[easyazon_image align="right" height="160" identifier="1847922929" locale="US" src="http://emcrit.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/61vO4n86LL.SL160.jpg" tag="emcrit-20" width="104"]The mind palace, also known as the memory palace or the memory theatre, is something I want badly! Ever since I read the incredible book, the [easyazon_link identifier="1847922929" locale="US" tag="emcrit-20"]Art of Memory by Frances Yates[/easyazon_link], I have dreamed of building a mind palace. But in medicine, we should be able to externalize the palace--in fact, we must! The method of loci will not suffice.

Technology should surely have advanced to the point where this is simple--the programming requirements are trivial.

My current mind palace is at CrashingPatient.com. It is quite good, but not perfect.

Factors

Storage

We need a place to store all of the literature, books, and internet posts/media we feel will be valuable. The storage must be durable (if an internet site goes down, the work remains). If we lose our paid access, we retain the full text of the literature.

Readability

The medium should allow comfortable reading of the literature, viewing of the media, etc.

Accessibility

Should be immediately accessible offline or online. Should be firewall resistant.

Ease of Commenting/Summarizing

Need to put the take-home message somewhere. Additional thoughts, new findings. Really two separate things:

* We need the ability to comment on, by which I mean literally on the paper (i.e. scribblings, marginalia, highlighting)

* But also the ability to summarize a Topic and add those papers as citations in a way that would link to the scribbled on paper

Ease of the Edit

Front end editing

Open Source

Or at the very least, immediately exportable to open source

Search

All information should be easily retrievable with logic, operator,  and fuzzy logic based searches

Option to Publish

Should you want to share your memory palace

The Mind Palace Cycle

* Discovery

* Storage for to-be-read/to-be-viewed

* Process=Read/Comment/Summarize

* Storage

* Retrieval/Search

* Publish or Protect as Desired

Possibilities

* Wordpress

* Evernote

* Zotero

* Papers

* Mendeley

image from memorise.org

Want to read more about memory?

The Art of Memory, mentioned above, is amazing--but oh so dense. For a lighter, contemporary read:

[easyazon_image align="none" height="500" identifier="0143120530" locale="US" src="http://emcrit.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/51BD8oiyJlL.jpg" tag="emcrit-20" width="326"]

Update

Some additional requirements/desires:

* Self-Updating TOC as frontpage (see crashingpatient.com)

* Search must be browsable by either google or a plug-in and updates in real time

* Need to be able to do edits/additions on firewalled computers in any computer in the hospital.

* Want, but not essential--evernote's real time search of the contents of embedded pdfs would be pretty swell

Now on to the Podcast...