not what I meant to be doing, but...

[winterbadger]

I found (made) 6.5 feet of shelf space by putting away or disposing of some nicknacks, and I freed up 4' more by beginning the purge of my library. Some subjects that I'm just never going to spend the time on are getting axed in toto, and I'm trying to be ruthless about pulling books that either (a) I have read once and will likely never read again or (b) have not read yet, but should read because after I do so they will probably belong in section (a). Also got the Middle East/Central Asia, foreign affairs/intelligence/COIN/terrorism, general military history, Vietnam, and Revolutionary War sections reorganized.

I still have a lot of sections to purge, and several more to rearrange, but it's a start. (At the cost of a lot of dust, which has me sneezing continuously.) And Nicholas is VERY excited that the bookshelves in the living room now have their tops clear for cats to wander around on. He's taken to batting at me from them as I go past down the hall.

I also took care of one of my more immediate chores that was time-sensitive. I'm going to clean the rest of the windows, maybe vacuum some more, pack some boxes of books I'm sending away, and then head out to game this afternoon/evening with some friends (maybe have a bike ride first).

But first I think I deserve some elevenses. :-)

Comments

[reasdream.livejournal.com]

You may be grumpy at me for sharing this, but one of my profs from U Edinburgh sent this along and said I should share with anyone interested. I thought of you: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/funding/details.php?funding_id=141

[winterbadger]

I'm not at all grumpy. I'm fascinated to learn of the connection between Aberdeen and General Mercer (his is a name I recognise, but I haven't read a lot about his life). And it never takes much for me to be tempted to go back to university to study history. But I'm always faced with the question--after accomplishing such a degree, what would I *do* with it? It's not like history is a robust field filled with economic opportunity.

Still...

[reasdream.livejournal.com]

Acutally, there's a wide range of opportunity for someone with a PhD in history. Sort of like a BA in history, only wider. http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2011/1110/1110pre1.cfm
Of course, you have to be willing to think flexibly about using it, but if you are...

[winterbadger]

I guess my perspective is coloured by the fact that most of the people I know who have postgraduate degrees in history have not been able to find work using their degrees and have had to retrain in other professions in order to earn a living (including a friend who was a Rhodes Scholar and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago, who is now a small-town GP).

Yes, you can make the argument that someone who becomes an investment banker somehow kind of uses his training in research and writing in his new profession. But he or she probably got all that they could effectively use in that way as an undergraduate, and they would probably have been a better investment banker if they had taken the time they spend earning a PhD in history and used it to study business or economics. All that article really does, IMO, is point up the paucity of opportunities to actually work as a historian. :-(

[reasdream.livejournal.com]

The point of the article is to try and get academic historians to admit to themselves and their grad students that it is possible to do things outside the academy with a PhD in history. Most departments give no advice beyond academic interviews and act as though a life beyond tenured professorship is a failure.

I look at the advancement of digital history/humanities centres - that's where I want to be. There's the NPS, every branch of the govt has a historian. One of my friends is an Air Force Historian, a classmate works for the Navy (as a historian). There are museums and historical foundations galore. And there's consulting. Very little of it pays big bucks, but there's work outside the academy for historians (and for decades that work has been discounted and pissed on by the academy - so it's kind of an issue for me)

[winterbadger]

Yep, there are jobs outside academia. One of my friends works for the National Archives; another worked for the Maryland State Archives. One friend (now deceased) worked for the Office of Naval History and Heritage. One actually teaches (at the community college level).

The problem is that there are, as your article points out, at least 1,000 new history PhDs every year, and that's just in the US, leaving out the UK, Canada, Europe, etc. There are not 1,000 *new* jobs, even in the broader history field every year, or anything even close to it. So a lot of those new PhDs are going to be retraining in some other field. Hopefully not one that involve french fries.

If one has the time and money to simply get a degree for one's own amusement and edification, grand. But especially in my case (nearly 50, with 20+ years of work experience elsewhere), to embark on a PhD in history with a dream of making a career working in the field...it's just not a rational choice.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

good work!
I need to weed my library, and then I want to rearrange my alphabetised sequence to Dewey and alphabetised fiction

[winterbadger]

Dewey? DEWEY!?

(I'm a LoC man myself...) ;-)

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

you must have a HUGE number of books to go for Library of Congress ;0) I'm Dewey all the way!

[winterbadger]

It's just what I learned when I worked in my college library, so I'm used to it.

And I do have a HUGE number of books. :-)