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Olivia Smith- Blog Post #1

Creating digital artifacts from archival documents has allowed for historical documents to become more accessible. For those who are interested in viewing and researching such topics related to those artifacts, they are able to view them digitally through websites like the ones we have explored in class. The benefits of utilizing digital artifacts is that it decreases the chances of them being destroyed. Over time many of these documents can get lost, so converting them into a digital form will help prevent this from happening. A disadvantage to this method is that when they become digitized, the person who is transcribing them could be challenged by the language or handwriting of the artifact. Important information could have the potential to get lost in this process.

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After exploring the Moravian Lives project, I was able to connect it to the other large-scale DH projects we have explored because of how interactive it was. Many of these projects take old archives and make them more interesting with a technological twist that is both educational and involving. Personally, I found the Moravian Lives project website to be the most educational because I was interacting with the artifacts. I was plugging in information and learning about the different migration routes that people took from the Moravian Church. This website and the Old Weather website also allow people to add their own contributions to the project by helping transcribe. In addition, already transcribed material is easily accessible on these website. Viewers can access this material at any point.

Moravian Lives Transcription Desk

Since transforming historical texts can sometimes inadvertently remove the history of the actual artifact, transcribers can work to create an online reading interface that still presents the history of the document. It could be something as simple as photoshopping the transcribed digital artifact onto the document. Also, if it is possible, the website could include a 360 degree view of the artifact so that the viewer could gain full experience as if being in the actual presence of it. I know that it is very hard to completely replicate the idea of reading an actual artifact, but creating a way that the viewer can both see and move the document digitally is very close to replicating the physical experience of reading it.

Because these websites are easily accessible, it has allowed for a shift in educational opportunities. Students can now access historical documents at any point in their education due to the work that transcribers have done. These documents might be ones that students would have never been able to see if it weren’t for their digitization. Though they are not provided with a hard copy of the material, what they can access is free and attainable. This material can provide educational experiences, just like the Moravian Lives project, that contains interactive material that can benefit many students learning experiences. Digital artifacts has greatly enhanced educational experiences for students around the world because it has combined historical artifacts with modern day technology to create a way that everyone can enjoy history.

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Blog #1: On Material and Digital Archives

After visiting several websites that are based on archival materials and browsing through the DH project sample book, I have been able to explore many DH projects. While browsing, I have seen the advantages and disadvantages of creating a digital artifact from archival documents. Specifically, many artifacts are in remote archives and only certain scholars are permitted access. By creating a digital artifact, the documents become widely available for research for people who are restricted by both travel and accreditation. Additionally, these documents are often delicate, sensitive to light, and require extremely special handling. But, when these artifacts are digitized, they no longer require such delicate conditions. This allows the researchers to put more effort into analyzing the document, rather spending time trying to maintain adequate conditions for the document.

On the other hand, there are some disadvantages. Specifically, when an archival document can be accessed digitally, it takes away from the special experience of traveling to the archive and handling the actual document. When a document is digitized, the document is often static, presented as a photograph or transcription. This presentation could potentially make a researcher miss an important aspect of the document, such as something that is written more lightly, that they would have been privy to if they were in the presence of the actual document.

As I explored the Moravian Lives projects, the biggest similarity I found was with another DH project, “Transcribe Bentham”. Both projects utilized crowdsourcing. The projects don’t have a sole contributor, but rather many. This method allows for more transcriptions to become available in a shorter amount of time, simply because so many people are able to be working on the project at once.

In the digital age, we are increasingly interacting with textual material on the screen more than on the printed page. Personally, my high school utilized the “iPad Program” and all our readings were digital. Because the interaction with the digital material is overpowering interaction with the printed material, our research practices changed. Post-It notes and highlighters have been replaced with digital annotations. 

Additionally, our physical and emotional relationships with our objects of study are drastically shifting in a digital age. Because archival documents are more accessible now digitally, researchers lose a special bond with the material that they would have felt had they accessed the material in person. This digital difference causes a slight detachment from their objects of study. The sense of seeing the document on a screen is much different than being able to see and potentially touch the document in real life. 

In the physical archive, there are different sources of knowledge and serendipitous discovery than in the digital archive. In the physical archive, researchers may be more likely to interact with other scholars that are studying a similar topic. Physical archives also offer the “wide-angle perspective” (185) that Whitley spoke about. However digital archives offer a different experience. As Whitley writes, “In browse mode, digital archives allow for a wide-angle perspective on their material by trusting to the wanderings of a curious mouse clicker. In search mode, the hope is that a search engine will serendipitously discover information that a browsing scholar or student might otherwise miss” (186). I would not say that the digital archive is better than the physical archive and vice versa, just that the two offer very different experiences. In my opinion, a combination of both may be the best approach for a browsing scholar or student. 

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Pros and Cons of Digital Text

The concept of creating a highly digital world is something that is very prevalent in society today. Personally, I believe that if these digital archives are created correctly they can be incredibly useful and elevate the efficiency in which people study, but the digital texts that we mainly use in school I find slightly aggravating. In school, from a personal experience, if the material is online it is simply a picture of the text. In this very scenario I will go to the library and print out the reading so I believe that today we still see majority of the resources on paper. I do however see a trend that is shifting with the waves of better technology. As time goes on more and more school will be done completely digitally providing easier access for students.

The advantages that come with creating digital artifacts are obvious. For one, the majority of people on the earth today own a smart device. A smart device is defined as an electrical gadget that will allow an individual to access the internet, surf the web, and connect with others. With the majority of text becoming digital and the overwhelming ownership of smart devices these digital texts become far more convenient for people to access than the actual written text. Furthermore, the more advanced digital archives allow a much easier way to dissect the information making studying easier and easier. If a digital archive is paired with some sort of visual analysis it allows the viewer to gain a broader understanding of the information before diving deeper into the real material. For this very reason I think that most school readings are done and distributed digitally. That being said, all digital readings I am given I will still print out because of personal preference While there are obvious positives, there are also some serious negatives. I personally find it much harder to retain information from a digital source than the physical text. While sifting through an actual book it is much easier take notes in the margins or even underline meaningful information. For those very reasons I still much prefer physical text to a digital version.

There is a lot of room for digital archives to grow and when they are perfected they will provide an efficient way of portraying information that hasn’t been seen before. The aspects of actual text that I find most useful are the abilities to take notes and highlight the important information. I understand that certain sites allow you to highlight the digital text but I still find it less than useful. If the archives kept a record of which pages you highlights it would make it much easier to go back and sift through the work you had done before much easier than archives I have accessed in the past. Another adjustment that I believe needs to be made is the use of margins. Today, we see a spaces underneath the test that allows you to take noted for the entire page, but with the actual text and a margin you can take notes directly next to the section of the reading you find important. With the addition of a visual component that provides a brief summary of the information and the ability to take clear concise notes on the digital texts I could see written texts becoming obsolete.

                                                

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Blog #1

There are lots of advantages to to create digital artifacts from archival documents. For example, physical documents are fragile, and are at risk at being destroyed and therefore the information they possess is lost.  Documents from hundreds of years ago allow us to see what the world was like in the past, but these old documents are usually worn down and sometimes illegible when they are found. By transcribing these documents into a digital archive, it preserves the information.  Digital archives also allow historical information to be easily accessible to the average person. The physical documents are held in an archive, and demands one to travel to the archive and for some important documents you must meet certain credentials to be able to see it.  Digital archives can be accessed in the convenience of one’s home as long as they have a computer. While there are many advantages, creating a digital archive there are also disadvantages. In order to transcribe archival documents into digital artifacts, a great amount of time is needed.  Creating a digital archive also means that people need to be able to create and maintain the website, and also demands committed people that are willing to transcribe documents accurately.

The Moravian Lives project shared similarities with lots of other large-scale DH projects.  The Moravian Lives project looks to preserve first hand accounts of Moravian people that moved from Germany to Pennsylvania.  The Moravian people kept journals that they used to write about their daily lives, and also sent letters describing their lives.  These documents contain valuable information about what the world was like back then. History is dominated by the male point of view, since usually they were the ones that would write and were more educated but the Moravian Lives project has valuable first hand accounts from women as well.  This is rare, as women and other minority groups do not have a big voice in history. Archive projects like “Old Weather” and “Database of Indigenous Peoples in North America” have a similar mission as the Moravian Lives project. All three look to keep information about the past and preserve it, and make it accessible to people.  They all three also involve transcribing documents that were written hundreds of years ago. The Moravian Lives project is also similar to “Mapping the Republic of Letters” project. The “Mapping the Republic of Letters” projects maps out where letters were sent from people like Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin, to illustrate how far their letters traveled.  The Moravian Lives project site also has a similar feature which shows where letters are from and where they traveled to.

With the current state of technology, I think society is more inclined to use screens for textual material instead of the physical printed version of books.  This also means that when studying or doing research, physically going to the library is starting to become more rare. This is why digital archives are important.  Digital versions of the text can either be a direct picture of the document and also just be the text on the document. Actually being able to see the original document over the computer in picture form can be more revealing for someone compared to if they were just reading a new version of the document.