Hello everyone, This is my first post on Reddit so apologies if it is in the wrong section. I am currently working on my undergrad thesis, and am in search of some insight from you all. I am going to a local archive tomorrow to go through some primary sources. The last time I went I was overwhelmed by the amount of sources available, and decided to spend my time just seeing what I had available to work with. Tomorrow I hope to be more precise in my research and start collecting what I believe to be valuable to my thesis. I am looking for advice on how you would go about gathering your sources i.e. photocopying, taking pictures, etc. I would imagine photocopying is not an option for me as there are so many sources it would take a large amount of time. Any advice would be appreciated.
It all depends on what sources you are working with, what you are studying, what archive you are visiting, etc. Can you please be more specific?
The first thing you should do, if you haven't done so already, is look up the archive's rules. Each archive has their own peculiar set of rules on what you can photograph, photocopy, examine, whether you can bring a laptop, whether you can bring pens instead of pencils, etc. They usually describe all of this in detail on their website.
Next, what questions are you trying to address? It's good that you went on your first trip already to see what they have, as that feeling of being overwhelmed is common (or at least that's how I have felt the first time I've visited archives). Depending on what kind of questions you have should dictate how you go about gathering resources.