My index has an index
Now that's organization for you! Ha!

I started my diss research five years ago by slogging through an institutional storage closet full of uncatalogued material. Exciting (in a geeky history-buff way) to be the first one to really read through this stuff, but time consuming. First I had to figure out what was there, then I had to create some kind of an organizing system while transcribing and filing. It sounds like a straightforward process, but it's actually kind of a mental maze because it takes a while to make important connections, i.e. when are the same people re-appearing in different documents, what's a likely range of dates for undated letters, etc. etc. You get the picture, right?

And, of course, this was not a paid gig for me. So in between I was working and teaching, with a long break after I became a mother and moved two-hours distance from the archive.

Last summer, when I knew I was going to move across the continent, I spent six whirlwind weeks trying to finish the job--and came within one box. Mission (mostly) accomplished!

Now I am surrounded my mountains of paper as I cross-reference and double check to make sure that what's on my computers matches older print-outs and earlier files. In short, I am indexing my index.

No major "OH *&*%" moments so far, with 85% complete. Fingers crossed for the last 15%!