Maxims for Rare Book and Archives Research

Slow down.

Tolerate mystery as a precondition to discovery.  Resist annoyance.  Remain amused.

Collaborate with your colleagues; do not compete with them.  Collaboration concentrates attention; competition distracts.

The more eyes on a document we are studying, the better we will see it.

Do not be afraid to be curious.  There is always more evidence available than you now can see.  Look again.

Do not be to proud to study the historical context in which your document was produced.  Preparation encourages serendipitous discovery by giving the mind a large field of expected patterns which novel, nondescript phenomena will violate in surprising or irritating ways.

Never trust what is written on the spine or fore-edge of a book; never trust the title page of a book.  “Book” is a word for a container, not a single commodity, and until you have thoroughly examined the container you do not know what is in it.

Who, what, where, when, why, and how are questions which may be asked many times in many ways about the same document.

If direct light does not make the text legible, use raking light (light source held pointed at the edge of the document at about a 5 degree angle of elevation off horizontal).  If raking light does not make the text legible, digitize it.  If digitization does not make the text legible, ask a colleague to look at the original document with you and start over.  If that does not work, put it aside and come back to it later.  Only in special cases will it be worth using X-ray Fluorescence Imaging.

We never guess; we always look it up.  We may even resort to searching with Google, but we never stop there.  Trust print editions over digital surrogates unless they are facsimiles.  Trust modern editions over older editions unless trusted reviews tell you otherwise.

Always create a clear record of what you have done with/to your documents, especially your scheme for describing, conserving and storing them, and relating them to other documents.  You will not live forever and someone coming after you needs to know what you have done.