Course talk:ARST573/Archives – History (Early Modern)

Morgan,

I am really impressed with your page. I am however, slightly confused by your title "Key Developments" as it does not give me a good idea about what is going on in this section. I think the content is great, revising the title is my only suggestion.

Hi Cathryn!

Thanks for the feedback, however I'm not following along exactly with the title issue. What doesn't make sense about it? Or do you have any ideas of what I could change it to? Basically, that section is a quick summary of all the main archival developments of the period. Kind of the cheat-sheet to the wiki.

Hey Morgan,

I think even you called it "Summary of Archival Developments" that would make more sense as a title to me; however, this might just be me.

Hmm, okay wonderful. Thanks for the advice. I truly appreciate the fresh set of eyes since I've been staring at this page so much I'm sure I missed things like that.

Hello Morgan,

The content of the page and your writing looks complete. The only further suggestion I can make is to play around with the sizes of the pictures you have included. You can do this by adding |400 px| before |thumb|. I chose 400 px as an example but feel free to play around with it if you want.

Thanks for picking up the history where I left off!

Wonderful! Thank you for letting me know how to do that. You've definitely been a lot of help in figuring out the little details in wiki. Thank you!

Hi Morgan!

I think you have done an incredible job with the amount of information you have included! it is incredible how this page takes on the whole world and the amount of information your provide. I know you are still working on introducing the religious archives section, but in there I would really like to see why they were significant during your time period. I only mention this because you go right from discussing countries to religion. I know you are working on this section it was just something that caught my attention and thought I would mention while it was still in progress.

Thank you so much for the advice! I really appreciate it, and will be sure to include it when I get that part.

Hi Morgan C.,

difficult wiki topic, bonus points for taking it on if you ask me. Looks good, easy to read and is interesting despite being what I think can be a dry topic. I think you got the right headings and areas for it, but not sure if it is possible to make a more clearer connection between the religious archives and the regional development of archives, or speak more explicitly about the religious archives in your overview (although, you do briefly mention it). Also, I agree with one of the comments that if you have the time and it makes sense to you, are there other non-Western archives, outside of China, you could mention? Maybe it's tough to find information on this, especially when so much of the archival tradition comes from Western civilization. I would like to see a slightly longer overview that lays out your plan a bit more. Appreciate all of the little notes that tell us what you're planning next, makes it a lot easier to understand what's going on and how things will fit. I really like that you included a section on "pre early modern" to give us some background to where your topic is coming from, and I'm thinking about including a similar section like that in my wiki.

I think you're doing a fantastic job with a difficult topic, with so much to cover and communicate in this limited medium.

Take care,

V

Thanks Victor! I'm thinking of redefining the focus of my page more specifically to European archives, simply because, as a lot of people are mentioning, I need more non-western content but its really hard to find much in English.

Hi Morgan! Some final suggestions and comments for your wiki:

• it looks like you're onto a very strategic plan for completing your wiki
• "Major Religious Institutions" or "Key Religious Institutions" may be an alternative heading for your 4th section
• may I suggest in your short blurbs under religious institutions, you can list generally some of the records specific to religious institutions that these groups would have created? I think that's interesting, like marriage certificates, documentation of rites, etc? Just an idea.
• Nice pictures and embedded links. Good job!
• and lastly let me paste my rave about sub-references that I've been giving everyone:

Christie gave me a big tip about referencing I wanted to share with you. My page was beginning to get very long because of all the "Ibid"s, and I figured out how to use sub-references so it goes [1 ] [1. 1] [1.2 ]...etc, and you can use them everywhere on your wiki where you repeat your references, and there is only one line down at the bottom. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Referencing_for_beginners under "Same references used more than once".

Thank you! We were just discussing references yesterday after I saw how nice yours looked. I will definitely fix them.

Hi Morgan, Great job on such a difficult topic! I think that your wiki is organized by heading very well. Because your content (with the exception of your section on China) focuses on early modern european archival development, I would recommend either adding more content about other non-european areas during this time OR removing the section about China and adding in your overview that you are looking exclusively at early modern european archival development. I think your 'Key Developments' section is really important and look forward to seeing how it progresses.

Thanks Kaitlin! And yes I'm aware my page is lacking in non-European content. I'm having a really difficult time finding information in English on other areas, so I'm debating on changing my page's topic to focus strictly on European archival development.

Hey Morgan,

Great work so far -- I'm looking forward to reading more as you continue developing your page. Just a thought -- instead of having the "see also" links incorporated into the discussion of the Pre-Early Modern Period, perhaps you could create an entirely separate section for them, near the end/References? Otherwise they might be overlooked. Also, might be useful to sprinkle more sources throughout? e.g., "The Chanceries kept a steady staff of approximately 80 individuals, each of which assisted in the management of the archives." -- where did you find this information?

Thanks for the feedback however I'm a little confused about your comment in regards to the "see also" part. I have them mentioned within the page content as well as at the end. Where else do you think I should put them? And thanks for catching the sentence without a footnote. Its the same source as the sentences around it, but I must have missed that one when adding in the sources.

I see, I didn't realize at first you had a separate section. I was just initially confused by the inclusion of the "See also:" links underneath your "Pre-Early Modern Period" -- never mind! All good.

Hi Morgan,

Suggestions for this week!

• looking around at other history wikis, what about adding a "problems and criticisms" section at the end,
• AND/OR under "Key Developments", instead of just the developments by region, having an introductory paragraph about the main points of evolution that Archives took during your the early-modern period, The key problems and criticisms could be nested under this as well.
• More Pictures ;)
• And I think linking Kelly's page for Religious Archives would be appropriate as well, under "See Also"

JT

Thanks for all your helpful advice!

For the "Key Developments" section I'd planned to do just that, its still in the works though. I will focus on including some problems and criticism in there as well, that's a good idea. And I'll add more pictures and link Kelly's page. Thanks for pointing hers out, I hadn't made my way over to her page yet.

Also, since you mentioned more pictures, could I ask what you think about the size of the thumbnails I have currently on my page? I've been playing around with image sizes.

They could be a LITTLE bit bigger! i would say max 6 cm lengthwise.

Hello Morgan,

Just a couple of suggestions:

• bold "Early modern archives" in your first sentence to stick with Wiki formatting
• perhaps mention other parts of the world in your opening paragraph, as right now it focuses solely on Europe
• do you have a reference for "Many such systems housed..."? Is it Ketelarr (he does kind of mention it on p. 204)
• perhaps mention how archival practices varied regionally in the Middle Ages (e.g. registers is some areas but not others)
• I agree with Kelsey that if you can find any information on North America and Africa at this time that may add to the Wiki (though I know it's not the easiest thing to find!)

Side note: Do you want me to mention the Avignon papacy in my page under religious archives?

Thank you for all your comments! They're very helpful.

In reply to your side note: you of course don't have to mention Avignon since its not possible to cover everything...but if you have some extra time I'd recommend adding it in. Following the Schism it turned into a bit of a battle over custody of the records so its interesting information to include.

Hi Morgan!

I like that you've added more regions, and I think some of your structure has improved as well! I'm not sure what you were planning on adding to the Key Developments section, but I wonder if some mention of major colonial changes would be good to add? Obviously I'm biased, writing about postcolonial archives so much, but the early modern period had some important jurisdiction changes like after the Seven Years War, and later after American Independence, not to mention the earlier Age of Exploration and the need to establish colonial offices in the first place for records pertaining to the colonies. It's something to consider at any rate.

Hmm very interesting info! I hadn't considered colonial changes, so thank you for bringing that up. I'll have to look into it more, but if I remember correctly the Seven Years War and American Independence are closer towards the the end of the early modern period, correct? Late 1700s? I'm wondering if that is significant enough to mention being so close to the end of the period, although of course the exact end date is open to interpretation. However, the Age of Exploration is definitely something I'll look into. Thank you for more great advice!

Hi Morgan,

Your page is coming along really well. Two little grammatical errors I noticed: in your intro, it should be "cause and effects" not "affects". "It [should be in?] the Italian cities, a scriptural explosion, or revolution...". Under the heading "Italy", I think it is not necessary, and makes the sentence flow smoother, to use "the" before Italian cities. The emphasis is not needed as the heading makes it clear that Italian cities are the ones being discussed. So: "Italian cities underwent..." Otherwise your page looks great!

A few readings that I can suggest for this period:

Bartlett, Beatrice S. “Imperial Notations on Ch’ing Official Documents in the Ch’ien-­lung (1736-­1795) and Chia-­ch’ing (1796-­1820) Reigns.” National Palace Museum Bulletin 7:2 (May-­June 1972): 1-­13, and no. 3 (July-­August 1972): 1-­13.

___________. “Ch’ing Documents in the National Palace Museum Archives, Part One: Document Registers: The Sui-­shou teng-­chi.” National Palace Museum Bulletin 10 no. 4 (Sept.–Oct. 1975): 1-­17.

____________. “Ch'ing Palace Memorials in the Archives of the National Palace Museum.” National Palace Museum Bulletin 16 no. 6 (Jan.–Feb. 1979): 1-­22.

Best, Hannah

Hi Hannah,

Thank you for catching those errors and I really appreciate the additional sources!

Hi Morgan,

Great topic! It looks like it is coming along well so far. I agree with Maggie about formatting, going from more general trends and then talking about the specific regions and institutions. I'm also going give you the same advice as I gave Maggie, and that is: try to take less of a Euro-centric view! Some discussion of Islamic and Asian recordkeeping practices (and even the Americas at this point) could really add to your page.

Thanks for the input! I'd really like to cover more than just Europe, however I haven't found much on other regions. I'll keep looking.

Hi Morgan,

History is not my forté....(and I have both yours and Maggie's wiki in my pod!), but what I can suggest is linking some of the jargon or historical events to Wikipedia/Outside pages so that readers can jump to those definitions, or historical periods and read more about them.

liber civitatis, Cancelleria inferiore, Henry VIII, the Society of Jesus ...for example!

Jessica

Great advice! I will be sure to do that as I'm adding more and editing my page.

Hello Morgan,

First of all, thank you for providing me with another source for my page! (Ketelaar, though if you think any others discuss pre-early modern developments, that would be appreciated.)

Second, I'm wondering about the formatting of your page. Would it make sense to divide it: 1. Pre-Early Modern Period; 2. Key Early Modern Developments; 3. Developments by Region; 3.1 Italy; 3.2 England...; 4. Religious Institutions; 5. Archives at the End of the Early Modern Period.

Also, when going through the different regions you may want to clarify what consitutes the beginning and end of the early modern period for each of them, as it changes nation to nation. (I will also keep this in mind for my page.)

Hi Maggie,

So glad I could of some help with an additional source!

And thank you for your feedback on the layout. I've been considering a couple ideas for it and hadn't really committed to anything 100%, but I like your ideas, so thank you. Truly helps!