rdchino has to admit that, sometimes, Wikipedia should be the researcher's first stop.

"I felt that I'd sort of shot my wad."

By the time I got to page 53 of a 322-page oral history of a high-level bureaucrat in the Reagan administration, my eyelids were drooping and fewer and fewer of the words on the page were actually registering in my brain.  And then, in the middle of a discussion of his time as finance director for several ( Read more... )

Today, as I flipped through various issues of the Sierra Club Bulletin from 1973, I came across the following:


( Read more... )

Today I feel like a man of the world also because yesterday I dropped off my application for a passport!  I've managed to make it a good way into my fourth decade on earth without needing one (somehow my family got around that obstacle when we went to Puerto Vallarta ca. 1990 - this was before 9/11 and all that, I guess), but Wild Bill, one of my ( Read more... )

Happy New Year, everyone!  Enjoy all the weight-loss commercials which have replaced the Christmas commercials.

The end of the Christmas break is coming fast, alas.  I managed to get in about a week and a half of school-type work, and a bunch of more entertaining non-school stuff.  I finally indexed all of the document pics I took in Los Angeles ( Read more... )

Ah, dissertation research.  I am finally going through the thousands of pages of documents I snagged from the Reagan Presidential Library in September.  Most if is the usual boring policy crap that will put my dissertation committee to sleep whenever I get around to writing the thing, but every now and then something amusing comes through that won' ( Read more... )

I just finished my fifth day of research at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and it looks like I'll wrap up there tomorrow.  For now, would you perhaps like a tour of the Happiest Place on Earth (Simi Valley branch)?

( Oh, what wonders await inside... )

From: *****@doj.ca.gov
To: rdchino

Hi
( Read more... )

One research trip down, dozens more to go...

Back in Columbus now, and I get to sift through about 900 document photos I took in Ann Arbor.  I'm hoping about 10% will actually be relevant to my research (a bunch of them are of the kids' letters I quoted in my last post).  I'll probably head back up there for another two-day trip (gotta teach during ( Read more... )

To the National Archives (and the staff at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library who implement their policies):

I know what you are trying to do.  Yes, the White House Central Files are voluminous.  So, in a way, it makes perfect sense to photocopy the first page of each document (which, as anybody who has worked in a bureaucracy knows, is usually a ( Read more... )