Here’s a short list updating the Workflow for Research Archives post. For my work on Edith Wharton, I’ve mostly visited the Beinecke Library, the Lilly Library, and the Charles Scribner’s Sons Archive, but these would apply to other places, too.

1. Contact the archive ahead of time to see if the collections you need will be available. The web site will usually indicate if there are any restrictions, but it’s good to check.
2. Study the online catalogue and materials before you go. You may need to order materials ahead of time.
3. Find out the library’s policy on taking pictures; some have limits of a certain number per day or per visit. (The Beinecke Library doesn’t.)
4. Save the Finding Aid, print it out, and take it with you. If you’re allowed to take printed matter in with you, you can note what you’re ordering right on the Finding Aid, which saves time.
5. I still say that taking photographs at the archive rather than trying to capture the images to .pdf with ScannerPro or a similar app will save time in the long run. When you get back to your room after the archive closes, you can convert the images to .pdf easily. If you have a Mac: (1) Open Preview; (2) Open the pictures and rotate until they’re readable; (3) Select all and save them; (4) Select all and Print to PDF. This usually makes a smaller file than Export to PDF; I don’t know why.
6. The research notebook you keep will be really important, since things will occur to you at the time that you won’t recall later. Does the writer refer to letters that should logically be there but aren’t in the archive? What’s the thread of conversation that’s happening in these letters? Does the material remind you of some other work by the author? Those impressions can be valuable later.

Tropy worked well for transcribing shorter materials, but it didn’t work with Dropbox, which was a limitation.