My university this year has lost many, many faculty members to an early retirement program offered by the state as a cost-saving mechanism. And while all of the faculty will be missed in their way, some are outright institutions, having taught for upwards of thirty, or even forty years.
I overheard a conversation today in which two colleagues were lamenting the departure of a third. One of the two suddenly chuckled and said that, according to the facilities management staff, the retiring faculty member filled eight industrial-sized recycling bins (55-gallon+) while cleaning out his office.
Eight 55-gallon drums of paper. Not books. Not beloved tchotchkes that in some way reflect one’s interests. Not photos. Just . . . paper–photocopied articles, yes, but also forms, records, and all of the other documentary evidence that’s the daily reality of working in a public university.
My first reaction was, “now that’s a professor.” (I’m an avowed packrat.) But then I started feeling a little choked by paper, and immediately started casting about for things I could safely throw away. It turns out a shockingly large percentage of the articles I’ve carried diligently around in file folders over the past 16 years–some from Virginia to Chicago/Milwaukee to Atlanta to New Britain–are available in .pdf format online. (Hello, Zotero.) I can scan letters that are autogenerated by the graduate school, notifying new admissions that I’m their advisee.
So that’s my resolution for this month: To throw away recycle at least 10 sheets of paper each time I’m in the office.
Things that will help you achieve a less paper-clotted future:
- A scanner.
- A digital camera.
- Your department’s photocopier. Our department got a new one about a year or so ago, and it will scan a pdf of your originals and e-mail it to you just as easily–easier!–than it will spit out collated, stapled copies.
- This post by Boone Gorges.
I’m not saying “be paperless,” but only that we could live with less paper.
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3 Responses to What will you throw away today?
Jason B. Jones - August 7, 2009 at 12:25 am
I’m definitely the choir here. My office is a notorious rathole, and I’m comfortable with some of it–for instance, I’ll never get rid of my Pickwick Papers-themed finger bowls.
So I talk a good game about throwing stuff out–we’ll see if my floor is still visible at the end of September.
Ethan Watrall - August 6, 2009 at 9:08 pm
My father was an academic (now retired), and he inhabited the same office for about 25 years. He, like many academics, didn’t throw a damn thing away. Papers, exams, student bibliographies, photocopied articles, etc, etc, etc. So much that you had to move stacks of stuff if you even wanted to sit down. My father had an enormous (positive) impact on the kind of academic I’ve become. So, even though I’m a fully “digital” academic, a little office clutter – piles of books, photocopied/printed articles, tchotchkes, etc – always reminds me of my dad, and therefor brings me some comfort.
Ethan Watrall - August 7, 2009 at 9:04 am
I think that an “archaeological” (or, more accurately, an ethnoarchaeological) study of professor’s offices would be fascinating. Our offices aren’t just storage spaces and meeting/work spaces, they are an extension of our academic identity. What sorts of material culture to we privileged, what is the (in situ) context of that material culture – how do we use stuff to construct and signal identity. For instance, among many other things, I’ve got several toy bisons scattered around my office – I use this to signal my connection with the northern plains (where I got my archaeological start). Kinda fits into the whole “whats on your desk” theme.