Publication Date

May 20, 2013

Perspectives Section

Perspectives Daily

As finals approach and our anxiety levels reach an all-time high, it may be worth having a space for historians and history lovers to grouse and commiserate. I asked a few of my colleagues over social media to sound off on some of the unique (and funny) history problems we face on a daily basis. These are their complaints…

  • Not being able to afford another bookshelf you desperately need for all of your books because you spent all of your money on books.
  • Someone takes your favorite seat at the archive.
  • Someone steals the last plug at the archive so you have to run your laptop off battery power.
  • The Google Books scan is smudged, so you actually have to go the library.
  • Your dissertation, which you’ve spent countless hours on, totals less than 1 MB in size.
  • Someone quotes Foucault more than once in a chapter.
  • EBSCO only downloads one page at a time.
  • The writer of an op-ed declares, “as history shows…”

Have a history problem? Tweet or Facebook us at AHAhistorians.

Photo via bookhaven.stanford.edu

This post first appeared on AHA Today.

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