The online history archives from this week shows in various ways the digital history is already in our life. The first website shows massive letter by Darwin that was extremely hard to find. Considering before modern technology, it will be extremely difficult for any historian to get their hands on archive like this. Letters no doubt are vulnerable in time, the ink will fade, the paper will become thin, and a small accident could easily ruin everything. Yet this website here shows us how easy it can be for everyone to access these archives, anywhere, anytime. Furthermore, a essay accessible database like this not only increase the efficiency of historian but also invite others to study history as a hobby.
The second video provides a search engine to anyone’s family history, to find all the footprint left by someone’s ancestor. This service has not yet been free and might not be completely efficient for family living in developed countries by generations. Still it is better than nothing, even just for fun, you can find information highly related to the past of your family in matter of minute. You don’t have to travel across cities to follow or verify a lead. All you need is a computer.
The third website was similar to the first one but set for more functions. It is basically a big digital library that serve professors and researchers. The fact it has more user and more resource every day shows people are accepting the new platform of history. The only downside I can see for our next generation, is the lack of effort in searching data. It is like using online dictionary over traditional dictionary. The word you look for are instantly showed, instead of narrowing it down letter by letter, page by page on a book. It may seem efficient in the short term, but the knowledge will be easily forgotten after using it.
HIST2P26 