The Research Process
The Research Process
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Archival research requires space and time and attention.
Archival research requires space and time and attention.
Archival research is slow, experiential, and not necessarily linear in its trajectory. As you slowly look at and analyze the materials before you, taking notes or making photographs, you’ll find new ideas and questions emerging in your mind.
A research experience differs from person to person and project to project. You may wish to think of the open-endedness of archival research as more like a conversation than an extraction of data.
Artist Kathryn (Kay) Metz established and taught in the printmaking program at UC Santa Cruz and mentored emerging artists for decades. Her papers include her travel journals, collected art, and professional and personal records. (Kathryn E. Metz papers, MS.019)
Choose an archival document of your choice (for UCSC students, you may wish to work with one the two archival documents reproduced in this folder: "Free Angela" 2-page campus flyer (UA Ephemera, Activism File) or Department of Corrections 1-page memo (John Thorne papers, MS423). Read your selected document and then answer the following questions about it.
1. What kind of document is it? (a letter, an email, a map, a report, a memo, etc.?)
2. Who created it?
3. Who is the audience or recipient?
4. What did you learn from reading this document?
5. What research projects could include use of this document as a source?
6. What are keywords, names, etc. that this document suggests, for further research?
7. What questions does the document leave you with?
8. What unique perspective does each document provide?
Archival research may lead to surprise, excitement, even confusion.
Archival research may lead to surprise, excitement, even confusion.
Archival research involves working with other people’s memories in material form, and this work can affect you in different ways. You may not learn what you expected to. The archival collection may prompt you to think differently about a facet of your study. The materials might be troubling or complicating. All of this is normal. You are undeniably a part of your research process, worth attending to.
Photographer Carol Foote took this photograph of UC Santa Cruz students at a Halloween Ball in 1979. Her photographs document campus life from 1978 to 1982. (Carol Foote photographs of the University of California, Santa Cruz, MS.259)
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