Serendipity in and beyond the Archive
Most scholars can point to a paper they never intended to write–one that resulted from a serendipitous “find” in an archive during research for something else entirely. This is one of the most fruitful and fun aspects of archival research: the unexpected avenues pursued only because we stumbled upon interesting material in an adjacent shelfmark or because a skilled archivist pointed us toward a dusty box we’d never have found on our own. Much of this serendipity is lost as we conduct more and more of our research online using digitized source databases. In this paper, I will explore ways of achieving serendipity in virtual primary source research when in-person research is impossible, whether due to funding constraints or the Covid-19 pandemic.
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