DEVONthink Pro Office

Learning to use database software has been a slow process, but I've come to really love the tools and the interface for DEVONthink Pro Office. I chose this database over File Maker Pro after reading several reviews for each option. I think I would have done fine with either, but DEVONthink had the advantage of being used by fellow historians, and I liked knowing that I could turn to them when I had questions. 

Researchers and project managers love DEVONthink Pro Office because of its flexibility--there are many, many, many different ways to use it. The problem with this flexibility is the same as flexibility in yoga--you have to learn to work with it or you will probably get hurt. Luckily, with a database, you only risk confusion. 

To be extra sure that this was the software I wanted to commit to, I downloaded the application for a free, 30-day trial period. Immediately I found the process for importing files to be quite intuitive, but unsure of what to do next I began watching the tutorials posted on the DEVONthink website. These showed me the basic functions I would need to get my database organized, and I skipped over the more business-y applications. What I wanted to know was how I could create visual shortcuts and link information across documents and groups. 

My three favorite things about my database are the ability 1) to create nesting groups, 2) to tag documents and search by tag, and 3) to link documents together. On the recommendation of my friend Jackie, I decided to create a group for every archive I use. Since that's how I organize the collections mentally it made sense to emulate this in the database, but I could see the advantages of making collections or research trip dates be the "top" layer. Within each archival group, I nested a group for individual collections, and within those collection I nested folders for every box. This top-down organization prevents me from feeling overwhelmed by all of the documents I have to read through and work with. With 382 PDFs in one of my collections alone, it's better for my mental health to scale down and only see 2 or 12 or 26 at a time.

Tags allow me to reorganize documents by topic, actor, or event. A lot of my materials relate to the urban crisis, so anytime I come across a record that discusses responses to riots or racial tension I will tag the document with "urban crisis." I also tag every single document with the year it was written or published, so I can search for everything written in, say, 1968.  

As you can see in the screenshot above, I also love the ability to create linked annotations for every PDF. This keeps my notes together with my documents, and means I don't have to dig through an 80-page .doc file of archival notes every time I need to remember if the "Rabbinical Assembly Resolutions Regarding JCCs" were interesting or important. It's amazing how quickly you forget information... I often have to look back at notes I wrote the day before because I can no longer recall what I read. In writing a dissertation you take in such a large volume of information that inevitably you end up mentally dumping most of it. That's why your notes have to be excellent!

Finally, I really like that I can put little labels--colored dots, in this case--after the name of each document. If I see a green dot, it means I'm done taking notes on that one! Red is a bummer, though. It means go back and re-do. Luckily I have more greens than reds right now. 

Overall, I highly recommend DEVONthink Pro Office. I continue to find new ways to use the application in order to make my workflow more efficient. It's not the most intuitive software I have ever used, but it's not the least either. Mostly, I just cannot imagine tackling a project of this size without the organizing and searching capabilities of specialized database software, and I'm regularly impressed with how adept DEVONthink is at leading me to exactly that thing I'm looking for.

I do not make (data)baseless claims...

In the midst of writing my dissertation prospectus, I sat down for lunch with my friend and historian colleague Jackie. Jackie is three years ahead of me in graduate school and by that point was several chapters into her dissertation. After chatting about the state of our respective work, I asked for an experienced researcher's advice. "What," I asked Jackie, "do you wish you had known at the outset?"

With hardly any hesitation, she replied, "start a document database early!" I must admit that I didn't really know what that meant. I was familiar with bibliographic databases like EndNote, RefWorks, and Zotero, which allow you to store the citation information for every work that you reference in a project (so you can easily generate a Works Cited page at the end). I had already started a Zotero bibliography database for the secondary studies I planned to use in my dissertation. What else did I need?

Like any good academic, Jackie proceeded to school me on the value of database software for a large-scale research project like a dissertation. By the middle of a project, she warned, the sheer volume of documents that a historian collects can become unmanageable if there is no system for organizing and manipulating the files. I asked, "can't you just keep very organized folders on your hard drive?" Jackie was emphatic that creating a database not only maintained order--it also offered a multitude of other advantages and efficiencies. 

Six months into the dissertation, I can now say that she was totally right. 

As this screenshot of my database clearly shows, I have hundreds of documents from a wide variety of archives and collections. I'm able to sort them neatly by subseries or by box or by folder so that I always know where they came from. More valuable, however, is that my database allows me to create links between individual files (including different kinds of files, like between PDF documents and text files containing notes). This can be accomplished in a variety of ways depending on the database, but creating tags, hyperlinks, or specialized "folders" or "notebooks" are common methods. 

The greatest advantage of the database, to me, is portability. By digitizing the documents and storing them all in one application, I can take my laptop with me and work on my project from anywhere. I do not need to constantly bounce between "My Documents," Microsoft Word, and an image viewer, which can become a slow and annoying process. When I really need to get work done, I shut down all of the other (distracting) programs on my computer. I can focus solely on reading through my documents, taking note of the authorship, the topic, the relevant issues, and relating each document back to the bigger story I'm trying to tell.

Tomorrow I will offer a more detailed review of DEVONthink Pro Office, the database software I use, and explain how and why I chose it. For those who are interested, two other options that I know my colleagues frequently use are Evernote (which is free!) and File Maker Pro.

Step 2

After what feels like creating a million new PDFs, it's important to double check your notes from each collection you viewed in the archive. Make sure you have a file or photocopy for each document that you recorded photographing or copying in your notes. It's better to realize that something is missing right after your research trip, because with fresh memory you might recall if your notes are in error. If this does not seem to be the case, I recommend checking the documents before and after the missing one--sometimes photos seem to be part of the same set rather than two separate items and so you accidentally stick them together in one PDF. 

Re-reading archival notes right after a research trip is akin to having to edit a paper immediately after writing it. It's utter torture and requires superhuman willpower to slowly move your eyes from line to line. It is, however, the best way to get an A (at least for effort). 

Conversion

Back in the old days, before digital photography became affordable and accessible, historians would return from an archive carrying boxes filled with photocopied documents or handwritten notes. This paper-based system took up an incredible amount of space and required impressive organization skills to keep from losing critical evidence. Today, historians can keep an entire project inside a tiny laptop computer, but it still takes impressive organization skills to keep from losing critical evidence.

Photos taken on a digital camera or mobile device are stored as a JPEG files. Unlike a .doc file, which can incorporate many pages into one document, a JPEG only contains a single photograph. Additionally, the content of JPEG files are not searchable. For these reasons, I always convert my photos to PDF files. This can be done by "printing" to PDF. In either Windows or the Mac OS, select file > print  and then change the printer to "save as PDF." The file is then re-saved to your hard drive in this new format. By using the Preview application on a Mac or AdobePro on a PC, you can then merge the 100 pages of a survey report you photographed into just one file.

Even better, once your photos have been converted to PDFs you can use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to "read" your documents and make the text searchable! This generally only works for typed documents, so it's not an option for PDFs of handwritten 19th century diaries. Even typed documents do not convert perfectly, but it is AWESOME to be able to type "Washington Heights" or "urban crisis" into the search bar on my laptop and call up all of the documents that include these terms. 

I use DEVONthink, my database software (which I will talk about later this week), to OCR my PDFs. There are other free options online, but I cannot vouch for them. I recommend checking out this ProfHacker post for further information on this topic.

Once I've gone through all of these tedious steps to convert my archival photographs into the most productive format possible, I still take pains to clearly label and organize the files within my hard drive. Although I can search for documents by topic or by using highly specific search terms to find a particular document, there are bound to be occasions when the search is unsuccessful (maybe the OCR was inaccurate or maybe the search term is not the exact language used in a document) and you have to find a document the hard way. It's easier to do this when you have neat folders organized by archive, archival trip, or collections. 

Again, it's a tedious process... but it does create an invaluable opportunity for productive procrastination. After a research trip I often return home feeling a bit burned out, and I can recharge for a few hours (... ok, maybe a few days) by converting and organizing my files. I do derive immense satisfaction from expertly nested folders, with no stray files harshing my mellow. 

Write It Down, You Will Forget (I Promise)

Taking thorough, precise notes on archival collections is crucial to the long-term usefulness of your research trip. You may think that you will remember the contents of what you read, exactly what documents you read, and where the documents came from. I assure you that you will not. 

Screenshot of my first page of notes from the NJWB Collection. Copyright of the author.

Each individual has their own process when it comes to taking research notes, but there are two essential tasks that should be incorporated into the process. The first is to record what you have looked at, and the second is to record what you have not looked at so that you can find it again later. Research projects take unexpected twists and turns. A letter to a lawyer may seem boring or insignificant the first time you read it, but it might become a critical piece of evidence when you later realize that the letter's author was involved in a controversial lawsuit. 

My process, as seen above, is to describe the contents of every box and folder that I open. I regularly ask myself, "what will I want to know when I go back to look at these notes?" At the bare minimum, I know that for each document I will need the title of its folder, the date it was written, and the names of the author(s). These are the "vitals," the basic identifying markers for archival material. I will also want to know if I took a photograph of the page, made a photocopy, or decided it was sufficient to summarize the text. 

Sometimes I open a folder and realize that the records inside are not what I expected them to be, based on the title of the folder. In that case my note is brief. I just need to remind my Future Self not to waste time revisiting this folder. My note quickly explains what documents are in the folder and my reasoning for why I don't believe they are relevant. Other times I open a folder and  every single document seems like it was expressly written for me to find all these years later.  For those folder, my notes can go on for pages and pages and pages, endless stream of consciousness reflections on the documents, the stories they tell, the dates and years and place.... 

If I am in a rush--at the archive for a "smash and grab" visit--I usually do not have time to read the documents. I keep a log of what boxes and folders I view, and I write down the authors and dates for each document that I photograph. The one time I failed to do this, I ended up with a set of pictures that I couldn't identify. I didn't know where they came from or why I thought, at the time, that they were important to capture. I assumed I would remember later, but by the following week I was totally clueless. Total rookie move. 

When I have more time, I prefer to read through documents as I go through each folder. Not every page is important or worth noting, but for the documents that help tell my story I make sure to note the "vitals" and then try to summarize the main points or important events that it describes. Sometimes I take down important quotes, especially if the text helps convey the tone of a correspondence or neatly encapsulates the gist of an argument. If I do a thorough enough job of recording these details, I do not need to take a photograph or make a photocopy. I know that if I need to review the original again later, to clarify a point or gather more information, my notes can guide me back to the source. 

After an archival visit or when I finish reading through a collection, I also make sure to write down when the notes were taken. This was recommended to me by an advisor early on in graduate school, though I confess that I can't remember why they thought it was so important to do. To date, it has never come in handy for me, but I'm constantly surprised by the information I demand of my archival notes. I'm sure it will become clear one of these days.

I'm absolutely fried after a long week of research. I was incredibly productive, but that means I have all the more work to do when I return to Pittsburgh. Next week I will write about document processing and share advice on how to organize the giant mess of information that is gathered during an archival trip. It's a tedious process that probably will make for tedious reading, but I hope that it will be helpful to novice researchers who are grappling with this overwhelming task.