One way in which I use smart groups is to auto-sequence my archival data chronologically.
#DEVONNOTE REVIEW ARCHIVE#
Each seminar, interview, book, journal and archive file thus has a group of its own everything I know about or learn from that source, and frequently the source itself in PDF, JPG or DOC form, is in there.ĭevonThink also has, alongside its normal groups, the ability to create "Smart Groups", which automatically collate data from anywhere in the database matching a given set of boolean conditions. In my "Library" group, I have a group per book or article, listed by author/date of publication. With archives, I usually replicate the filing structure of the archive itself, as this helps with citation later on. "British Library", "The National Archives, UK"), and within that, one group per source I consulted from that repository. I allocate one group for each physical repository I consulted (e.g. In my "Archives" group, my substructures usually mimic those of the archives I visited. The bulk of material in my PhD database is contained in two groups: primary material ("Archives") and secondary material ("Library").
An expanded version of this essay is available on my blog (the URL for which is appended below).ĭevonThink's flexible filing structure is one of its biggest attractions for me: it allows you to create any root file structure you wish, beginning with the most basic unit, a "group". Given limited space, I can only touch on three of the many useful features of DevonThink: flexible filing, smart groups, and textual concordance.
I therefore offer the following as just one example of how DevonThink can be used for history research. What I found most helpful when getting started was to look at as many examples of how others had used DevonThink that I could find. There are thus as many database configurations as there are people in the world: each one a unique reflection of the brain which produced it. The beauty (and terror) of DevonThink is that opening a new database is like staring into a slate grey abyss: DevonThink allows you to fashion pretty much any folder structure you like, to impose any order you wish upon your data universe. DevonThink was designed to be a solution to the problem of managing the data we collect, and its ultimate solution is to 'go paperless': every scrap of your research can be transformed into bytes and deposited into the database, to be retrieved with mere keystrokes. It's extraordinarily permissive: DevonThink will take text files, Word documents, PDFs, JPGs, PNGs, web bookmarks, RSS feeds and more. It's an incredibly smart, flexibly structured, fully searchable database, a one-stop container into which one can deposit all manner of research material.
#DEVONNOTE REVIEW SOFTWARE#
Consolidating this untidy sprawl has become a problem in itself, one to which scholars usually apply themselves only incidentally in the actual task of research.ĭevonThink is a piece of research management software for Macintosh. We work with a scruffy assortment of research formats: typed notes, PDFs and archive photographs alongside microfilm printouts, photocopies, and a scrawl of illegible notes from that one archive on your research trip that wouldn't let you bring in your laptop. Yet, we today are a transitional generation of historians strung between physical and digital worlds. With the increasing ubiquity of digital archives has come the expectation that we must use them with rapid advances in search technology has come the requirement that our research be more comprehensive than ever before. In an age of information overload and technological advance, our research methods are rapidly changing.
0 kommentar(er)
