Cohen’s article The Future of Preserving the Past brings up the worries about digital archives and how they compare to traditional methods. He brings up the fact that a digital form of archiving might have an n inverse proportion of quality and quantity. Cohen brings up how the creation of more accessible forms of media allowed for the rapid creation of records. While this ability to save can been seen as a positive, to a professional archivist it could be a pure nightmare. This ability to create massive amounts of data and present it to the public takes a professional eye out of it. As he states in his article, it would be unrealistic for the Library of Congress to screen all the sites out there for certain subjects. This kind of mass distribution and lack of organization most likely leads archivists to avoid digital collections, despite the impressive capabilities they possess.
The second article by Cohen History and the Second Decade on the Web bring up this problem as well as major benefits. He brings up the ability to collect things like syllabi and organize in ways only a machine could. This ability allows for the efficient organization, allowing for better search abilities and collection management.
Finally, we have Joshua Brown’s History and the Web, From the Illustrated Newspaper to Cyberspace: Visual Technologies and Interaction in the Nineteenth and Twenty-First Centuries. He brings up how History and digital materials can be melded. His success story comes from the use of CDs with texts, providing a massive amount of content compared tot eh bound volume it came with. While this was a success, his work with the American Museum did not go as well. This piece disallowed the free flow that was popular at the time. This attemptive three-dimensional approach failed to live up to expectations, showing that history was still not used to the new media. The digital world and history attempt to work together, but academics need to realize how to approach such a vastly different world.
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How do we reconcile Cohen's two articles then? Archivists will avoid the massive overload, but historians should use digital media more and more? I think academia will slowly integrate into the new forms, but it will take time and evolution. Those who cannot adapt will fall to the side, and new academics (most likely younger) will fill those places with the abilities needed in the present and coming days.
ReplyDeleteNeither historians nor archivists should avoid the web--they need to have a hand in what goes on in the digital world. A lot of people like researching history on the internet. What will that result in if historians avoid the web? A lot of misinformation. Also, digital archives make research possible for those who don't have the money to travel to distant archives. I think the benefits outweigh the negatives.
ReplyDeleteCody, I agree the points you made based on the articles is valid. There is definitely a gap between acedemia and the web. But I agree with Jarrod too on this, that history on the web will evolve over time, however, I don't necessarily think it will be taken over by younger generations, but younger generations will have a huge influence on its development. And Katy's point too is significant. Look at our own digital access and how much we benefit from the technology.
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