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April 19, 2006
Micro-Reels: Bring Head Phones!
Nicole Medeiros is writing her honors thesis on the history of Brazil's affirmative action program for Afro-Brazilians. Her research involved lots of time looking at old newspapers and other documents on micro-reels in the library. She has some words of advice for those embarking on this type of research:
My relationship with micro-reels began during my Sophomore year. A young and naïve history major, I worked for a professor in UCLA who needed a Stanford undergraduate to browse reels of nineteenth century Brazilian economic journals on campus. He sent me lists of specific tables and charts he needed from the journals, and I was super duper excited to begin my research. Well, let’s just say the fun only last so long. . .
When I began my own research, I was more prepared, and re-invigorated. I was looking for cool stuf — neat journals and newspapers from the Afro-Brazilian movement. I had learned the quirks of the machines. I had mastered the set-up, zoom, and scrolling features . . . Well, not entirely.
With micro-reels there are always unforeseen excitements and follies — losing yourself in the reel, changing lenses because the print is too small, and realizing — once you found the perfect article — that you do not have money on your Stanford ID card to scan and print the damn image. And, no matter how exciting your project, micro-reels can become tedious and boring. Plus, it just gets dizzying.
Don’t get me wrong, I love it. I mean browsing materials from hundreds of years ago is exciting. All facetiousness aside, it’s awesome. And, just today, I realized that you can scan the images to a computer and save them as tif or jpg. files. I know — amazing.
But, at the end of the day, no matter how cool you feel scrolling those reels, your eyes will get tired, your reel may get stuck, and you may just get damn bored. So, create a cool Real Reel Re-Mix. Grab that music player, and plug in those headphones. You will thank me for it.
Posted by hilton at April 19, 2006 02:54 PM