Digital Archives

Online history archives are websites that store historical primary resources electronically that can be accessed by the internet. They offer historical data to academics as well as regular people who are doing personal research. They allow easy access to lots of information, people can access information from all over the world, whenever they need it. This is excellent for scholars who would otherwise have to travel to the location of the archives, which is not only time consuming, expensive, but also damages the environment. It also encourages regular people to research as the information is so readily available. If the information is easy to access then people will be more encouraged to do research than if they had to travel to get any information. There are many different sites, which can focus on specific information, The Darwin Correspondence Project focuses on Charles Darwin. Other sites have more broad information such as acestory.com focuses on familial ties or Medici Archive Project which focuses on the humanities.

Limitations are that sites only have certain types of information based on the topic the archive focuses on. Another draw back is that some for profit, such as ancestory.ca require a fee in order to be accessed. While there is plenty of information that has been uploaded, there is still plenty of information that has not been uploaded online. This is due to the fact that not everyone wants to allow public access to their work. A lot of work has to go into uploading the information, and storing it.

All in all, I think they will be great resources, however this is only the beginning so a lot more work has to go into understanding how to better use them. Once they are fully understood they will be a great resource to everyone, scholar or not.

Advertisement

Blog Post One

Hi my name is Michelle Zawalski. I am from Mississauga, Ontario, but recently moved to Thorold. I am currently in Labour Studies and History, first year. I transferred from York University in which I was in Human Resource Management. After university, I plan to go England get a teaching degree and teach English and History in Europe. Outside of school l like to read, watch shows, hang out with friends and travel. In this class, I hope to learn how it affects how information is collected and stored and how that will affect the future. Our accounts of history are skewed by the biases of the authors who were also usually the victors. It will be interesting to have all points of views and with some many authors, meaning that there would be so much information, details all recorded, things that may seem insignificant but ends up altering the course of history.

A glaring downfall to digital uses is the easy accessibility to post any information, accurate or not. Information can get murky as true and false information mix, it gets difficult to distinguish which is which. Search engines scan the entire database, bringing all sorts of results to match what you typed. Websites where people can input information that people want, alter real information. Another problem is that physical evidence could get lost in the data, loose its value. The Brightside of digital use of information is that information is more easily accessible, information can be made available to anyone with access to basic technology and data. While there may false information, true information is also available. Real information has credentials posted with them, and posted on reputable sites.

I think it is great because it allows more access, people that wouldn’t have access to so much information can now with much more ease. Education can be improved, people can learn more, quicker and easier. It can be a great thing if approached with proper caution, there is still false and misleading information, so proper precautions must be taken to verify correct information.