with commentary; often it’s the quote alone.  Either way, the essay is a quality read and a worthy endeavor for all of us.  You can read it here.  And check back here later in the week for some of my favorite quotes from Augustine’s Confessions, the first thing read in class this semester.