01-26-2013, 11:58 AM
When I started trying to sort things out around 1970, there were really just two choices, books/magazine articles, and photos. Now you have to add online resources, digital downloads, DVDs, the fact that photos are pretty much no longer printed, and so forth. So I did several things.
First, ephemera, magazine articles, photocopies, paper field notes. Once back issues of magazines grew into stacks, I began cutting out articles that I had interest in and discarding the husk of the magazine. These I three-hole punched and put into subject-area binders devoted to my greatest fields of interest. Photocopies and field notes went in there, too. At the peak of model magazines, the 1980s and 90s, these grew to be very thick -- I have a file on boxcars that's bursting the largest possible binder I could find. (Luckily my career involved computer documentation, and I could get lots of discarded binders from work.) However, with most of the specialty model mags out of the picture, these binders have grown much more slowly in recent years. Just as well, a lifetime of that stuff is simply unwieldy.
Books -- I have a study whose walls are pretty much lined with bookshelves. The books are arranged by subject area, mostly by railroad, SP on one shelf, UP on another, etc. However, the relative rise in price of books, along with the fact that new $80 books probably tell me more than I want or need to know on any subject, means that those purchases have leveled off.
Most of my "prototype info" purchases in recent years have been DVDs. These are on various shelves near the family TV/DVD player, organized like the books, by railroad subject area. I haven't done much with cataloging, since I can be pretty sure that if I want to look up something on the SP, I go to the SP bookshelf or DVD shelf area. It helps that DVDs are much, much more compact than books, but even there, at a rate of maybe one DVD purchase a month, they're starting to overflow. I also have VHS tapes, but since these eventually wear out anyhow, I've often gone ahead and purchased duplicates on DVD, especially when they're on sale.
Digital downloads and digital photos, as well as scans of prints I took in prior decades -- filed in Windows folders by subject area. Also now scanning field notes and filing them in the same places. I use Carbonite, a big, big, big bargain, have had to restore my files several times. Without it, I'd be lost in that area.
I assume that technology will allow more comprehensive cataloging of this sort of stuff in the future, although from my own perspective, I'm 65 and probably will acquire progressively less info. Having gradually acquired what I have, I'm familiar with it and don't feel lost with the different media as they now exist. However, I find that I use the paper stuff less and less, the digital and DVD much, much more as time has gone on.
First, ephemera, magazine articles, photocopies, paper field notes. Once back issues of magazines grew into stacks, I began cutting out articles that I had interest in and discarding the husk of the magazine. These I three-hole punched and put into subject-area binders devoted to my greatest fields of interest. Photocopies and field notes went in there, too. At the peak of model magazines, the 1980s and 90s, these grew to be very thick -- I have a file on boxcars that's bursting the largest possible binder I could find. (Luckily my career involved computer documentation, and I could get lots of discarded binders from work.) However, with most of the specialty model mags out of the picture, these binders have grown much more slowly in recent years. Just as well, a lifetime of that stuff is simply unwieldy.
Books -- I have a study whose walls are pretty much lined with bookshelves. The books are arranged by subject area, mostly by railroad, SP on one shelf, UP on another, etc. However, the relative rise in price of books, along with the fact that new $80 books probably tell me more than I want or need to know on any subject, means that those purchases have leveled off.
Most of my "prototype info" purchases in recent years have been DVDs. These are on various shelves near the family TV/DVD player, organized like the books, by railroad subject area. I haven't done much with cataloging, since I can be pretty sure that if I want to look up something on the SP, I go to the SP bookshelf or DVD shelf area. It helps that DVDs are much, much more compact than books, but even there, at a rate of maybe one DVD purchase a month, they're starting to overflow. I also have VHS tapes, but since these eventually wear out anyhow, I've often gone ahead and purchased duplicates on DVD, especially when they're on sale.
Digital downloads and digital photos, as well as scans of prints I took in prior decades -- filed in Windows folders by subject area. Also now scanning field notes and filing them in the same places. I use Carbonite, a big, big, big bargain, have had to restore my files several times. Without it, I'd be lost in that area.
I assume that technology will allow more comprehensive cataloging of this sort of stuff in the future, although from my own perspective, I'm 65 and probably will acquire progressively less info. Having gradually acquired what I have, I'm familiar with it and don't feel lost with the different media as they now exist. However, I find that I use the paper stuff less and less, the digital and DVD much, much more as time has gone on.