The biggest changes in my research since I became a historian have come about because of the usefulness of laptops and digital cameras. When I started doing scholarly research, note-taking was still done using pen and paper (or pencil and paper for particularly careful archives). In the 1990s, however, computers suddenly became really portable, and could be carried into the archive and used to take notes. Suddenly, my high school typing class really started to pay off: ten fingers of typing madness.
My first real research workhorse was a PowerBook 160, 7 lbs and 25 MHz of raw computing power. Allied with a homebrewed Filemaker Pro database, this laptop carried me through a large chunk of my dissertation research. The main limitations on the PowerBook were its battery life (circa two hours) and the range of restrictions that archives put on the use of laptops. The former meant that there was often a mad rush for available outlets by scholars (the old British Library was particularly difficult; if you didn’t get there by 9 am, you weren’t getting a seat in the one row with available plugs). The latter meant that I had to be careful to check with each archive on what they would allow before visiting. The PowerBook did have an unexpected benefit: it got warm when being used, which was nice in archives with less than sufficient winter insulation (yes, I’m looking at you, Colindale).
Figuring out the process happened piecemeal. I didn’t plan ahead of time how to use the new technology, I just took it with to the archives and tried to use it. That meant that the laptop became an electronic notepad/typewriter at first, but I quickly began to figure out ways to use it to better advantage. I learned to program Filemaker, to set up ways to make each note individual and linked to a source citation. I figured out ways to use keywords so that I could gather the individual records into larger groups when I needed to use them. Later, as I was writing, I figured out how to apportion records to particular chapters. The result was barebones, primitive, and resolutely black and white:
The above was a personal memoir of a British soldier in the First World War from the Imperial War Museum.
This was an entry for Martin Ceadel’s book on pacifism in Britain in WWI.
The second record comes from a later iteration of the database and the improvements are evident. In an odd sense, the research notebook grew with the research, sprouting new features and new abilities as I went along. The advantage was that I could do more with it. The disadvantage was that retrofitting a feature left a fair number of earlier entries out, and it was often difficult to update them. Nor, I should note, did I particularly learn the lessons of this impromptu development. I’ve continued to adopt new technology but have essentially figured out how to use it as I go along. There are any number of my scholarly tools, electronic and otherwise, that have been fitted and retrofitted, made for one purpose and then pushed to do another.
Next: digital cameras.
6 comments
January 10, 2012 at 6:39 pm
Vance Maverick
How does the longevity of your notes compare now — electronic vs. paper? Do you find, for instance, that digital records live only as long as you consciously act to keep them alive?
January 11, 2012 at 5:58 am
silbey
@Vance I’ve found electronic records easier to preserve over the medium term. Paper records and notebooks fell prey to my somewhat disorganized filing style and the peripatetic life of an early career academic. The result is that a lot of my paper records are either in a box in the basement somewhere that would require a lot of digging, or gone altogether. The electronic records, on the other hand, have simply been copied from new computer to new computer as I upgrade. Long-term, who knows? If Filemaker ever went away as a software then I would have an issue, especially as I’m using something different now.
January 12, 2012 at 7:13 am
WM Rine
I just started a new fiction project, the first in a good while, so rather than evolving as you describe I’m going from chaotic notebooks and notecards straight to software. I eventually settled on a software called Scrivener, because it had the capability to storyboard on notecards which then evolve easily into sections of manuscript. It has some of the cataloguing functions built into it, as well as the ability to capture all forms of documents, including photos and sound from interviews. It’s occurred to me that the software might not keep up with the evolution of Apple OS and someday I could be left with riches in an obscure and untransferable format.
On the other hand, working in this software was so much better than the last time I wrote a novel, I didn’t worry about it too hard.
January 12, 2012 at 7:23 am
silbey
EotAW is officially a fan of Scrivener: https://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/01/27/the-historians-workflow-or-son-of-return-of-nerdtasia/
January 12, 2012 at 5:40 pm
nicomachus
@WM Rine… you want to look at http://www.literatureandlatte.com/video.php and watch the video titled Folder Sync. Once you set up this feature of the newer editions of Scrivener, then every time you close Scrivener, it will export your notes as individual RTFs in a folder of your choice. Place that folder in Dropbox, and you have a marvelous backup system.
January 13, 2012 at 11:05 am
TF Smith
Anyone have a preference regarding digital photography equipment for primary source documentation, or portable overhead scanners? And know if it is possible to OCR such material, once scanned and/or photographed?
I will be looking at some 145-year-old courthouse records this spring, and am considering how best to capture the data…simply retyping pages of crumbling paper doesn’t seem like the best use of time in the archive.
Imageware’s product line would be nice, but they are a little pricey…
Thanks