Detectives for your docs.
Mission
Sub[text] is a network of archivists, librarians, artists, & producers. We link film & audio documentarians to the archives they didn’t know they needed. We’re adept at quick but thorough research, establishing meaningful relationships between the past and present.
Leave the deep dive to us—we’ll find out what you need to know to tell the story.
Services
Finding / retrieving archival materials
Fact-checking
Literature / history review
Locating potential interview subjects
Locating potential narrative subjects
Cold-calling / pre-interviewing
Copyright consultation
About us
Jess
Jess graduated with a Master’s in Library Science & Information Studies in 2010 with concentrations in archival studies & school libraries. More recently, she attended the Library of Congress Summer Research Institute & earned the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Library Leadership in the Digital Age Certificate in 2020. She spent the past 10 years working for libraries & archives like the Baltimore Museum of Art Library, Johns Hopkins Peabody Library, the National Building Museum, & Crystal Springs Uplands School. She has experience advising & assisting in the use of archival materials; researching & developing exhibitions; digital literacy workshops; teaching; & creating finding aids & guides for scholars. She considers herself an information expert & pseudo-detective. In her free time she loves printmaking, hiking, & reading.
Kelly
Kelly is an audio producer & editor whose beat is usually American history & social justice. With more than a decade of experience, her work has appeared on NPR, the BBC, & Luminary Originals. All of her projects require extensive research: from reading letters dated in the 1800s to mining archival VHS tape of post-Olympic gymnastics tours of champions. She currently works at Slate Magazine, researching & producing for the history show One Year. Kelly has a PhD (ABD) in Philosophy & is getting a Master's in Library & Information Science. Her relevant coursework includes: Community Archiving, Seminar in Archives & Special Collections, & Preservation Management in Libraries & Archives. Keep your ears peeled for her forthcoming pet project: a podcast about Star Wars novels from the 1990s (dropping May 4th, 2023).
The Process
1. Fill out the contact form below. We’ll get in touch with our intake questionnaire—it takes about 20-30 minutes to fill out. After we review your detailed research needs, we’ll set up a Zoom meeting to get to know you and your project better.
2. We’ll work together to establish a timeline and fee for each service, depending on your budget and needs. Then: we’ll head into the weeds!
3. When we emerge, we’ll provide you with a professional literature review of everything we were able to uncover (including links to source the materials yourself and notes about which materials require further licensing).
4. We’ll meet again to go over our findings with you in detail, answer questions, and talk about whether any follow-up research is necessary.
Clients are free to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon any of the material provided in the research document in any medium or format, so long as appropriate licenses are obtained and credit for the research is given to Sub[text].
Get in touch
Tell us a bit about who you are and what kind of research you’re looking for — we’ll send you an intake questionnaire & get this party started.