Above is a basic recap of my digital notetaking pitch at the AHA Historical Notetaking Workshop in February 2022, with Zachary SchragIan Milligan, and Kate Jewell. The entire panel was informative and inspiring.

Since the panel, I’ve been working on a basic toolkit for historical research and writing with Zotero and Obsidian. I use it to teach honors undergraduate and graduate students. I use a version of this setup to do my own research.

My starter Obsidian history vault, available on Github, mirrors my own setup for historical notetaking and analysis. The vault includes sample notes and comments on how to use it.

To set up Zotero to work with Obsidian, check out 01 Notetaking for Historians. All templates and Obsidian plugins described in the documentation are already preinstalled in the vault.

You can also read advice on archival research with digital tools. You can also view a video showing how to use Zotero and Obsidian for archival research.

Check out further resources on notetaking and historical research, including work by my co-panelists.