Archival journals are boring, boring, boring...

[elspethdixon]

Hah! Done with my stupid article reviews for archive class (the one on the relative merits of various kinds of microfilm was interesting. The one about current challenges in the preservation field was dull but thought-provoking. The one about collection developement--with diagrams!--made me want to gouge my eyes out from sheer boredom).

Said articles did not have a unifying theme, due to my selecting them from Academic Search Premiere at random, so I made one up and claimed that they all dealt with the effects of changing technology on the archival profession.

It was nowhere near as emotionally satisfying as BS-ing about the construction of American identity. Being pretentious about history is fun. Being pretentious about the relative merits of print media vs. electronic media is pointless.

Comments

[seanchai.livejournal.com]

Yay! It's always so satisfying to finish dull, lengthy assignments, since then you never have to do them again. And it's really surprising how much fun BS-ing about history can be.

But, yay for being done with a mostly dull assignment. The microfilm one does sound interesting, though. I never knew that there was more than one kind.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

There are, apparently, three kinds of microfilm. Silver gelatin microfilm is best from an archival standpoint (longest shelf life under proper temperature/humidity conditions).

By the time I hit page two, I was heartily thanking my history experience--rigorously citing every other sentence with Turabian footnotes can make your paper half a page longer.

[seanchai.livejournal.com]

Ah, Turabian citations. The history major's friend.

[harkalark.livejournal.com]

Aha... sounds like somebody's in library school. Or at least, the things you're talking about sound a lot like my graduate classes all those years ago (well, okay, up until last year).

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Yep--a double program at University of Maryland, in Library Science and American History.