Dear Phil Libin,
I hope it’s ok if I call you Phil, since I have been your secret admirer since October 2008. And I hope it’s ok to write you a love letter. (I received official dispensation from my husband of nearly 40 years.)
I am the proud owner-writer-aggregator of 2,279 Evernotes. Most of them are associated with a biography that I have been writing for the last four years. When I started my research, I searched around for note-taking software that improved on Info Select, which I used back in the dark ages of 2004, when I was working on my first book. In fact, that’s how I first found Evernote. I searched for Info Select, and read recommendations for the programs that succeeded this early entry into note-taking software.
Since 2008, Evernote has been my constant companion, a tireless workhorse, the antidote to a faulty memory, and a researcher’s best friend. I liked seeing my notes and notebooks pile up – and I liked even more the process of integrating them into a 300 page book. Evernote migrated with me from my laptop, to my first smartphone, and my first tablet. As I went back and forth from New York to Fire Island, where I wrote the book, and conducted interviews and research trips to Tucson, Anchorage, Nome, Los Angeles, Boston, and a dozen other locations, my cloud-based personal archive was always at my disposal, always synched and always available on my digital display of choice.
I am not sure what kind of book I would have produced without Evernote, or whether I would have met my deadline, but I’m quite sure that things would have been mighty different.
My book grew up with Evernote. I recruited dozens of new Evernote users who were working with me or happened to be within earshot as I gushed about my indispensable writing companion. I am probably not your typical user, but as new releases came out, I adapted to them, grateful for improvements that had just the right degree of new functionality, without major disruption of a project in motion. I found Penultimate all on my own, but then it became part of my Evernote tool kit, and of course, I’m a Moleskin user too.
Evernote was not perfect: there were some missing elements, like better print formats, and the ability to number my entries, for example. Ok, so I could suggest a few other improvements too. But let me not sully my bouquet with pesky bugs.
Looking ahead, I am also musing on a project to make my Evernotes public as the scholarly mine for the next researcher. And here’s where things get really interesting: instead of giving my research notes to a university library, I will put them online, a searchable, cloud-based archive that will advance knowledge far more quickly and flexibly.
Phil, I read about your slow path to becoming a public company, and I applaud your caution. Everything about Evernote suggests to me your great respect for your customers.
So now that LADY AT THE OK CORRAL, the true story of Josephine Marcus Earp, is in final form, due for publication by HarperCollins in March, 2013, I feel like I owe you a public thank you. I didn’t dedicate the book to Evernote, though I swear, I thought of it.
With appreciation and respect to the whole Evernote team,
Ann Kirschner
University Dean
Macaulay Honors College of The City University of New York
author of Sala’s Gift and Lady at the OK Corral