Tag Archives: research

Scanning apps, as of February 2026

On February 17, 2026, Professor Carly Goodman posted the following query on BlueSky: “crowdsourcing for my MA students: do you have a scanning app you like for archives? I used turboscan and save documents as pdfs within box/folder folder system in dropbox that mirrors the archive’s system–but is there something newer/better that you do and that works?”

Note: for my own latest batch of archival research, the lovely folks at George Mason University Special Collections set me up with their CZUR scanner, which I suspect works better than any phone-based app, and you don’t need to worry about battery life. PDFs get saved on your laptop.

Adobe Scan

Great OCR, but may require a paid, Pro account for best results.

CamScanner

Replies to query lacked details, but people seem to like it.

DocScan Pro

“lets you size photos on your phone, save as pdf, name according to your system, and export to cloud storage”

SwiftScan Pro

“can mimic the structure of the archive on your phone and automatically upload to dropbox or whatever”
“automatically converts images to OCR ready PDFs”

TurboScan

Goodman’s own choice. Also integrates with Dropbox.

Why I can’t quit FileMaker Pro

Every few months history Twitter runs a thread about what software to use for note-taking. (See, e.g., threads recently started by Austin McCoy and J.Meléndez-Badillo.)

I wrote a whole chapter of The Princeton Guide to Historical Research on this topic, the gist of which is that historians have mostly abandoned our simple, easy-to-teach system based on 5 x 8 inch notecards, but we have yet to settle collectively on a computerized system to replace it.

Here are some more thoughts along those lines, and an explanation of the centrality of FileMaker Pro to my workflow for major projects.

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How to Write a Prospectus

I have posted a new page, “How to Write a Prospectus.”

A dissertation prospectus is an essay arguing that you have found a research problem whose solution merits thousands of hours of your time; hundreds of hours of the time of your various advisors and committee members as well as that of librarians, archivists, and other people of good will; and, if you are lucky, some public or foundation funds toward your research expenses. Though the dissertation you complete will likely differ significantly from the one you conceive, you should be able at least to sketch out a viable project before attempting to write one.

Comments appreciated as always.