Prior to our class on project and data management, I would “manage” my projects in a very basic and almost informal way. While I had fantastic advisors guiding my thesis project, during my introductory courses in this program I never received technical directions on how to manage archival data and research information. (I really wish they made an “Archival Research for Dummies” guidebook as I’d be one of their supporters). The only advice I received about archival research was “take as many pictures as you possibly can as your time in the archive is limited.” As I’m sure you can imagine, this mentality quickly put me in panic mode. All I knew was that I needed to take a ton of pictures of documents and that I could organize my sources through an annotated bibliography sometime later. To make a long (and painful) story short, my initial method was ABISMAL. Very quickly I began to DROWN in material as I was taking hundreds upon hundreds of photos with no way to understand what they were once I filed them away. (These pictures are still sitting in my photo app and I am still unsure what to do with them let alone I don’t even have the time now to sort through them!) This created a lot of additional stress and uncertainty with my project and overall slowed me down. While in the end I was able to throw together an imperfect color-coded Excel sheet to organize my material, I kept thinking that there had to be a better way to do archival research. If only I had taken a course with Dr. Otis prior to my undergrad research!!
As I prepare for another archival project, I am going in armed with the tools of project and data management as discussed in Dr. Otis’ video. (Picture me among dusty documents repeatedly saying to myself “KISS – keep it simple stupid!!”) Following closely in line with Dr. Otis’s suggestions I have already created a filing system for my next archival project. Since I will be going into the archives at Gunston Hall, I have a desktop folder titled “Gunston Hall Archives.” Within this folder I have three subcategories, “Ann Eilbeck Mason,” “Sarah Brent,” and “Enslaved Women.” Any document I find that pertains to these topics will go in their respective folders with wiggle room allowed for subcategories and such within these. After I have read through the documents, I will write up accompanying summaries for each of my folders which will serve as reference guides to help me understand what the documents are. With each individual archival document, I will make sure I have the file box and name recorded to serve as an additional identifier. For an additional back-up plan I installed DropBox and have separate Google accounts which I can use as another safeguard for my data.
Now that I have a better understanding of how to manage my own research, I am really excited to work with Paige, Anne, and Chappy on our final project! (Also guys please don’t be scared after I described my archival disaster of two years ago- I have learned a lot since!!) In alignment with the inherently collaborative nature of DH discussed throughout Tabak, Griffin, and Hayler’s articles, our group collectively came up with the idea of focusing on local revolutionary era Fairfax history with the goal of somehow aligning our project with the celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (https://america250.org/). While we’re working out the fine details at the moment so far we have divided up the more humanist versus tech sides of our group. While arguably we are all humanities scholars who are all technologically capable, Anne and I are tackling the early American material content while Paige and Chappy are dealing with the digitization aspects of our project like noodling through StoryMaps. While we are broken up along the lines of the “D-role” and the “H-role” all of us are embodying the “DH-role” as we are finding the balance between the digital and human worlds to create an awesome digital history project (Tabak paragraph 37-39). Our project attests to “the multi-faceted nature of much DH research, which tries to balance between traditional humanities content and innovative technological experimentations” as we want to highlight physical revolutionary places that you can visit in-person and digitally (Tabak paragraph 8).
Hi Ally!
While I understand the idea of taking as many pictures as possible because time is limited (same here), it can definitely be challenging. The light reflecting off your phone, rushing, missing labels, or ending up with a few blurry shots all make the process tricky. I can see why it felt overwhelming later when you had to organize everything.
It’s great that you are already noticing how this class is building skills you can use in future projects. Your plan of creating categories and subcategories, writing summaries as reference guides for each folder, and using Dropbox to safeguard your data sounds like a strong approach.
Hey there Ally,
Your opening and personal anecdote were quite stress-inducing (in a good way) and made me really feel like I was in the archive as well. Your comment about wishing you took an undergraduate course about archival research made me think how there really are not too many courses for undergrads in that respect. When I went from undergrad to graduate, I felt pretty overwhelmed by the amount of times archives were brought up and terms that were thrown around that seemed like I should’ve known what they were before. Maybe that was just my experience, though.
I love your group’s idea for local Fairfax history, and it’s really cool that you seem to have already developed a general structure of work! Our group is also toying around with the idea of using StoryMaps. I’m excited to see where your guys’ work takes you.