Emergent scholarship

Course Lessons

Capturing information

13 min read

Lesson overview

Objective: Save and organise information in a personal library

Summary: Even after filtering information sources, potentially useful content still moves too quickly to process in the moment. Academic journals, conference presentations, recommended articles, and interesting threads all arrive faster than you can meaningfully engage with them. You need a reliable mechanism to pull valuable sources out of the fast-moving stream, review them quickly to determine if they warrant deeper attention, and save the keepers into a personal library for later engagement. This lesson establishes a three-stage capture process that reduces anxiety while building a curated collection of high-value sources.

Key habits:

  • Use a web clipper or similar tool to save sources in the moment without interrupting current work
  • Review captured items weekly to decide what deserves permanent storage
  • Save only information-dense sources rather than everything that seems interesting
  • Add context notes explaining why you saved each source and how it might be useful
  • Allocate time in your weekly schedule to work through your personal library

Introduction

When information is cheap, attention becomes expensive. - James Gleick (2011)

Capturing information effectively means you can engage with sources when you have the cognitive space to process them properly, rather than trying to consume everything the moment it appears.

You’ve reduced the volume of information streaming past your attention by filtering sources at the point of entry. But even filtered information streams can feel overwhelming. Consider an academic journal that publishes 10-15 articles twice yearly—a relatively slow-moving information stream. Yet when you factor in the time required to actually read and process those articles, even this pace is too fast. And when integrated with faster-moving streams like email recommendations, social media mentions, and conference presentations, meaningful engagement becomes impossible without a capture system.

The fundamental problem is temporal: information arrives according to its own schedule, not yours. An excellent article lands in your inbox on Tuesday morning when you’re preparing for lectures. A colleague mentions a relevant book during a Friday afternoon meeting when you’re mentally exhausted. A Twitter thread surfaces a useful methodology at 10pm on Sunday. Without a capture system, you face impossible choices—read it now (disrupting current work), try to remember it later (likely failing), or let it pass entirely (losing potentially valuable sources).

Capture systems solve this temporal mismatch. They allow you to acknowledge that something looks valuable without immediately engaging with it. You pull the source from the fast-moving stream, mark it for later review, and return to your current focus. This simple act reduces cognitive load and anxiety while building a curated library of sources you’ve deemed worthy of deeper attention.

The three-stage capture process

Effective information capture involves three distinct stages, each serving a different purpose in building your personal library.

Stage 1: Initial capture from the stream

The first stage is the moment you encounter something that might be useful. You’re reading Twitter and see an article link. A colleague emails a conference paper. You stumble across a blog post while researching something else. Rather than trying to read these sources immediately or hoping you’ll remember them later, you capture them quickly using whatever tools fit your workflow.

The key characteristic of initial capture is speed. You should be able to save a source in seconds, with minimal interruption to your current work. This requires having capture tools readily available—a web clipper browser extension, a mobile app, keyboard shortcuts, or whatever mechanism lets you say “save this for later” without breaking focus.

Initial capture is deliberately uncritical. You’re not yet deciding if this source is truly valuable—you’re simply acknowledging it might be. This low threshold is important because the alternative—trying to evaluate every potential source immediately—creates decision fatigue and interrupts deep work. Save first, evaluate later.

Stage 2: Review and triage

The second stage involves returning to your captured items to make more thoughtful decisions about what deserves permanent storage. This happens during scheduled review sessions (see the lesson on Weekly reviews in the Scheduling course), not continuously throughout the day.

During review, you ask: Does this source still seem valuable? Does it relate to current project work? Is it information-dense enough to warrant the time investment of reading it properly? Many sources that seemed interesting during initial capture reveal themselves as marginal during review. Delete these without guilt—your initial instinct was to investigate, and investigation revealed they weren’t worth keeping.

Sources that pass review get additional context added. Why did you save this? How might it be useful? Which project does it relate to? What made it stand out? These annotations transform captured sources from orphaned links into contextualised materials you can actually use later. Without this context, you’ll return to sources months later with no memory of why you saved them or how they might be relevant.

Stage 3: Permanent library storage

The final stage involves moving reviewed and contextualised sources into your permanent personal library—the collection you’ll reference during literature reviews, when developing new courses, or while writing articles. This library represents your curated intellectual resources, filtered first by initial capture judgement, then by review evaluation.

Permanent storage requires more rigorous organisation than initial capture. Bibliographic information should be complete and accurate. Metadata should be corrected where needed. Tags or folder structures should make sources discoverable when you need them. This investment of time makes sense for sources you’ve determined are valuable, but would be wasteful for the larger volume of initially-captured sources that don’t make it through review.

The three-stage process creates a funnel: many sources get initially captured, fewer survive the review stage, and only the highest-value materials enter your permanent library. This ensures your library contains genuinely useful sources rather than accumulated clutter.

Choosing capture and storage tools

There are many note-taking applications suitable for information capture, and most will do the job as well as any other. The specific tools matter less than understanding what characteristics make them effective. Whatever you choose should be:

Universal: The tool should handle multiple information formats (text, PDF, video, audio, images) from different sources (academic journals, websites, social media, YouTube). If you need different tools for different formats, your capture process becomes fragmented and less reliable.

Frictionless: Quick and easy saving matters more than sophisticated features. If capture requires multiple steps or decisions, you’ll avoid using it during busy moments—precisely when you most need it. Look for web clippers, mobile apps, and keyboard shortcuts that reduce capture to seconds.

Cross-platform: You encounter useful information on your laptop, phone, and tablet. Your capture tool should work across all devices and operating systems, synchronising automatically so captured items are available everywhere.

Trustworthy: Data saved should be exportable in standard formats (plain text, markdown, HTML) that other applications can import. Avoid tools that lock your information into proprietary formats, making it difficult to migrate if needed.

Suggested tools for capture and storage

While this course focuses on principles rather than specific applications, some suggestions may save you time exploring options. If you already use a note-taking system that satisfies the criteria above, continue with it.

For initial capture:

  • Joplin: Open source, simple, free, and works across all platforms. This is what I use for initial capture because it has excellent web clipper extensions and mobile apps for quick saving.
  • Microsoft OneNote: Works well if you’re embedded in the Microsoft ecosystem, with good capture functionality.
  • Google Keep: Very simple and effective for quick captures, particularly if you use Google services.
  • Bear (Apple only): Excellent capture interface and beautiful design, but limited to Apple devices.
  • Evernote: Powerful and comprehensive with good capture tools, though the free version has limitations.

For permanent library storage:

  • Zotero: Open source, free reference manager with excellent bibliographic management. This is what I use for my permanent library because it handles academic sources particularly well.
  • Mendeley: Full-featured reference manager with institutional support, though be aware of data management concerns.
  • EndNote: Comprehensive but typically institution-licensed, meaning you may lose access if you change institutions.

The two-tool approach (one for capture, one for permanent storage) might seem redundant, but it serves an important purpose. Capture tools prioritise speed and accessibility—you can save from your phone, from any browser, and from any format quickly. Permanent library tools prioritise organisation and bibliographic accuracy. Separating these functions prevents your permanent library from filling up with low-value sources that seemed interesting in the moment but don’t warrant long-term storage.

Building a personally-curated library

Your permanent library will become increasingly valuable over time, but only if you curate it thoughtfully. The goal is a collection of high-quality sources you can reliably draw on during literature reviews, teaching preparation, and research development.

Quality over quantity

Resist the collector’s fallacy—the temptation to save everything just in case it might be useful someday. Libraries stuffed with unread articles and unprocessed sources create overwhelming rather than helpful. Better to have 50 sources you’ve actually engaged with and understand than 500 you’ve merely accumulated.

Focus on information-dense sources. A 25-page academic article synthesising research on assessment practices offers more value than 10 blog posts touching superficially on the same topic. A comprehensive methodology paper provides more utility than a dozen Twitter threads about methods. When deciding what deserves permanent storage, ask whether this source offers substantive content worth returning to, or whether it’s merely interesting in passing.

Project-based filtering

One of the most effective strategies for avoiding collection overload is filtering information through the lens of current project work. Save sources that relate to projects you’re actively engaged in—the article you’re writing, the module you’re teaching, the research you’re conducting.

This doesn’t mean you can’t explore tangential interests or build knowledge for future work. But your primary capture and storage efforts should align with immediate commitments. Sources related to current projects get read, processed, and actually used. Sources saved for someday-maybe projects typically accumulate unread, creating guilt rather than value.

Review your library regularly. Sources you saved years ago may no longer be relevant or interesting. Information you thought would be useful but haven’t touched in years probably won’t suddenly become essential. Delete what doesn’t serve a purpose. Your library should be an active, working collection, not an ever-expanding archive.

Adding value through annotation

Raw captures—just a link or PDF with no additional context—have limited future utility. When you return to them months later, you’ll have forgotten why you saved them or how they might be relevant. Transform captures into contextualised sources by adding annotation:

  • Why did you save this source? What caught your attention? What problem might it help address?
  • How might it be useful? Which project does it relate to? What question might it answer?
  • Who recommended it? If someone else suggested this source, note who. This tells you something about the filter you’re trusting.
  • Initial impressions: What struck you during review? Any preliminary thoughts on the content or approach?

This annotation takes only a minute or two per source but dramatically increases future utility. You’re creating a personalised index to your own thinking rather than just accumulating sources.

Pause and reflect

Pause and reflect

The principles of information capture—filtering, quick review, permanent storage—remain consistent regardless of which tools you choose. While it’s tempting to spend considerable time exploring different applications and building elaborate systems, this can become procrastination disguised as productivity.

For now, implementing a simple capture system using basic tools will serve you better than endlessly researching the optimal solution. You can always refine your approach once you understand how you actually work with captured information. The perfect system that you never implement is infinitely less useful than a simple system you use daily.

Remember that capture is a means, not an end. The purpose isn’t to build the largest or most perfectly organised library—it’s to ensure you can engage with valuable sources when you have the cognitive capacity to process them properly. Your capture system succeeds when it reduces anxiety, preserves attention for current work, and provides reliable access to sources when you need them.

Activity

Key takeaways

  • Capture systems solve temporal mismatches between when information arrives and when you can process it properly. Academic work requires sustained focus, but useful sources appear unpredictably throughout the day. Capture systems let you acknowledge value without disrupting current work, reducing cognitive load while ensuring you don’t lose potentially valuable sources.

  • The three-stage funnel prevents library overwhelm. Initial capture has a low threshold—save anything that might be useful. Review creates a higher bar—does this still seem valuable? Permanent storage has the highest threshold—is this information-dense enough to warrant long-term keeping? This progressive filtering ensures your permanent library contains genuinely useful sources rather than accumulated clutter that seemed interesting in passing moments.

  • Annotation transforms captures into contextualised resources. A link saved without explanation becomes mysterious weeks later—why did you save this? What made it relevant? Adding brief context notes during review creates a personalised index to your thinking. This small investment of time during the review stage dramatically increases the utility of sources when you return to them months later during actual project work.

Resources

Do you have any experiences or insights that you’d like to share with others? What habits and routines have you implemented in your own practice that have helped in this area? Do you have any questions about your specific context that are not addressed in this lesson? Please leave a comment for other participants in the field below.

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