Hi all. So this question is less about history itself, and more about the doing of history. I'm a first year PhD student and am planning my first big archival research trip. While I've worked in archives before, I don't feel as though I have worked particularly efficiently in them. What are your tips for working efficiently in archives? What should I prepare in advance? What should I not do? When planning, how much can I and should I realistically plan to examine in a day?
I'd welcome any and all thoughts and experiences of working in archives - I'm still fairly new to it, but I love it so far. I have to travel a long way to get to the archives that I need (transatlantic!) so I need to be able to make the most of it while I'm there.
Many thanks!
Apologies if this advice is condescending, but don't underestimate the archivist! You should contact the archives ahead of time not only to establish that you will be able to access the collection(s) you want, but also to touch base with the archivists. It is possible that the person who processed the collection you need will still work at the archives, and s/he will know better than anyone its organization and contents. This can save you invaluable time when digging through boxes and folders (especially in the case of a subpar finding aid), and the archivist might also be able to suggest related material in other collections at their own or other archives.
NB that, at least in the US, many archives allow only loose-leaf paper, so bear that in mind if you're particular about ripping pages out of notebooks and that sort of thing. :)
Check with the archive, of course, but most allow personal cameras; I go into the archives, pull all I need, and take pictures of everything interesting. I actually read through, take notes on and 'process' everything for months afterward at home. Hope this helps!
Hello,
I often spend time in archives for genealogy purposes. I generally know pretty much exactly what I want and need to see so I can most of the time plan a schedule on how much time I need,...Etc However, I was given the advice to always let some time in case I find something else. It could be quite important in your case as you travel ( and far! ). It paid two weeks ago when I found two unexpected pages put ( Who knows why ) in the documents I was reading and it took a good couple of hours for me to be done.
Also, when you contact the archives, maybe you could ask about their photographs policy ( e,g what will you be able to take picture of if by chance you can ). If I can take pictures, I could spend less time in the document than for one I cannot ( in which case I take more paper and time ) because I know I will be able to work on the document(s) later, at least if you can make good quality pictures.
And as Breads said, the archivists can be very helpful. I sometimes go to a medium sized archive office and the lady if always happy to help me in advance ( she once asked me if I wanted her to pre-read some documents to gain time later and help. I said yes, I guess she was a bit bored, Internet as destroyed a bit of coming in person to the archives for genealogy ).
So yes, if you can, plan everything the most you can and make place for some unexpected discoveries that could take time! )
Hello! I’m an archivist! And I had a busy day yesterday so I didn’t have time to think out what I wanted to say about archival research, so I hope you don’t mind the delay. I see a lot of people doing research, some pretty badly, so I have some opinions about mistakes people are making. I also answer a lot of phone/email references questions, typically in less than a half hour, usually in less than 20 minutes of research. I write blog posts for work - usually these are sort of puff-piece and highlight areas of strength in our holdings - I spend 30 min to an hour using archival material and then write them. I am Mrs. Efficiency in Archives and So Can You.
The basic art of archival research is discarding irrelivancy. Most of the holdings of any archives is useless to you, possibly useless to everyone, and you need to identify the stuff you need and the stuff you do not need. Many things in the archives are interesting, perhaps just on a gossipy level, but not actually useful, and I see a lot of people get bogged down reading dead people’s salacious mail and wasting time. The work of the archivist is identifying items that are likely to be historically valuable to anyone and everyone for many purposes, and keeping them in original order for the historian. The work of the historian is identifying which documents actually make the history they are trying to tell, and then using them to make it. Archives are not history: you make the history out of the archives. So, first things first, if you have limited time, come to the archives with your research question firmly in mind, and stick to it. Do not get distracted with interesting historical tidbits. If you have time to explore, yes, go for it, but if you don’t, stay on track.
Most archives have their database online now: use it. Identify which record series you want to look at. Look at the finding aid: identify now which boxes and which folders (if you can) you want to look at. A lot of people come to the archives and say “I want to see all of the boxes” and we mentally go “lol no you don’t” but cheerfully bring them the first box and then the second and let them realize on their own that no, they don’t want to see all the boxes, because most of them are going to be useless. Save yourself a little time: start off knowing that you almost never want to see all the boxes.
Okay, so you have a well-defined research question that you believe will be enhanced by looking at RS XX/YY/ZZZ. Email the archives - introduce yourself lightly (do not be one of those crazy old man genealogist types who sends like their entire family history), state your research scope, what records you are interested in, and your anticipated date of visit. Then, ask if they have any other suggested materials for your research. We can almost always identify something they have missed, especially if they have a popular general topic we are likely to have researched before (like early African American students, or people always forget about the usefulness of newsletters). We will sometimes also “pre-research” a bit, our rule of thumb is 30 min of free research max per scholar, so if you are on the fence if some records are going to be useful at all, we will go look at them and say “no, there is no correspondence from George Washington in these papers” and potentially save you a lot of time. We can also sometimes recommend completely different archives.
If you are going to visit, we generally will pull the boxes ahead of time for you, and send you basic information on the rules and regulations, and where to park, campus maps, etc. I’ll even do restaurant recommendations if asked. I’d say most archives allow non-flash photography now, which has been a mixed blessing, because a lot of people use it as a crutch, and just photograph EVERYTHING. I had a long-distance researcher over winter break who was straight up photographing whole boxes of a 64 cb ft record series, which was (in my opinion) a tremendous waste of time for her. If you don’t make the classic mistake of thinking every box is full of precious historical nuggets you should tidily avoid this pitfall though.
Okay, time estimates. I’ve seen 1/hr per cb ft given, but I don’t think you really need that much time if you’re good, but it is a good working estimate I think, it gives some buffer.
So yeah, basic steps:
Google, "Historical Research in Archives: A Practical Guide"
This might just be a reflection of how my own brain works, but I jot down a description of every collection that I look at regardless if I found anything useful in it or not. I keep a separate word document open on my computer for these notes--a sort of "archives journal"--and I'll add to it throughout my visit. I always write down call numbers (and box and folder or reel numbers when applicable) and make a rough description, especially if it's a collection without an online register. I write down if a collection wasn't useful to me, or if a collection looks maybe useful to consult on a later trip or for another project.
These kind of notes save me from wasting time later--for instance, calling up the same not-useful collection months later because I forgot that I had already looked at it. My notes are useful when I'm trying to cite archival material later because I have all of the needed information already written down. They're also useful if I need to contact the archives long distance and ask a follow-up question about a particular collection. I also file away all of my returned call slips in my research files for the same reasons.
As to planning how much you can realistically look at in a day--that will all depend on how organized the archival materials are (if it's an unprocessed collection, plan way more time to look at it), how awful the handwriting or copy is, if you are allowed to use a camera or not, etc. You've probably already figured this out, but you must have a detailed list of exactly what you want to look at ahead of time and carefully prioritize that list, otherwise you will waste a ton of time. If you call ahead, most archives are willing to pull your first wanted item or two early before you get there so you're not sitting in the reading room waiting 15 minutes for your stuff to get pulled off a shelf and delivered.
By the way, if you use a camera, periodically check that your images aren't fuzzy and that you aren't accidentally cutting off an edge of the document in your shot. I recall one wasted trip to an archives years ago when I managed to have a blurry shot every third photo and the parallax was terrible because I didn't have a tripod or anything. Another tip with a camera: take shots of the boxes or folder labels or even call slips so you have a sort of divider in your images so you know what stuff belongs to what collection. If cameras are allowed, you might want to test out your camera set up now at home with a book or stack of papers so you're not fiddling with it at the archives.
This might be "duh" advice, but make sure that the archives will actually be open on the days you want to visit! Especially if I'm going a long distance, I don't necessarily trust the hours listed on a website (who knows when their site was updated). Also call to make sure the collections you really want to consult will be available (I've encountered university archives that only had limited services on weekends because they only had student employees working on Saturdays, and I once had the problem of a collection being in off-site storage because they were remodeling the building and it required a couple of days' advance notice to retrieve the requested collections in storage). And in your call ask if cameras or computers are allowed (I visited one archives that didn't allow computers--but that's weird, most allow it), and what their copiers/scanners are like--some archives don't allow you to photocopy anything and then charge like $1 a page for an archivist to do it for you and mail the copies to you, others let you copy anything yourself for something like 10 or 25 cents a page, and others have lovely new copiers or microfilm scanners with a USB port and allow you to take as many digital copies as you like for free if you have a thumb drive with you.
Best of luck. Archives work is super fun!
I have been doing research at the US National Archives in College Park for past few years. Here is my method. Note that the NARA II facility basically allows all types of reproductions (no restrictions on flatbed scanners, tripods, etc...), and will give you 24 boxes at a time. Many other archives are far more restrictive
1.) Read through the entirety of a defined collection (all the papers in a particular series, or a whole years worth of documents, etc...) and mark with document flags which ones you want to reproduce later. This will give you a sense of what is actually going on before you take time to photograph or go to the photocopy machine.
2.) take notes on paper of every document you mark, with a name or subject, the date, and the number of pages, as well as the box and folder it is contained in. I put the date and collection title at the top of the page, then a line saying box 1, then the folder, and a list of all the documents in the folder that I want to copy. Maybe I am biased from time spent working in medical research (where by IRB rule everything needs to be on paper, even though it will invariably be entered into a computer afterwards), but paper notes are a valuable tool. Also, computers can be a time waster in the archive if you are always on them, and you will invariably check your email, blogs, etc... if your mind starts to wander. Paper notes are also permanent in a way that yet another word document on your desktop is not, and allow for random arrows and notes. Photograph or scan your notes afterwards.
3.) For each box and folder within, take a photograph first of the box label, then the folder, then the documents in the folder, then the new folder, then the new box, and repeat. You can upload all the documents at once to your computer, and if your notes are good, it will be easy to tell from the thumbnails of the images their exact archival locations. I convert all the jpegs into multi-pg pdfs of the specific documents afterwards (using the free program irfanview).
4.) write parts of your paper in the archives, or don't. It will probably waste time, but will probably also produce a better paper.