Into the Archives...

Archival work starts long before you open your first box of documents and dig in. Before you arrive at an archive to begin research, you need to have searched for sources using this guide (Searching for sources) and you need to have selected a general topic, done background research on it, and begun to narrow it down with specific source materials in mind (Nailing down a topic).

Once you have determined that a particular archive holds collections that are likely to be useful, you should phone the archive to arrange a visit. This guide includes contact information for each archive, as well as hours the archive is open. (Remember, when an archive is housed in a library, its hours are often more limited than those of the general library.) Not only is a telephone call a good way to confirm when the archive is open, and what regulations govern access to materials, it is an opportunity to explain the work you are undertaking to people at the archive who can help. Archivists are fellow historians and important allies, as any practicing historian can confirm. Along with cataloging and maintaining collections, the archivist's job is to help researchers and students navigate the archive so the material they collect and preserve can be used. You will find archivists familiar with the processes of historical research and writing and ready to assist you in finding appropriate material for your subject. As well as confirming whether the sources you are planning to work with are appropriate, an archivist can help with suggestions for other sources and also for ways to look at the topic based on what they know is available in their collections. When you call to arrange your visit, therefore, you may want to ask whether it makes sense to time your visit so you can meet with a particular archivist who is especially familiar with materials that will be useful to you and the issues that interest you.

Archivists are there to help researchers. As Sherrill Redmon, archivist at Smith College says, "There is no question too little or too dumb." But every archivist will expect you to have a good general understanding of your broad subject before you start asking him or her questions. Be thorough in your secondary-source background reading, and go to the archives knowing dates, names, places, and the main outlines of the historical debates surrounding your topic.

How does an archive work?

This guide includes links to webpages maintained by several of the archives referenced here, where you will often find reference to the specific regulations and procedures observed by these archives. You will find, though, that all archives share a commitment to preserving their holdings from harm.

Be prepared to store your coat, backpack, purse, and other personal articles in a designated area, and to register on entering. In general, you may take only pencils, paper and note cards, and a laptop computer into the research area (no pens). Food and drink are not allowed in archives. You may be asked to read and sign a copy of the archives' regulations. Generally, when you are reading source material, you will be asked to take only one folder out of a box at a time, and one document from a folder. Documents need to be laid flat on the table and may not be marked; don't lean on documents or hold them up, to avoid tearing or creasing them. The glossy surface of a photograph should not be touched; archives will provide you with gloves for handling photos. When you return a document to its folder or box, be sure to preserve the original filing order.

Once you have stored your belongings and registered, talk to an archivist about your project. You will be directed to finding aids or inventories which you can use to map out a research strategy. Finding aids come in a few forms, from the familiar card drawers and on-line catalog to notebooks and folders full of lists, but most collections are detailed in a notebook or folder that offers more in-depth information than a card catalog can. In such a finding aid, notebook, or folder, you will find an inventory of the scope and content of the material in the collection. If it is the papers of a family or an individual, there may be a brief biography and/or chronology of the person or family. For business papers, there may be a brief history of the industry. There may also be short descriptions of various parts of the collection. The aid also indicates the size of the collection in linear feet and the number of documents. You will locate specific documents in container lists in the finding aid. Container lists detail all the documents in the collection and indicate how the collection is organized, providing a reference code for requesting particular items. Material is usually organized into folders, document boxes, and record cartons, and you will call up the folder(s) or box(es) that contain the documents you wish to read. Once you know what you want to look at, you will request the material from an archivist. Most archives require you to fill out a call slip; some take requests verbally. You will be given one folder or box at a time; to save time, request the second as you see you're coming near the end of your work in the first.

Your initial foray into the finding aids, folders, and boxes is a shopping trip. Skim through the suggested finding aids, select the likely boxes or folders, ask to see them, and skim through what's in the boxes to make sure they are useful. Once you're sure you have what you need, you can return to them one by one for careful reading and note taking.

You, the researcher...

You've been shopping, found what you need, and now it's time to get to the real fun. You're ready for serious research and thinking about the past. Expect now to spend concentrated time exploring the material in each box and folder you've chosen. Be generous in the time you schedule for yourself to spend in the research phase of your project; this is where you will use most of the time involved in writing a research paper. It will probably take more time than you think to read through unfamiliar, often handwritten sources. And gleaning information from some kinds of documents may be more time consuming than others. Allow yourself a few hours, an entire morning or afternoon, for each research trip. Plan for several research trips. And be prepared with back-up plans should you find you have a long wait, or should one set of documents not prove as useful as you had hoped.

As you begin to read through sources, you will begin with a general idea of your topic - not so much the box top of the jigsaw puzzle itself, showing it in its completed state, as an image of the complete puzzle derived from a description of it by someone else. You know more or less what is going on, but you don't have a clear idea of exactly what the details look like or exactly how they fit together. You don't yet know all that happened or -- and this is an important part of your research and analysis -- why. As you begin to read, details will emerge from the sources. Sometimes you will see immediately how and why information contained in a particular documents fits into the big picture. But often you will be confused -- you will suspect the pieces you find are likely to fit in somewhere, without knowing where exactly. Chances are, you will have to gather more information-more pieces of the puzzle-before seeing clear patterns.

Although you may enter your research project with specific questions in mind, it is important to explore your sources with an open mind and let them tell their own story. And take heart -- the more you read and understand, the more sure you will become of what material is important to your story.

Deciding what information to take notes on will become easier as you work and develop a fuller understanding of your material and your topic. It is possible to spend too much time on note taking. At first, you may want to write down just a brief note about what information is in a particular document, not wasting time writing down lots of information that you won't need. If you are careful to record the source of each note, it is easy enough to go back for more detail later when you're sure you need it.

Your notes will be a combination of paraphrases of material -- summaries and analyses in your own words -- and exact quotations of phrases, sentences, and sections of text that are particularly striking (don't change spelling and grammatical errors). Digesting and analyzing the material in this way as you read it is the first step in the analysis you must do for your paper anyway, so will save you time in the writing phase. Take down quotations where the original author's words are particularly memorable or colorful, convey an original understanding of the idea, and/or the wording illustrates important aspects for understanding the author's feelings, intentions, or meaning. Sometimes the tone of an exact quote is as important as its content.

If there is a particularly lengthy passage (a full page) or document that you feel you will need in its entirety, you may wish to photocopy it. But use photocopying sparingly. In the first place, copying is not a substitute for reading and note taking -- you will still need to spend that time in analysis. But also, many archives limit the number of photocopies a patron may make (and usually charge for them). Exposure to the light of a copier can cause deterioration of old paper and fade inks, so some documents cannot be copied (or only by photographic processes, which are costlier).

How you take notes -- on what and how extensively -- is a personal choice. You will need to break up your topic into subsets of information so you can group together details for analysis. Depending on what you're working on, your categories could be topical or chronological or some of each. You most likely will have some of these categories already in mind from your background research, but most of them will emerge from the source material as you sift through it. Many people prefer to use index cards (and also have strong preferences as to which size) to record the information they find. Cards can be used to sort material easily. Some people limit each card to one note; others use individual cards to group notes on a particular (small) aspect of the topic or chronologically, so they can be sorted appropriately. In part, note card organization depends on the type of information you are working with. You may prefer to use a legal pad or notebook paper and just keep a running list of notes. These can later be cut up for sorting or color coded with highlighters according to subject. This could be especially useful early in a project when you are not yet sure what categories all the pieces of the puzzle fit into. A laptop computer can be used in either way, with databases, which can be organized and searched by subject, serving as note cards or running files of notes which can be printed out and cut up to sort out physically. Cards or cut up sheets of paper can be laid out on your desk in sequence while you write from them and arranged and rearranged as you analyze the information and decide how you wish to present it.

However you collect your notes, one of the most important parts of the process is to note sources carefully. You will need accurate bibliographical citations to document your paper. And equally important, you are likely to find that you wish to go back to a source (maybe one of those first documents you read that now seems more important than it did at the time you read it) to re-examine it. There is nothing more frustrating than having some information you would really like to explore further and not being able to figure out where you found it.

Each archive has a preferred format for citing the materials in their collection. Ask the archivist how he or she wishes to have you designate the source and the archive name (many archives have an introductory brochure that spells out the format they require for citing material from their collections). Keep a master list of the archives, and the sources you use in each, using correct citation. For your notes, you may wish to work out a shorthand system (archive and collection names tend to be very long). Use logical initials and abbreviations, noting them on your master list and being careful not to duplicate a code for two different sources.

If this is all new to you, you will probably wind-up taking more notes than you need to. Similarly, you'll probably take more and longer notes at the beginning of a project than you will later on. As you read through source material, the selection of evidence gets easier. The more you read, the more you understand the subject and get ideas about what you want to say. As the project becomes clearer, you'll become more sure about exactly what is helpful and what isn't and will find note taking easier (something to look forward to!).

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