Thankful Day 16
In the six years since I’ve become a reenactor, I’ve done a lot of research. The “Landsknecht” folder on my computer has over 2,000 images in it. I long since passed the point where I can burn my research to a CD or DVD when I want to share my images with someone, we’re at the point where I need to give them a flash drive. Which is why today I am thankful for Pinterst. When I really started using it this year, it drastically changed how I do historical research. And now it's so much easier to share the cool stuff I find.
While I still rely on museums and occasionally Wikipedia for sources when I create pins, Pinterest has exposed me to images that I might not have seen otherwise. People pin from places that I don’t always think to look, like auction houses (Christie’s, Sotheby's). And people pin from museums whose online collections I’ve not yet had time to explore (The Royal Collection in England, The Lourve in France, the Museuo Thyssen-Bornemiza in Spain, many of the museums in Germany and Austria). When I see something that doesn’t have a date, artist, or source linked, I’ll re-pin it to my (hidden) RESEARCH ME board to come back and try to track down a source later. One of the reasons why it’s such a time suck for me is because there’s so much cool stuff on there that I haven’t seen yet. But I am thankful for the way it has made it so much easier to find new images, links to museums, and other research sources.
While I still rely on museums and occasionally Wikipedia for sources when I create pins, Pinterest has exposed me to images that I might not have seen otherwise. People pin from places that I don’t always think to look, like auction houses (Christie’s, Sotheby's). And people pin from museums whose online collections I’ve not yet had time to explore (The Royal Collection in England, The Lourve in France, the Museuo Thyssen-Bornemiza in Spain, many of the museums in Germany and Austria). When I see something that doesn’t have a date, artist, or source linked, I’ll re-pin it to my (hidden) RESEARCH ME board to come back and try to track down a source later. One of the reasons why it’s such a time suck for me is because there’s so much cool stuff on there that I haven’t seen yet. But I am thankful for the way it has made it so much easier to find new images, links to museums, and other research sources.