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I've been thinking about sharing some (very basic) advice from all the trips I have taken to archives of mainly 20th century papers, so here goes:
1) Do your research before you go. Make sure you know the Special Collections website back to front so that you know the rules and regulations. Keep in mind that each archive will have unique policies (aside from pens, no archive allows pens)
2) Connected to point 1 - take as much documentation as you can think of with you to the archive. You don't want to get there and be missing the key piece that allows you to access the papers. Photographic ID? Letter from your supervisor? Confirmation of address? Blood type?
3) ALWAYS be nice to archivists and librarians. In your emails before and when you arrive. Most of the useful information will come from them, often in friendly conversation. They know the collections better than you ever could and you will ask them lots of stupid questions.
4) If you can take photographs (see rules point) make sure you frame a photograph properly, rather than attempt to cut it after, include any copyright info in the photograph etc.
5) You phone camera is fine (if you have enough storage!) 'Proper' cameras can be useful for fine detail, but can hinder by attempting to focus on a single section of a document and 'artistically' defocusing the rest! If you need a high-res image you can often order one later (£)
6) When you start photographing, have a plan. I usually photograph the cover of the folder, which has the reference on it, before the contents - so each time you see a folder cover in the mass of photos you know you're in a new ref
7) Take a blank piece of paper with you! This will be a godsend if you need to photograph very thin, translucent, carbon paper with any hope of reading it later.
8) Keep some time/energy each day to organise your photographs. I use Tropy (tropy.org) to add metadata, tags and transcriptions to photographs so that they are manageable to work from later.
9) Take a list of the folders you have requested, tick off what you have looked at and annotate as you would a bibliography. If you can remember 6 months later which folder has that one useful letter in, you have won at the game of archive research!
10) Connected to point 9 - keep a research diary of first thoughts/reactions to the items as you encounter them. This will be very useful for writing later.
Additional photo advice! -
Archive photo backup and searching advice! -
Interesting and useful re consulting photographs in an archive!
Re: coping a document with printing on the back
Suggestion: create a pdf of a single folder -
Always communicate with archivists!
Make sure you keep notes of refs!
Great point, be mindful that you aren’t the only one using the archive!
Addition to the tweet above, think about space as as well as time!
Thread on advanced file organisation!
Important reminder -
I often use kindle versions for word search function to find variations between draft and print. Also to see if draft lines are reused in other poems!
Thank archivists in acknowledgements if you publish. Also, mention in footnotes if an archivist particularly pointed out an item you wouldn’t have known about on your own. Citation/acknowledgement as feminist action applies here.
More tips for photographing including ref!
Make sure you email the archive in advance of your trip!
App suggestion for taking photographs of documents -
Another programme suggestion based on search power -
Important advice re using Tropy! Organise at the beginning to retain file pathways! (two tweets)
For more archive fun @LisaRoseStead (who also contributed to this thread) and I edited a book called The Boundaries of the Literary Archive - routledge.com/The-Boundaries…
