The Electronic Book of Shadows
This is an article I wrote in 2011 for the Witches Companion 2013. A little use of our current technology can assure you do not lose your precious notes, recipes and research. There are so many ways to save our hard learned lessons. I have included some tips and tricks to help you find files easier and track their origins and sources better.
We all have them. Notebooks crammed with material we have copied off the web or out of books that we reference again and again in our practice. We have shelves of books, notebooks and sheets of papers in folders that we really do want to keep; or maybe not. I used that spell, well, maybe two, or was it three years ago and it worked well, but I forgot what I used it for and I thought I remembered it worked well, but maybe some of those notes in the margins, scribbled quickly.
Some of us may have a mess of notes.
I know I did.
Well, I still do to be honest.
It is going to take a long time to get my BOS sorted
out. Recipes,
spells, chants, rituals, poems, miscellaneous writings,
material copied from the web, pictures – all for my own
private use. And
I do use them. I
am, after all, a practicing witch.
So, how can we organize this better?
Well, many of us have a great tool at our disposal
yet we never think of using it - our computer or laptop or
tablet or smartphone.
Well, how about an e-BOS (electronic Book of
Shadows.) Oh,
you tried that years ago, and now you have CDs with info on
them that you can’t read.
But the technology is much better and storage is
easier to do and just as easy to back up and keep safe.
So, let’s start with the mess.
I am sure, as I have material on both my computer and
on paper, that you face the same issue.
How to sort this all out and make sense of it?
Let’s start with software, and work our way up the
line.
Word processing programs are available
for many folks at no cost, or low cost.
Open Source software is free for personal use.
Open Office provides several mediums to work with –
word processor, presentation program and graphics program.
There is more, but for what we are looking to do,
this is all the basics you will need.
If you are interested in Microsoft
Office, that is available at huge discounts to students
through the Microsoft Student and Microsoft Office
Professional Academic.
The software is available through their website and
offers Office with Word, OneNote, PowerPoint and more to ALL
students, including non-traditional students.
All kinds of word processing and storage software is available to use on mobile devices as well. But all you really need is a word processing program of some kind.
A big advantage would be to have a
program that creates .pdf files.
This kind of program allows you to create .pdf files
from any website, complete with the website address (URL.)
This would allow you to track and when needed, quote
your resource.
Some of these features are built into OneNote, where
anything you copy is also “stamped” with a URL of the site
it came from. A
.pdf program allows you to “print” to a .pdf file, which
opens with Adobe Reader.
There are PDF Creators on line for free, and Adobe
reader is also a free program.
Or you can purchase Adobe Acrobat to create and edit
.pdf files. This
will also eliminate lots of paper and ink.
Why would you care where it came from?
Well, for purposes of identifying the material you
are saving. Look
at the paperwork you have already collected.
Do you know where it all came from?
Some printouts may have a URL on it, but it may be
abbreviated or hard to trace.
And if you decide to share, are you sure you wrote
that spell or was copied from somewhere?
This brings us to a brief discussion on
copyrights.
You are free to use anything “for your own personal
use.” That means
for you and you alone.
Not to be copied to the web, a website, Facebook or
anywhere else. You
can copy anything to your computer, use it, print it out and
keep it in your own personal folders.
But you can’t publish it or share it in a public
forum. So, keep tabs
on what is yours and what belongs to someone else, and you
will never end up embarrassed.
Enough said.
So, let’s start sorting through your
paperwork.
First, how old is it?
Old material can sometimes be good, or sometimes be
so much Unicorn Farts.
It depends on how far you have advanced and what you
have learned thus far.
And who wrote it.
Make a choice.
Keep it, or throw it away because it doesn’t apply
anymore.
Do you know where it came from?
If not, you can either look it up on the web, or you
can throw it away.
I am sure you will find something better once you
start researching again to fill up your new e-BOS.
Does it mean anything to you?
It’s all well and good that you have it, but really,
did you ever use it?
Do you still relate to it?
Does it mean something special or unique to you and
you alone? If
so, then it is worth cherishing.
If not, throw it away.
And as you go through your paperwork,
you are going to find duplicates.
Throw away the duplicates.
You don’t need 6 copies of “Charge of the Goddess.”
Or three copies of the pagan light bulb jokes.
You will be surprised how often we print something
out, simply because over the years we knew we had seen that
already but can’t find the copy we had.
Or you don’t realize that it’s the same thing again;
as it seems new to you, so you print it out, or save it,
again. If you
are unsure you had seen that piece of paper earlier, don’t
worry about it; we are going to sort through this paperwork
and file system one more time, to get it into working order.
On your computer, let’s see your filing
system. Umm, you
do have a filing system for all your files, correct?
I thought so.
Let’s start fresh and work on a system to file,
backup and find your files.
You can save your files to your hard
drive. That is,
if it is big enough, if it is new enough and if you trust
your computer. I
have external hard drives.
These have become so cheap that I have found uses for
many different drives.
I save to my hard drive and I then back it up onto
external drives, which then gives me a duplicate system for
all my files.
Invest in an external hard drive.
They are small, they are cheap, and they are easy to
hook up – plug and play is wonderful.
This will be the critical backup you need to keep
your e-BOS and all your other essential files safe and
available. Spend
money where it counts.
Sometimes it’s a good idea to spend a few bucks to
save time and energy and your precious memories.
Next, how do you set up your filing
system? I can
make suggestions, but in the end you will find a system that
works for you.
But, I can give some helpful hints that will assist you in
getting started.
How would we want to file away our
information? By
topic! So let’s
create some topics.
How about starting with MyeBOS as the top file?
Start clean with an empty file.
And then add into that from elsewhere on your
computer and add your paperwork.
Inside MyeBOS start your topics: spells, recipes,
chants, songs, prayers, rituals, photos, pictures.
Make them very basic; you can get more specific
within these topics.
OK, what about your actual files?
Do you name them to match the content, or are they a
mishmash of files with names that don’t seem to make much
sense. We can
fix this by creating a system of file naming.
All mine have a date, written in year, month and day.
Why? I
hate outdated information.
I also like to know when I wrote something, or when I
first catalogued that piece of information.
Then I catalog what the item is.
Spell, recipe, chant, song.
And a further topic, Hekate or protection, or chicken
soup. Yes, I
include recipes in my BOS because there is nothing more
magical than a meal made to be memorable, happy, healing or
comforting; you get the idea.
So, my file names can look like:
spell.protection.redbrickdust.20050609.doc.
Please be aware that naming conventions on different
computers will vary and you will need to adjust your names
to fit what your computer will accept.
For something someone else wrote:
spell.healing.morrison.2010.docx.
You can save rituals in a similar way:
yule.for2.20071222.pdf, referencing a Yule ritual for two I
wrote for the web in 2007. How about a picture? I like to
add the name of the artist or those pictured and the year
the picture was taken; oracle.collier.jpg or
mary.pagan event.2010.jpg
Remember, this is a suggestion only.
You may find a way that works even better for you.
So, what about all that paper?
Well, we do the same thing; start sorting out the
paper into piles like your files.
Once you have gone thru everything, you have three
options. First,
find the same article on the web.
You may get lucky with Google searches.
When you find it, print the webpage to a .pdf file
and save with the appropriate name in the appropriate MyeBOS
location.
Recycle the paper.
Or, you can scan the paperwork into your computer
using a scanner; very cheap these days, and it comes with
many printers.
Again, scan and save as a .pdf, name appropriately and file
away.
Last resort is to re-copy the material
by hand. Yes;
type it into a word processing program.
This will take time but it can be done.
Good typing practice and it will allow you to learn
how to use the many features of the program you have.
Now for some good ideas on what to do
with your new e-BOS!
You can save pictures from the web that you feel are
pretty, appropriate or just touch you in the right way.
And when you find something you want to save on the
web, you can use these pictures to embellish your
e-documents by adding them to the files.
Adding graphics to documents has become very easy,
and you can make your BOS pretty as well as functional.
For frequently used files, print out and place in a
protective plastic sleeve and place in a binder!
If it gets dirty or worn, replace from the file on
your computer.
A friend of mine purchased a handmade
BOS. Beautiful
embossed cover, lovely paper inside, well bound.
It cost a fortune and she was very delighted with it.
But the book did not allow her to insert pages.
It was pre-bound, and she didn’t want to actually
“write” in it as she felt she would probably mess it up.
I suggested she get some specialty papers either from
the office supply store or from the hobby shop and then
design her work in a processing program, pick a script that
was both legible and elegant, type her BOS entry and add
pictures and graphics.
Then print the pages out.
She could glue them to the book pages or insert them
between the pages so she can take them out and use them.
She thought that an excellent idea!
You can do the same with scrap books or other books
purchased from stores with blank pages.
Your e-BOS does not have to be confined to your
computer.
There are so many ideas you can come up
with for arranging and using your saved material.
And with today’s technology, you can save just about
anything for your own personal use.
Just be sure to keep track of where you got it from.
Always give the original author or artist credit.
From this you can create hard copy or electronic
keepsakes that can be passed on from generation to
generation.
Copyright © 2011 Boudica Foster

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