thanks for not being a zombie

So after you've contracted document OCD, how do you manage all the information you collect on your hard drive? Here are some useful software tools:

1. LaunchBar: This is an affordable Mac application. [I don't know what an equivalent app for Windows might be.] I have so many documents full of notes (as well as full text documents of primary and secondary materials) that there is no way I can remember everything saved on my hard drive. I need something to access these documents easily, without having to hunt and click my way through different directories. LaunchBar, which Ian recommended to me, indexes all of my documents and allows me to launch them with a few taps on the keyboard. It also pays attention to which ones I open most often, so that it presents the most frequently used ones at the top of any list it creates. I have begun to change the way I title my documents because this makes it easier for LaunchBar to get to the document I'm looking for. See item 2 here. LaunchBar will open my Greenblatt notes for me if I type "Greenblatt," and if I've been using that document often recently then typing the letter "G" is enough to call it up.


2. Spotlight: This search feature comes with the new Mac OS, Tiger. [Those of you using Windows might try out Google Desktop.] The really powerful thing about Spotlight is that it will search the contents of all of my documents, which is great for finding all the references to, say, Elizabeth Eisenstein in all of my reading notes, my course syllabi, and the articles I've downloaded from places like J-STOR and Project Muse. It will also do what Launchbar does, described above, but it doesn't do it as quickly, which is why I'm still using LaunchBar. For example, if I want to launch Firefox, I just type "f" into LaunchBar, because it remembers that I use Firefox every day. Spotlight will just list everything that begins with an "f." Perhaps there's a way to customize Spotlight to change this behavior, but if so I haven't learned how yet.


3. OmniOutliner: Another Mac application [I don't know of a Windows equivalent.] I've been using this to sketch out my writing and to manage my task lists, and so far I like it. I've tried the outline function in MS Word and have found it awkward by comparison. I've tried to figure out how to outline using OpenOffice (well, Neo-Office, actually) but have had not luck. OmniOutliner it is. See these two entries by Scott, and this one by Kathleen.


4. EndNote: My university recently decided to get a campus-wide license for this bibliographical software, but I haven't yet acquired a copy. It seems to be the gold standard of such applications, though. And it's available for both Windows and Mac.

In sum, as any scholar of writing, reading, and publishing will tell you, the tools we use to read and write matter a great deal.

Addendum: I really wish that more academic books were available as e-books. This would not only make it easier for me to carry them around with me wherever I take my laptop (thus reducing the strain on my shoulder), but it would also pull them into what is now essentially a fulltext database on my laptop.

[composed and posted with Ecto.]

Posted by at 9:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

A couple of grad students at my alma mater recently wrote entries that got me thinking about tools and practices for keeping track of your research, writing, and thinking.

A few months ago, Steven Johnson wrote about the ways in which technology facilitates not only his writing, but his thinking. Now that I've started to use--in addition to a word processor--some tools for searching, organizing, and outlining, I'm really beginning to experience what he's getting at.

Below are some obsessive-compulsive suggestions for maximizing the accessibilty of your notes and documents. You should only adopt as many of these (if any) as you think might be helpful. They are only meant to be the means to help you in your research and teaching. Do not let them become an end in themselves.

1. If you can, take notes on your computer (or a handheld device that can sync with your computer), rather than by hand in a notebook or in the margins of your books. Why? Because digital versions of notes will be much more accessible and more portable. Trust me: you will need those reading notes later, either when you are writing something or when you are preparing to teach.


2. I read a very good suggestion some time ago on one of these blogs (I think). Give your documents filenames that will make it easy for you, or someone else (you never know), to determine what is in the document just by looking at the filename. For example, if you've taken notes on Stephen Greenblatt's essay "Invisible Bullets: Renaissance Authority and Its Subversion," which the journal Glyph published in 1981, then give your notes a filename like greenblatt_invisible.bullets_glyph.1981.doc (I've also started giving my syllabi ridiculously long names like 2004.spring.english.550.syl.doc.)


3. Reading on paper is still quite useful and allows you to spread your information out over a much greater two-dimensional space than even the largest computer monitor. However, when reading something printed you'll want to know where on your hard drive a particular printed document is to be found. So, for reading notes or for other things you are writing, open the document in your word processor, and insert the filename on the first page somewhere. If you can, insert the "field" "filename" so that if you change the filename of the document, it will automatically change in your document. Now, when you look at the printed document, you'll know what it's known by to your computer. You can probably create a macro so that this is done automatically on every document you create.


4. Put a header on every page of every document you print out. The header should contain enough information so that any page will identify what larger document it belongs to. Also, put not only the page number in your header, but also the page count so that as you look at any page, you will know where in the larger document it belongs and how big the larger document is. As above, you can probably automate (some of) this step with a macro. Your header might look something like this: "Greenblatt -- Invisible Bullets -- Reading Notes -- 1/5"


5. If you want to be really obsessive, be sure to include a field that indicates when the document was printed. Doing so will allow you to compare the age of the printed version with the age of the digital version. If you've made changes to the digital version, the printed version will be outdated and might need to be replaced. As above, try to use a macro for this.


6. Punch three holes in your printed documents--or print them out on pre-punched paper--and keep them in 3-ring notebooks organized along roughly the same lines as their digital documents on your hard drive. This is especially useful for teaching, when you need to take your notes with you into class and might need to grab them in a hurry.

Now, do I maintain this OCD system of organization? Well...no. But isn't it lovely to think so?

[composed and posted with Ecto.]

Posted by at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Litera Scripta Manet (The Written Word Endures)

     -Motto in painting on ceiling at Library of Congress

I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, or to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document, or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library or kindle therein any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.

     -The Bodleian Declaration

Oxford University's Bodleian Library gift shop sells a metal plaque declaring "Litera Scripta Manet," accompanied by a card that explains the motto is featured at the LoC and that it "perhaps comes from Horace."

Before you can get a reader's card at the Bodleian, you must recite and then sign a printed version of the Bodleian Declaration.

The two quotes highlight a paradox in attitudes toward our Western cultural heritage. On the one hand, we believe in the lasting power of the ideas contained in the most valuable documents archived in our libraries. On the other hand, we know that we must remain vigilant to protect the often quite fragile objects upon which the written word is preserved; every time a reader handles a letter, a book, a pamphlet, a will, a map, the object is one (often quite tiny, but sometimes not) step closer to oblivion. Ask any physicist: entropy is unavoidable. Librarians know this, of course, and the special collections in libraries are an attempt to keep the inevitable at bay. They are the place where abstract ideas concerning such things as art, history, and philosophy collide with the reality of the material world.

Every contact leaves a trace, but every work is mortal.

Posted by at 3:09 AM | Permalink

Kurt Cobain and I were both born just outside of Seattle in January of early 1967. I worked on an entry early this morning that began with, "I want to tell you to just say no to the Cobain hagiography (Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Associated Press, Seattle Times, Launch Yahoo, New Musical Express)."

I wrote more, but I couldn't figure out how to end it, so instead, I'm going to just tell you to go read this article on the reunion and current tour of the Pixies.

Okay, I'll also include this part of what I was writing earlier: "In his WaPo piece, David Segal writes, 'Kurt Cobain would detest all the re-eulogizing prompted by the 10th anniversary of his suicide.' No he wouldn't. Here, Segal participates in one of the shadiest elements of tending to the rock star ethos, something no respectable music journalist should do, in my opinion. Cobain was a rock star, and part of being a rock star is to express disdain for being a rock star. It's cool not to want to be seen as cool. It should be the music journalist's job to call rock stars out on this duplicity. Cobain was as involved in the fashioning of his own indie image as anyone. In Heavier than Heaven, Charles Cross explains that although Cobain told interviewers that the first concert he attended was Black Flag, he had actually seen Sammy Hagar previously."

In his suicide note, Cobain quoted Neil Young, "It's better to burn out than to fade away." I wonder if his daughter would agree. I also wonder if Cobain knew this song by Young:

Continue reading "i miss the comfort in being sad" »

Posted by at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)