It is at this point that Bookends comes into play. Shorter actually works better when later using DTPO’s search and classification functions. Notes seem to work best when limited to no more than about 1000 words. (Yes, I export my notes still, both for redundancy purposes and because I haven’t yet made the full jump to paperless workflow). When taking a note, I enter the title on the title pane, and then replicate that title at the top of the note, which becomes important for export down the road. I take most of my notes now directly in that third pane. I like to have DTPO in 3-pane mode, so as to see the tree, the contents of an individual folder, and a note-taking space. In Screenshot 2 you can the transcription and notes taken for a series of letters titled Memoria de la Revolución de Quito en cinco cartas escritas a un amigo, octubre 1809. I now try to do all or most of my notetaking directly into devonthink, in the form of rtf files inside the note tree. I further subdivide based on the physical location of documentary sources– AGI, by section or AGN by section, then by box, then by date or other organizing tag within the box. Right now, however, this database is on my Macbook- so not enough storage there!

With relatively low-cost/high-volume storage available, it would really be possible to store the photos of each of my case files with the notes as well. Whenever possible, I will embed the actual source in the database as well. Much of the info that worked into the late colonial part of the project hasn’t made it into DTPO at this point, and may never!Īs you can see, the tree contains root folders titled Inbox, Incoming (redundant/feeling my way around), Tasks, Notes (short notes not related to specific sources, but related to the project), Article Manuscripts, Book Project, Theory/Gender/Sexuality, Padrones (for extensive jail census), My Writings (dissertation chapters, conference papers, manuscript chapters, etc.) and a few other largely unused bits.īook Project is divided chronologically into the Bourbon Period and the Independence/National Period, which are further subdivided by primary and secondary sources both printed and manuscript. This is the database that supports my current research, though it is not complete. I like to visualize my sources in a way that reproduces their organization in the archive, for the primary stuff, as well as the thematic and narrative points they will later support. Some people have no need for hierarchy, the but information anarchism doesn’t work for me. What I like about DTPO is its ability to organize information in a hierarchical notetree while also maintaining the flexibility to organize and access the information in freer form. I need something more powerful than a simple note taking tool, though. Mind-mapping applications like NovaMind… MacJournaler or other journaling apps can be adapted for note taking… There’s Yojimbo, Voodoo Pad, Soho Notes, Omnioutliner, the more expensive Tinderbox for crazy hypertext note taking… The list goes on and on, and even something like Zotero which is primarily intended as a reference manager can be used for some types of note taking. There are also other apps you can download to help with the tagging process.īefore getting more specifically into DTPO, let me note that there are a number of other excellent note-taking and research database programs out there that might be better suited to the way you think, like to take notes, and organize your data. The comment field is accessed through the more-info option whenever a file is highlighted in the finder, as any Mac user would be familiar with. The addition of the symbol (ie, would limit the returns to files that have been appropriately tagged rather than any file that includes the word within the text. To do this, you would tag each file with a number of relevant keywords attached to a symbol or * or &) so that later, when searching for related notes keyword searches are possible. With a certain amount of discipline, it is possible to refine Spotlight through the use of keyword tags. I find, however, that Spotlight searches become quickly ponderous.

In the Mac world, particularly with the advent of Spotlight which allows for full text searching of everything on your hard drive, one may ask why bother with a database program. Using devonthink for historical research: Constructing the DatabaseĭevonThink Pro Office (DTPO) has become my research database of choice.

Devonthink pro office search syntax