I’ve known about archives for a while and since I started digging into the black hole of genealogy, I’ve been curious about what stuff I could find there. At the Santa Clara Library (not the University library) there are no archives, but there are droves of old books and texts that can be used for historical purposes.
Sounds boring, right?
Source: Giphy
That’s probably why I didn’t end up going. The texts at the library were not what I was interested in researching. The information was dry and mainly historical based and while my dad or even my next-door neighbor may have been thrilled by what they found, I was… bored.
So when I looked on the University’s archives page and found all of the articles and texts that we could look into, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s not diaries of long-lost Santa Clarans or evidence of witchcraft in the Bay Area, but I still think it’s still interesting enough that I won’t be left snoring.
Ideas to Begin With
At this moment, I don’t have any clue what I’m going to look for in the archives. I know what I’m interested in- old texts, scandals, family histories- but I also know that I might be able to connect what I like to what I find.
Step 1: Peel Back the First Layer
Gaillet’s Archival Survival helped me to start to visualize the step-by-step approach that I need to be successful in digging through the treasure trove that we call the “Reading Room”. If I look at the document first in of itself- how it looks, how it’s preserved, what style of writing- I can see the importance of the text and how the author would have wanted me to interpret it.
Step 2: You’re Getting Closer…
By now, I can start looking into the secondary factors. What section was the text placed in? Do you agree with where it was placed? What other books were around it? Is the section usually full or empty? Really, there are any number of questions that can be asked about the secondary factors, or the outside factors.
Step 3: You’re Going For Gold
I like to call this method the APUSH method: my sophomore year of high school, I took Advanced Placement United States History, and the research that we used to do in that class would be very applicable right now as we start archiving. We can look into what the author’s background is: is he a historian or a scientist? Is he reputable or a loon? Afterward, we can look into the document’s background: what time and place is the text set in? Was there anything interesting happening during that time? Does the author have any clue what he’s talking about?
So while I still don’t know what I’m going to look into for my project, I have some clue about what I’ll do when I first set foot in the SCU archives. I may not be prepared, but at least I know how to be prepared.