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Blog Post #1: “On Material and Digital Archives”

An advantage of creating a digital artifact from archival documents is that there is a much larger amount of data and information available for researchers and the general public. Artifacts and manuscripts that have been too frail for people to look at and use in the past are now accessible. We are now able to use the information, that we never had access to before, to help learn from the past and improve in the future. Researchers and other individuals can link information together and find patterns and trends that they would have never been able to have done before.

This old ship’s log can help us learn from the past, so that we can create a bright future.

However, one of the problems associated with creating digital artifacts is that the computational techniques usually used to store these digital archives cause limitations to those interested in seeing them. Also, the process itself of turning an artifact into a digital archive can be dangerous to the artifact. It is so old and so fragile that it can get damaged very easily. Another problem that I see with creating digital artifacts is the large margin for human error. Most of the times, people are the ones converting the archive to a digital medium and they could misread the writing or accidentally make a typo that makes the artifact inaccurate.

The side by side view of Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscript in print and the digitized one created by an individual demonstrates the margin for human error and how difficult deciphering manuscripts can be.

I feel that digital archives do not supplant our need to view the physical originals, or enhance the necessity of and desire for archival work. I think that the easy accessibility that digital artifacts provides takes away the excitement for researchers. Though they can just easily look online for the one thing they are looking for instead of having to do research to find it. They will not get to experience the extreme happiness that they feel when they discover something which could eventually cause them to lose passion for their topic of interest. I believe that researchers learn the most when they are looking for information because they run into other data along the way and learn even more when they see the archive in context.

That being said, I feel that open-source and free digitized materials provide opportunities for students and other people looking for specific material to find things that they otherwise would not find. They are able to explore topics in a much deeper manner and discover things that they never even would have thought of. I think the use of these materials also help individuals discover something that interests them that they may have never known existed before looking at digital archives. Students are able to study groups of people that they never heard of and provide them with a much broader perspective on the world and the world’s history.

I believe that because of the creation of digital archives, our research practices have dramatically changed. Most information people need is on the computer and is accessible across the world, so there is no need for individuals to go to the library. Instead of working in groups and dividing up parts of research projects, people are more likely to work on their own and not collaborate with other individuals. I think the use of digital archives have taken the socialization element out of research. I believe that it is a shame because people learn the most from one another and are the most successful when they are working with others because they get different perspectives they would not have thought of otherwise.

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Blog #1

Blog #1

In the Research Projects that were looked at like the, “Database of Indigenous People in North America,” had many interacting material that are displayed in our screen with a click of our mouse. With the new interactions of these archives conveys that our research practices are changing in order to be more visually pleasing to people and be more accessible to the public. In the Research Projects, the primary Digital Humanities focus was Archive in the site itself. With Archiving it allows people to see documents, letters and other images that can be easily accessed in the site, than having someone go to specific place just to see the physical copy once. However, there are disadvantages to that.

There are disadvantages when analyzing things in digital form because there is significance when looking at the object in first hand. It can show if the object is truly of significance or not to a specific area. No one can truly understand meaning of a place unless one goes to that specific place and talk to the people of that area or walk around that area in order to imagine how a person will live in this place.

With looking at the Research Projects in Archive it has its clear advantages with having more approaches to this like Maps. Maps help in looking at mapping areas that have impacted by events in American History, Southeast Asia, and many more. In the archive of  “Database of Indigenous People in North America” it give examples of some of them having named locations where Natives of the Land use to settle and the territory that was assigned to them by the American Government. With the methods that were presented in this specific Research Project  it can fit into a scholarly subject matter in understanding the History of the Indigenous people in a certain place and time. With having the perspectives of many people coming from newspapers, photographs, census and etc. it allows the average person connect the ideas of the past for them understand the actions of those people in the past. The determining factor that makes the digital representation to be conveyed to world is by the type material that is given and the amount information one has in their disposal to explain a subject matter. One has to determine in what ways can we share this information to a audience. Some people would just publish it into a book that can only be read in a physical copy. Or there are people who rather share to a public domain that is online to capture a larger audience. Another example can be an audio recording that was captured of very important event. One of the many ways people will be allowed to hear it is by either going to the object itself and get the permission to hear it, or having a copy online that can be easily accessed by one click.

The physical and emotional relationships to our objects of study are shifting in a digital age that can’t be stop. The reason is that is for efficiency. Lets say someone has found a huge discovery that can impact our world and the way to share it quickly is by using online tools that can be presented to a huge audience and can be analysed by other researches around the world. In a matter of time.

Digitized materials enhance the necessity of and desire for archival work because the physical location where that material came from can help us understand the meaning of that piece because a picture of a place can’t supplement the meaning of a place.