Archives...

When I talk to people outside academia about my work, I am often told "Oh, but you can get all of that from the internet". They seem surprised that I have to go and visit physical records, often many miles away.
Digitisation of records is a great gift for historians, but is limited too by the searchability (or lack thereof) of catalogues. The serendipitous possibilities that come of flicking to the next page, or the next file, or just of rifling through piles of ephemera, is lost in the digital project.
I have spent a lot of time in the past looking at newspapers on microfilm, and part of the fun for me is looking at what else is on the page: the other stories, the advertisements, what made up the world of those people for whom the story was NEWS.

Anyone know anything about MySQL?

I am trying to install the database system in order to run WordPress, and I don't know what I am doing. I've downloaded it, clicked for it to install itself, but I haven't got any further than that. I can't find /usr/local/mysql and have no clue.

Anyone use MySQL for research? I'm not a quant. person, so I've barely mastered excel spreadsheets.

jobs and travel...

I'm still on the academic job market. I feel like I have done well to be considered for some excellent posts this year, and the economy has made things a bit more difficult for everyone. The timeline of the job cycle can be somewhat frustrating, in that it seems like I don't get to focus enough time on the job I have when I'm having to worry (and draft endless applications) for posts to follow!

Nonetheless, I am off to Amsterdam soon to do some research as a visiting scholar at the International Institute of Asian Studies. I'm very excited actually. I will be looking at VOC archives and various other things. I have visited Amsterdam a couple of times before and an extended stay should be fun.

For anyone interested in reading 17th century Dutch texts, check out this fabulous site:
http://www.dutch.ac.uk/reading_courses/early_modern_dutch/Home1_new.html