Blog #1: “On Material and Digital Archives”
Prompt: This week you have visited several websites that are based on archival materials. Go to the DH project Sample book and look at the projects that are categorized under Archive. What are some of the advantages to creating a digital artifact from archival documents? What are some of the disadvantages? What challenges did you have as you built your Omeka exhibit this week? Include the URL of your exhibit in your blog post. Your post should be 500 words in length.
In your consideration of material and digital archives, please answer three of the following questions:
- Are we interacting with textual material on the screen more than on the (manuscript or printed) page, and if so, how are our research practices changing?
- Are our physical and emotional relationships to our objects of study shifting in a digital age?
- Do digitized materials supplant our need to view the physical originals, or enhance the necessity of and desire for archival work?
- Do digital versions of material texts highlight physical elements of texts that might otherwise pass unremarked?
- What sources of knowledge and serendipitous discovery can be provided only in the physical archive? The digital archive?
- Is there a developing consensus about best practices for digitizing and editing archival material?
- Are there ways to create online reading interfaces that can more closely approximate the experience of reading physical materials?
- Do archival materials of women and under-represented groups present unique challenges in their transformation to digital forms?
- What new pedagogical opportunities do open-source and free digitized materials offer, and how are students using them?
Reminder: give your post the category “Blog #1″; add two images to the post, and include five tags that you think reflect the work that you submit. Please review the Blog Assignment description and rubric and email me with any questions you may have.
