Organizing Research with Google Drive and Evernote

For the past few weeks, I’ve been viewing archival materials at Columbia’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML). Two collections have played a significant role in my research: the Buildings & Grounds Collection (1755-2012) and the Historical Photographs Collection (1855-2012). I found maps, letters, and photographs that all pertain to my research topic.

I’ve been rethinking the way I collect digital resources during this project. As a student, I had a good understanding of my research strengths and weaknesses. The system I would devise for this project had to allow me to be mobile considering I would have to visit different libraries as well as keep all of my sources in one simple place. For precisely these reasons, I chose to create a form in Google Drive that would aggregate all my source information to a spreadsheet. The form was created to record digital and analog resources that I discover during my preliminary search and would easily allow me to get back to those resources for further investigation.

The form took a bit of time to create and was based on the following questions:

  • What am I looking for?
  • What am I using to look for it? (Platform of source)
  • How did I get here? (Search terms)
  • What did I find? (Title of material, format, etc.)
  • How did I retain the information? (File names, bookmarks, etc.)
  • What is the copyright information for what I’ve found?
  • How does this fit into my thesis?

The form is great for text but does not work for images (reference photographs) of primary sources. For this part of my research, I have turned to Evernote. With Evernote, you can write simple text notes, add photographs to notes, record audio, and more. Each note can be easily organized within a notebook and notebooks can be organized within ‘stacks.’ Evernote and the Google form relate in a parent/child relationship. The basic collection information is recorded via the Google form (with a note about whether or not the collection was actually viewed) and Evernote is used to capture individual items within that collection.

I struggled with how to organize reference photographs of documents I need to evaluate for future possible digitization. In the past I’ve used the camera on my phone, which leads to wasted time, chaos, and frustration because each of those snaps would have to be corralled somehow, not to mention the fact that all of my work related snaps would be mixed with photographs from my personal life. Before heading over to RBML, I decided to take reference photos using my iPad.

One of the best aspects of Evernote is that you can install it on your computer, use it as a web application, and download it on your mobile device.  There are lots of applications that can sync to your Evernote account to make it more efficient based on your needs. I’m curious to hear how others use Evernote so that I enhance my own experience. I have a feeling I haven’t discovered all it has to offer quite yet.



Notes within my Morningside notebook.

Notes within my Morningside RBML notebook.

Each note contains information about where   the image came from.

Each note contains information about where the image came from.

Jennifer Ferretti

Author: Jennifer Ferretti

Jennifer Ferretti is the Association of Research Libraries Career Enhancement Fellow in the Humanities & History Division. She is a graduate student at Pratt Institute’s School of Information and Library Science, concentrating on digital humanities. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art before becoming the Curator of Photographs & Digitization Coordinator at the Maryland Historical Society. She is interested in digital preservation, curation, photography, urban history, and turn-of-the-century architecture.Her focus for the Morningside Heights project is the history of the natural and built environment of the neighborhood.