Archives & Manuscripts Post #10

I often think about what history will look like in the future. What types of sources will Historians use and what will they use them to say? In my mind, the Internet is a mixed bag when it comes to History and Archival work. I like that I can now listen to Alan Lomax’s amazing 17,000 song sound recording archive from the comforts of my bedroom and I think that examining facebook statuses could be an interesting way of understanding how people create identities for themselves in the twenty-first century. But, I don’t like that researchers demand more and more digitized archival collections without really understanding the difficulty and legal liabilities involved in doing so. I’m not sure there’s any resolution be had, but it’s definitely worth thinking about.

In his 2003 article “Scarity or Abundance: Preserving the Past in the Digital Age,” Roy Rosenweig illustrates the potential gains and pitfalls of historical research and archiving with digital sources. Many researchers do not realize the difficulty involved in the historicization of the digital age. For instance, internet sources raise significant provenance issues. With many pages, it is difficult to identify a creator or the origins behind an Internet website. Furthermore, many cites, like blogs and other social media platforms, can be instantly deleted or edited with little trace of such an action.[1]

Rosenweig also illuminates how digitized sources like e-books are licensed and not sold to libraries, making it impossible for archival users to make copies. As Rosenweig shows, not offering ownership of materials to archives makes it ultimately impossible for archivists to preserve those materials.[2]

However, digitizing materials will also allow archives the chance to expand its users and possibly, even expanding the pool of persons interested in historical research. There are undoubted hurdles involved, but large-scale, interactive digitization projects could serve as a significant outreach tool. The future presents many possibilities for archivists and historians.

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[1] Roy Rosenzweig, “Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era.”

American Historical Review 108  (2003): 740.

[2] Rosenzweig, 744.