Secretarying

The taking and correcting of minutes:

1800s-early 1900s: Handwritten in a special bound book from handwritten notes. One copy only -- each meeting they are read and corrections made as needed.

1900s: Typewritten from handwritten notes, kept in a binder. Maybe one carbon copy -- each meeting they are read and corrections made as needed.

2000s: Keyboarded directly at the meeting. Revised and copies emailed to every attendee the following day for correction while memories are fresh. Reading is superfluous; copies made available to those who missed the meeting.

How many societies are keeping their records in the wrong century?


(FYI: This blog was "locked" by Google over the past weekend for unspecified alleged offenses. My wonderful tech person discovered a possibly offending widget and removed it. She then requested a review [as I had done earlier] and we were back in business Monday morning. My personal takeaway: there is no excess of due process or basic fairness in a world where we depend on giant corporations to communicate with one another.)

Coming next week: a new blogging regime. Call it Methodology Mondays.



Harold Henderson, "Secretarying," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 11 February 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

A holiday gift to New York researchers...

. . . from Manhattan Past to us, "links to Google digitized editions of the Laws of New York from 1638 through 1922."

The need is plain to those of us seeking information on what the laws said when in the Empire State, although I didn't understand it as well as the author does: "There is inconsistency among catalogers when entering these titles into Google’s database, as well as errors introduced as Google converts title information from image to text."

And if you need to know, the link to the 1825 session laws also includes 1826.









"Laws of the State of New York," Manhattan Past, http://www.manhattanpast.com/resources/laws-of-the-state-of-new-york/ : accessed 26 May 2013.


Harold Henderson, "A holiday gift to New York researchers...," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 27 May 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]