A waste book was one of the traditional books used in

bookkeeping Bookkeeping is the recording of financial transactions, and is part of the process of accounting in business and other organizations. It involves preparing source documents for all transactions, operations, and other events of a business. T ...

, consisting of a

diary A diary is a written or audiovisual memorable record, with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digita ...

of all transactions in chronological order. It differs from a daybook in that only a single waste book is maintained, rather than separate daybooks for multiple categories. The waste book was intended for temporary use only; the information needed to be transcribed into a journal to facilitate balancing the accounts. The book's name originates from the fact that once its contents were transferred to the journal, it was no longer required. The use of the waste book has declined with the introduction of double-entry accounting. Waste books were also used in the tradition of the

commonplace book Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into blank books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such book ...

and

note-taking Note-taking (sometimes written as notetaking or note taking) is the practice of recording information from different sources and platforms. By taking notes, the writer records the essence of the information, freeing their mind from having to Reca ...

. A well known example is

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

's Waste Book in which he did much of the development of the

calculus Calculus is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the ...

. Another example is that of

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (; 1 July 1742 – 24 February 1799) was a German physicist, satirist, and Anglophile. He was the first person in Germany to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics. He is remembered for his p ...

, who called his waste books sudelbücher, and which were known to have influenced

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

, Andre Breton,

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche bec ...

, and

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...

Merchants and traders have a waste book (Sudelbuch, Klitterbuch in German I believe) in which they enter daily everything they purchase and sell, messily, without order. From this, it is transferred to their journal, where everything appears more systematic, and finally to a ledger, in double entry after the Italian manner of bookkeeping, where one settles accounts with each man, once as debtor and then as creditor. This deserves to be imitated by scholars. First it should be entered in a book in which I record everything as I see it or as it is given to me in my thoughts; then it may be entered in another book in which the material is more separated and ordered, and the ledger might then contain, in an ordered expression, the connections and explanations of the material that flow from it. 6 —Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Waste Book E, #46, 1775–1776

In a general sense

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

contrasted the short-lived memoranda of the merchant with the more carefully kept account book designed as a permanent record.

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...

compared one of his

notebooks A notebook is a small book often used for writing. Notebook or The Notebook may also refer to: Computing *Laptop, a type of personal computer **Notebook (laptop), a specific, smaller class of laptop *Google Notebook, a discontinued online appli ...

to a merchant’s waste book.

Francesco Sacchini Francesco, the Italian (and original) version of the personal name "Francis", is one of the most common given name among males in Italy. Notable persons with that name include: People with the given name Francesco * Francesco I (disambiguation) ...

recommended the use of two notebooks: “Not unlike attentive merchants... hokeep two books, one small, the other large: the first you would call '' adversaria'' or a daybook (''

ephemerides In astronomy and celestial navigation, an ephemeris (; ; , ) is a book with tables that gives the trajectory of naturally occurring astronomical objects and artificial satellites in the sky, i.e., the position (and possibly velocity) over time. ...

''), the second an account book (''calendarium'') and ledger (codex).”{{cite journal , last1=Blair , first1=Ann M. , author-link1= Ann M. Blair , title=Note taking as an art of transmission , journal=Critical Inquiry , date=2004 , volume=31 , issue=1 , page=91 , doi=10.1086/427303 , s2cid=162852916 , url=http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3226475 , access-date=1 November 2021, url-access=subscription

References

Accounting systems Note-taking