I love all your posts but as spooky season approaches they are even more fantastic!! Your enthusiasm shines through 🙂.
As the year winds down I was wondering if Dave would consider doing a "best graphic novels" or "favorite graphic novels" post. It would be super helpful for shopping purposes and also as an entry point for me! Keep up the fantastic work and enjoy David Tennant on Halloween!! Jealous!!!
Absolutely! I'd love to do that. -- and thanks for asking. ... I'm thinking that might be a good thing to do in November, when we're done with SSoP production, but before the holidays. - Dave
While not an archivist (looking back, I probably should have trusted my gut in library school and gone that route), I have had the pleasure of working closely with several of them. I can tell you that processing (ie, the methodical steps involved in taking something from a random piece of mysterious paper found in a box to a precisely filed document which now has meaning and relevance) takes AGES to do. An archivist can spend their entire career and never finish a single collection of donations from a deceased author/artist/scientist/important person. I know a woman who was archiving the Don Bluth archive (You may remember his animated films from the 70s and 80s). After about 9 years, she and her full time assistant were excited when they announced the collection was 11% processed. That means 89% of the contents from his office were still in boxes, completely disorganized and useless until they could get to them. And this was just one collection she was working on. Add in that archives are typically underfunded (Hollinger boxes are insanely expensive and eat up most of the budget), and you're looking at decades of work. But....once completed, or even partially completed, they are a thing of beauty. I have gone from holding a Christmas card from Andy Warhol to holding a receipt for the purchase of a Faberge egg for a shockingly low price (even by 1945 standards!) within seconds. For someone to create a system this research-friendly out of a pile of disorganized papers is incredible. This is the wonder that is a proper archive. Yes the boxes are uniform and boring looking, but they hold magic. The more boring the archives shelves look, the more useful and protected they are. Each box can contain one-of-a-kind ephemera, easily discoverable, housed for generations to come. And it's all done by an archivist, by hand, who creates order from chaos in a way that allows each collection to grow forever, if needed, as new things are discovered. I encourage everyone to visit an archive to see for yourself. They are in every university, every museum (just about), and in many libraries (especially large urban ones). Get a tour. See how it is done. The archivist will probably be happy to answer your questions. Support them with donations and volunteer time. Archives are where civilization is stored forever.
This is my favorite comment I've ever read on anything ever. Thank you for this!
I think I would have liked to be an archivist in another life. We were watching 'Slow Horses' the other night, and the agents have been assigned the task of cataloguing about a billion boxes of old files, and I was, like, 'Ooooh, that would be a cool job.'
You wrote: "I encourage everyone to visit an archive to see for yourself. They are in every university, every museum (just about), and in many libraries (especially large urban ones). Get a tour. See how it is done. The archivist will probably be happy to answer your questions."
Thank you for the link about novels/novellas/novelettes! I have been wondering what exactly “novelette” means ever since I recently read the absolutely wonderful 2024 Hugo Award winning novelette, “The Year Without Sunshine.”
I'm glad you liked that quick article. I said to Dave, 'Is there something shorter than a novella but longer than a short story?' and Google came to the rescue. :-)
I love all your posts but as spooky season approaches they are even more fantastic!! Your enthusiasm shines through 🙂.
As the year winds down I was wondering if Dave would consider doing a "best graphic novels" or "favorite graphic novels" post. It would be super helpful for shopping purposes and also as an entry point for me! Keep up the fantastic work and enjoy David Tennant on Halloween!! Jealous!!!
Absolutely! I'd love to do that. -- and thanks for asking. ... I'm thinking that might be a good thing to do in November, when we're done with SSoP production, but before the holidays. - Dave
Oooh, this is a fun idea! I'll let Dave weigh in on it, but I like it :-)
Thank you for the DT shout-out. I'm VERY excited.
While not an archivist (looking back, I probably should have trusted my gut in library school and gone that route), I have had the pleasure of working closely with several of them. I can tell you that processing (ie, the methodical steps involved in taking something from a random piece of mysterious paper found in a box to a precisely filed document which now has meaning and relevance) takes AGES to do. An archivist can spend their entire career and never finish a single collection of donations from a deceased author/artist/scientist/important person. I know a woman who was archiving the Don Bluth archive (You may remember his animated films from the 70s and 80s). After about 9 years, she and her full time assistant were excited when they announced the collection was 11% processed. That means 89% of the contents from his office were still in boxes, completely disorganized and useless until they could get to them. And this was just one collection she was working on. Add in that archives are typically underfunded (Hollinger boxes are insanely expensive and eat up most of the budget), and you're looking at decades of work. But....once completed, or even partially completed, they are a thing of beauty. I have gone from holding a Christmas card from Andy Warhol to holding a receipt for the purchase of a Faberge egg for a shockingly low price (even by 1945 standards!) within seconds. For someone to create a system this research-friendly out of a pile of disorganized papers is incredible. This is the wonder that is a proper archive. Yes the boxes are uniform and boring looking, but they hold magic. The more boring the archives shelves look, the more useful and protected they are. Each box can contain one-of-a-kind ephemera, easily discoverable, housed for generations to come. And it's all done by an archivist, by hand, who creates order from chaos in a way that allows each collection to grow forever, if needed, as new things are discovered. I encourage everyone to visit an archive to see for yourself. They are in every university, every museum (just about), and in many libraries (especially large urban ones). Get a tour. See how it is done. The archivist will probably be happy to answer your questions. Support them with donations and volunteer time. Archives are where civilization is stored forever.
This is my favorite comment I've ever read on anything ever. Thank you for this!
I think I would have liked to be an archivist in another life. We were watching 'Slow Horses' the other night, and the agents have been assigned the task of cataloguing about a billion boxes of old files, and I was, like, 'Ooooh, that would be a cool job.'
You wrote: "I encourage everyone to visit an archive to see for yourself. They are in every university, every museum (just about), and in many libraries (especially large urban ones). Get a tour. See how it is done. The archivist will probably be happy to answer your questions."
Such a great tip! Thank you for all of this.
Thank you for the link about novels/novellas/novelettes! I have been wondering what exactly “novelette” means ever since I recently read the absolutely wonderful 2024 Hugo Award winning novelette, “The Year Without Sunshine.”
I'm glad you liked that quick article. I said to Dave, 'Is there something shorter than a novella but longer than a short story?' and Google came to the rescue. :-)
That hiked looks amazing! Maybe if we're in Canada next fall...
The felt medieval cats about took me out. lol talk about a jump scare.
HA! YAY!