Three Things Thursday: Zotero, Notebooks, and the Hand Written Book

This fall I have a few little goals that I hope will contribute to some good new habits. Two of these goals are the topic of today’s Three Thing Thursday:

Thing the First

I need to start using Zotero regularly. As readers of this blog know, I surf the web constantly and in my own flailing half-ass way, I try to keep abreast of what’s going on in my various fields. Zotero is citation and bibliography management software and it integrates with browsers, allows you to save PDF files to the cloud, and apparently can do wonderful things with word processing software (although I’ve never used this feature). 

Years ago, when Zotero was shinny and new, I used it constantly, but then about 2018, I fell out of the habit of using it and next thing I know, I’m building my bibliography for my book using Google Scholar and cut and paste. I’d love to say that I learned some kind of lesson, but honestly, I didn’t. I would do it by hand again without much objection. I listened to music, took breaks to read things that I wanted to read, and generally found it the kind of light duty work that was not unpleasant.

That said, my bibliographic habits are a bit out of control right now and since I’m “working” on three or four projects right now, I honestly need something to keep bibliographic sprawl (or downright chaos) in check. This is going to be the year that I lean into Zotero.

(It helps of course that many of my colleagues and collaborators are also using Zotero making it an easy way to share references!).

Thing the Second

Over the last month or so, I’ve started to get into habit of writing in my notebook every other day. It’s not yet an automatic routine, but I’m starting to feel some slight mental slight discomfort when I miss a scheduled handwriting day and the physical discomfort that I used to feel when handwriting for any length of time is slowly starting to abate. Right now, I’m using my notebook to sort of sketch out proto-blog posts (if you can imagine drafts rougher than what I write here), but also to try out new ideas and keep a more time-sensitive log of my reading and writing (sometimes this blog runs a week or more behind what I’m really thinking about, writing, or reading at any given time).

(I’m very much enjoying a LAMY Safari pen with a fine nib. I’ve never really been a fine nib person, preferring to write with medium thickness pens appropriate for my blurry and imprecise ideas, but this pen became an instant favorite.). 

I’d love to imagine that I could get into the habit of writing in my notebook every day, but that feels a bit too optimistic. It’s a “stretch goal”.

Thing the Third

If the first two things on my list are hopes for positive habits, the final thing is an overt fantasy. I started to wonder the other day whether it would be possible to publish a handwritten book. A couple of years ago, I imagined a short book on “slow archaeology.” This would undoubtedly be a vanity project (whatever interest people might have in the ideas) and it is tempting to double down on it by publishing the book in handwritten form.

Of course, there are some questions. First is would it even be possible for me to handwrite an entire manuscript? Right now, I can manage about 30 minutes of handwriting every other day before I start to get fatigued and my handwriting and thinking (such as it is) fall apart. I would have to get better at writing by hand.

Second, there is no chance that I could write out my manuscript only once. I would need to write it at least twice even if I cheat a bit and outline and compose some fragments on a word processor. 

Third, I know that handwritten work limits accessibility and I would imagine that I would have to provide a digital alt-text for the book (especially since my handwriting is impressionistic at best). Ideally I could produce this from the handwritten text rather than simply transcribing the typed text.

Would this kind of thing matter in any way? I don’t honestly think so. I would be quirky, it would be a challenge to do, and it would offer a practical (if patently absurd) perspective on slow practices in archaeology.