Note Taking

Accuracy of note taking takes on a different dimension in archives than in a library. It is more difficult to recover citations from documents than from books and revisiting an archives is not always an option. Accurate citations are a guarantee that you or your readers can consult the same material in the future. At a minimum, you should take enough notes to ensure that factual data and quotations which you intend to use are recorded in full.

Your working notes should include:

Name of archive institution
Record group or manuscript collection
Series or file title
Exact identity of the item consulted (include archival codes)
Date consulted
Your content note for the information that interests you

Once a record group or manuscript collection has been consulted, it is wise to prepare a summary note indicating the chronological scope and the arrangement of the material, whether all of a group or only part was checked, items which you plan to use and those which are irrelevant for your project. Such a summary will allow you to use material more efficiently and to avoid duplication of effort on any follow-up visit.

Ultimately, each researcher will have to decide how much detail to record. As with so many aspects of working in an archive, your skill in this area will improve with each subsequent visit.

Citations

As a general rule of thumb, the first reference is to the individual item; the series, group and name or archives follow. As with all referencing consistency of approach is essential.

The Academic Integrity web pages from the University of York give useful guidelines on how to cite less standard resources and is worth consulting: https://www.york.ac.uk/integrity/referencing.html

Example of citing a photograph in Harvard referencing style