I carry everything with me. Personal knowledge library
Something remains less and less trust in any network storages and other “air” technologies for storing information. This, of course, is convenient – no doubt. Saved a photo in the cloud and it is immediately available to you on all connected devices. If necessary, you can share this masterpiece with one click of a button with everyone who has a link and a desire to read it. I added a bookmark to the browser for online documentation on the new version of some library, and it will always be at hand – and even in the most current version.
But lately, it has become more and more common that sites and repositories move, access conditions change, and they are closed. Even if the site remains as solid as a rock, the content on it often swirls like a cloud at the top of Mount Fuji.
They say: “What gets on the Internet, stays there forever.” But, apparently, this rule only applies to the mainstream. Texts about “successful success” and funny memes are indestructible, but really useful content turns out to be much less durable.
How many historical texts, books, canvases in the offline world are considered lost forever! But magnetized sectors on some server are a much more fragile thing. Pressed the button – and they are gone, as if it had never happened.
Mirrors, “time machines” and all sorts of archivers of the Internet, alas, do not always help either. No one can save the entire Internet in all its instantaneous time slices. In addition, a mirror is the same site that can also disappear as if by magic. And for their normal use, you need to know exactly what you are looking for.
Forward to the roots
When the Internet was small, modems slow, and ISPs greedy, we kept everything useful on our hard drives, heroically trying to fit everything we needed into a modest amount of disk space. In those days, it was the only way to provide yourself with fast and efficient access to information.
If you need a book all the time, it’s easier to buy it and put it on the shelf than to ride it to the library on the other side of town every day. Our desire to accumulate files was limited only by the size of the hard drive. When recordable CDs appeared, it became easier – we periodically threw off everything accumulated on discs and freed up space for new valuable and useful files.
The illusion of reliability
High-speed Internet spoiled us – we stopped downloading files and creating our own local libraries of knowledge and content. Books, music, films, distributions, documentation, source codes – everything now lies on sites and in the clouds. Why download something if everything is instantly available with one click?
Sometimes you don’t even need to click: it’s enough to tell the name of the desired entry to a smart speaker or an advanced TV. Yes, and this is not necessary, you can say: “I want an invigorating morning soundtrack,” and the speaker will decide for itself what will cheer us up today. There are a great many such intelligent assistants around: optimization algorithms, recommendation algorithms, geolocation algorithms.
We used to buy a disc with a book, program, movie or music album and could use it at any time. Now, pleasure often has to be paid regularly and for everything at once: we are forced to purchase the ripe mango fruit we want and several boxes of radish to load. And the direct purchase of some work on the streaming service does not guarantee that it will always be available to you.
When I once again did not find the online resource I needed through the usual link, I realized that it was time to return to the roots. As you know, clouds do not really exist – they are just other people’s computers.
Since then, I have lost all desire to trust the storage of important and necessary information to other people’s computers. Moreover, there are no technological restrictions for accumulating your own knowledge base now. Local disk capacity can be increased indefinitely in various ways – you can not save space: additional hard drives, external drives, and finally, your own home file servers.
Of course, you must not forget about the reservation. It can be not only local: let the clouds work, but not as the main (and only) data storage, but as backup disks.
The radiance of pure information
You can think of a local knowledge base as a personal branch of the Internet where you can set your own rules. Thanks to this, it gives its owner several useful bonuses.
1. Data cleaning
When saving files to the database, you can convert them in any way you like. And, most importantly, clean them of unnecessary garbage. To do this, you can write your own programs or use ready-made solutions.
There are already many applications and scripts on the web that allow you to download a cleaned and structured array of data from specific sites.
2. Own information organization system
The local database allows you not to depend on numerous options for grouping information and navigation on different sites. If desired, you can combine a reference to regular expressions, for example, with fantasy stories. If in a personal digital world it makes sense and is convenient for work, then why not. You can use any directory structure, come up with a unique tag system.
3. Convenient metadata system
By the way, about tags. The local knowledge base allows you to organize any convenient storage system for additional data associated with files. For example, you can organize a convenient system of notes.
4. Local search engine
Finally, you can organize the search according to your own rules. No more sponsored links in the results, no more personalization, no more geolocation. If we are looking for documentation on Beautiful Soup, then we want to get it, and not links to recipes for delicious delicious soups.
There are many tools for searching local files. You can choose to your taste, combine, customize.
5. A single format for storing information
In your own knowledge base, you can use any convenient format for storing information. The conversion can be performed immediately at the time of replenishment of the database. For example, you can store all texts as plain text files.
In order to start collecting your local knowledge base, in general, you do not need to specifically configure anything. It is enough to create a separate directory on the disk and start saving the necessary files there.
The main thing is self-discipline. No “New Folders” stuffed with hundreds of unsorted files that “might come in handy someday.” I know for myself that it is difficult to give up this bad habit. From the very beginning, you need to not just mindlessly fill the disk with potentially useful files, but immediately organize them into the system. All efforts will not be in vain: at some point, quantity will turn into quality.
It happens that some knowledge in itself is not particularly valuable. But, combined into a system with a well-thought-out structure and cross-links, they suddenly give a lot of new ideas and become a convenient and effective tool.
The local knowledge base will contain carefully selected and structured data, organized according to your own principles. This is a great way to make information work. And also a personal library of knowledge is a living embodiment of the ancient principle “Omnia mea mecum porto” – “I carry everything I have with me.”
