TheLen

Putting theory into practice wasn’t originally how I imagined the process of researching my dissertation. Instead I saw research as I imagine most historians do: a chance to dive into original documents and learn about the past first-hand. I was actually recently chastised for spending too much time in the archives: “Yes, Sarah, I know it’s more fun. But you really need to start your week at your desk — *thinking* — and reward yourself with trips to the archives.” I love how researching and working in the archives have made me feel like a real scholar (instead of a pretender), but an unexpected side-effect has been the theory-into-practice phenomenon mentioned above. Of course, it shouldn’t have been unexpected, but I guess I was just blinded by the documents.

While I still have a lot to learn, I have a much better handle on how to use digital tools in the process of my research. I know to own a tripod if I plan to take a lot of pictures without doing an impressive (and probably annoying) imitation of a jack-in-the-box. I also learned, thanks to one of the NARA employees, to put a piece of white paper down on the desktop to make the pictures clearer — especially pictures of those tissue-thin copies of internal memoranda. Now, when I get my declas tab, I also write the bib information with pen on a piece of paper attached to the tab and get my two pieces of tape and white paper even before looking for a seat. Recently, I’ve had a couple successful experiments with tabbing pages in the folders and then having massive picture-taking days instead of taking pictures every day while reading through the folders. I’m not sure if it saves time or not, but it does make me a bit more discriminating when deciding if a document is relevant or not.

I’m not making as much progress on the database front — mainly because it’s mind-numbingly boring — but the little bit of work I’ve done with Scribe and my pictures suggests that all of the tedious work will be worth it. Now, my main decision is whether or not to switch to Zotero (the newest version of Scribe from the brilliant minds at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.)