So many notes . . .
. . . so little idea what to do with them.
I've accumulated a lot of statistical data the last couple of days. For instance, in 1851 Preston had the highest death rate of any location in the entire United Kingdom. Another example, 70% of Preston adults (and 53% of the total population) in the mid 1800s were Irish immigrants. Cool stuff. Well, I think it's cool. But is it needed data? That's the question I keep grappling with. And I periodically panic about it.
Am I wasting my time? My question is still too big! I don't have a clue what my smaller question is yet! Should I have a clue? What if I miss something? Am I missing something?
Thus far, I keep assuring myself that (a) I'm only a week into my actual investigating and (b) it's okay if I don't have my smaller question, yet. How can I possibly zoom in on the little picture until I'm well-versed in the big one? So I keep collecting information figuring that a good portion of it will probably not make it into my thesis. But that, I imagine, is pretty normal.
At least I hope it is.
A particularly awesome find yesterday was a book entitled Cotton: A Bibliography of North West England. That little treasure was about 175 pages listing the books, articles, governmental pamphlets, and other documentary goodies related to cotton manufacture in (mostly) Lancashire. The goodies I uncovered in its pages then led me to even more goodies. For instance, I've gone through the catalogue for the National Archives using some papers mentioned in that book. I now have a list of a couple dozen documents to look at when I'm in London next week, including Session Papers from the House of Lords and correspondence between Preston leaders and Parliament. Items I didn't even know existed until I read that book. So much for me not having anything to look for at the archives!
Not that the past couple of days have been all wine and roses at the library. There have been . . . issues. Yesterday was apparently disgusting old man day at the library. The first man is in there every day. He's not researching anything, he's reading newspapers. The library apparently subscribes to a number of local papers, and this man and a couple of other people I keep seeing go the library just to read them. Talk about cheap. Anyway, this one man is sitting about five feet from me and he just belches really loud. He doesn't utter an excuse me or anything. Just lets loose with a loud, long "buuurrrppp." A total of three of them over the span of about 30 minutes. Another old man came in shortly after Burp Man left and sat at the end of my table. He, too, was reading a newspaper. He, too, burped (although a bit quieter), but what made him disgusting was he kept spitting. Not big loogies, but as he'd read, he'd repeatedly make a rapid trio of wet P sounds. So he was actually spitting a bit. I have no clue why he kept doing that. I'm not 100% sure he realized he was doing it. He'd also smack his lips, making a generally gross wet sound.
Today, thankfully, Burp Man wasn't gassy. But I think I'd rather hear his burps than the screaming child some stupid cow brought into the library. The kid was around a year old or so and either happily screamed or angrily screamed. The librarians said nothing. I'm sitting on the other end of the room trying to comprehend columns of statistics from a sociological examination of 19th-century Lancashire and this kid is piercing my ear drums! I finally couldn't take it, anymore, and ended up leaving about a half hour earlier than I originally planned. I do not understand why the librarians didn't ask the woman to take her caterwalling child out of the library.
My other issue today (and the final one) is the fact that the reference library (like all reference libraries in Lancashire county) is being converted into a community history library. So any and all documents/books not directly related to local history are being transferred into the normal collection. Okay, no big deal. Except a book I wanted today (A History of Factory Legislation)has been removed from the reference library as a part of this change. Unfortunately, it's not actually in the normal collection, yet. Steve's niece, Nikki, who used to work at the Harris library, told me that when a book is tranferred like that, it must first get catalogued in the computer. Makes sense, except who knows how long it will be before that book is catalogued? Nikki said the basement is full of books like this. If I ask for the book, will the librarians even be able to find it? I didn't ask about it today, because the librarians had a bunch of people needing help. Fortunately, the information in that book is available from other sources (even if they are Parliament records written in some unfathomable legalese), so I figured I could just skip this source for now. Still, it's an issue. What if other books are similarly in limbo? What if I can't decipher 19th-century English legalese?
Thus ends my first week of active research. I'm taking tomorrow off to do mundane things, like laundry and vacuuming. My friend, Alicia, arrives Saturday and I want my weekend free of chores to show her around Preston before we dash to London Monday.
I've accumulated a lot of statistical data the last couple of days. For instance, in 1851 Preston had the highest death rate of any location in the entire United Kingdom. Another example, 70% of Preston adults (and 53% of the total population) in the mid 1800s were Irish immigrants. Cool stuff. Well, I think it's cool. But is it needed data? That's the question I keep grappling with. And I periodically panic about it.
Am I wasting my time? My question is still too big! I don't have a clue what my smaller question is yet! Should I have a clue? What if I miss something? Am I missing something?
Thus far, I keep assuring myself that (a) I'm only a week into my actual investigating and (b) it's okay if I don't have my smaller question, yet. How can I possibly zoom in on the little picture until I'm well-versed in the big one? So I keep collecting information figuring that a good portion of it will probably not make it into my thesis. But that, I imagine, is pretty normal.
At least I hope it is.
A particularly awesome find yesterday was a book entitled Cotton: A Bibliography of North West England. That little treasure was about 175 pages listing the books, articles, governmental pamphlets, and other documentary goodies related to cotton manufacture in (mostly) Lancashire. The goodies I uncovered in its pages then led me to even more goodies. For instance, I've gone through the catalogue for the National Archives using some papers mentioned in that book. I now have a list of a couple dozen documents to look at when I'm in London next week, including Session Papers from the House of Lords and correspondence between Preston leaders and Parliament. Items I didn't even know existed until I read that book. So much for me not having anything to look for at the archives!
Not that the past couple of days have been all wine and roses at the library. There have been . . . issues. Yesterday was apparently disgusting old man day at the library. The first man is in there every day. He's not researching anything, he's reading newspapers. The library apparently subscribes to a number of local papers, and this man and a couple of other people I keep seeing go the library just to read them. Talk about cheap. Anyway, this one man is sitting about five feet from me and he just belches really loud. He doesn't utter an excuse me or anything. Just lets loose with a loud, long "buuurrrppp." A total of three of them over the span of about 30 minutes. Another old man came in shortly after Burp Man left and sat at the end of my table. He, too, was reading a newspaper. He, too, burped (although a bit quieter), but what made him disgusting was he kept spitting. Not big loogies, but as he'd read, he'd repeatedly make a rapid trio of wet P sounds. So he was actually spitting a bit. I have no clue why he kept doing that. I'm not 100% sure he realized he was doing it. He'd also smack his lips, making a generally gross wet sound.
Today, thankfully, Burp Man wasn't gassy. But I think I'd rather hear his burps than the screaming child some stupid cow brought into the library. The kid was around a year old or so and either happily screamed or angrily screamed. The librarians said nothing. I'm sitting on the other end of the room trying to comprehend columns of statistics from a sociological examination of 19th-century Lancashire and this kid is piercing my ear drums! I finally couldn't take it, anymore, and ended up leaving about a half hour earlier than I originally planned. I do not understand why the librarians didn't ask the woman to take her caterwalling child out of the library.
My other issue today (and the final one) is the fact that the reference library (like all reference libraries in Lancashire county) is being converted into a community history library. So any and all documents/books not directly related to local history are being transferred into the normal collection. Okay, no big deal. Except a book I wanted today (A History of Factory Legislation)has been removed from the reference library as a part of this change. Unfortunately, it's not actually in the normal collection, yet. Steve's niece, Nikki, who used to work at the Harris library, told me that when a book is tranferred like that, it must first get catalogued in the computer. Makes sense, except who knows how long it will be before that book is catalogued? Nikki said the basement is full of books like this. If I ask for the book, will the librarians even be able to find it? I didn't ask about it today, because the librarians had a bunch of people needing help. Fortunately, the information in that book is available from other sources (even if they are Parliament records written in some unfathomable legalese), so I figured I could just skip this source for now. Still, it's an issue. What if other books are similarly in limbo? What if I can't decipher 19th-century English legalese?
Thus ends my first week of active research. I'm taking tomorrow off to do mundane things, like laundry and vacuuming. My friend, Alicia, arrives Saturday and I want my weekend free of chores to show her around Preston before we dash to London Monday.
I shouldn't laugh, but the disgusting old men in the library was very amusing to read about, if not to share library space with. My sympathies!
ReplyDeleteI'm eager to get started on my research too.
Regarding your smaller question ... I think you should relax, dear friend. The very fact that you have a focus at all is a wonderful thing. I believe your smaller issue will find YOU when the time is right.
I can't wait to read your thesis!!
Thanks for the encouragement. :-)
ReplyDeleteI assume you'll be visiting Notre Dame today. I'm interested in reading your impression of it.