I found Guidone’s presentation to be very interesting. I appreciated all the examples of primary sources he brought into the class. Most of them were artifacts representative of the time period we are focusing on like newspaper clippings and ads and coins from Germany varying in feel. He discussed with us the digitization of those resources and the troubles historians often have as a result.~
In Ian Milligan’s “Illusionary Order” 1, he discusses the value of digitizing national newspapers in Canada and how they have become the most go to source. Basically, not a lot of information is made available in a digitized format beyond the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail digital databases which can hold a specific bias and not be good for getting the whole picture of the past. Another problem pointed out in this article that Guidone also touched upon is “what changes when you digitize a source?” Guidone mentions that you can lose context as many databases will use specific newspaper sections rather than the whole deal. He showcased the Readex database 2 which is full of newspaper clippings. Various pieces of the paper reveal their own parts of the story and not so much a complete picture. If these papers get smudged, then the transcribing technology 3 will not be able to read the document completely and we end up with gaps, leading to lost information. They could try to use the clippings together, but then it becomes an extremely long process, tying into Milligan’s point that databases can be a mixed bag of sources or data. Most of the downsides of digitization are the result of a learning curve that needs to be taken by historians in order to better improve their work and resources. Now, let’s discuss some of the benefits.
Easily, the best benefit that comes to mind is easy access to sources, and, with keyword searching in mind, an increase to research speed. The word Guidone used was “democritized.” This word means that the user has easy access to the sources they wish to find and use. Honestly a good word to use as it gives a since of “information by the people, for the people” and implies collaboration between users which in turn allows for more complete information gathering and collecting. Instead of scrounging through books, each of us can easily divide a subject into parts and look for sources based on our individual topics. If we need to, keyword searches will bring a lot of the information we need to the forefront, and leave out the stuff we do not necessarily need, making the searching process more efficient.
Digitization can also play a good role in social change, or rather, social awareness as well. At Mason, we have two projects: The Enslaved Children of George Mason 4 and Mason’s Legacies 5. These projects seek to illuminate the story of George Mason and look into his life, which there is not a lot too unless you do some good digging! Essentially, Mason owned slave children and may have been in dealings with his slave-trading brother. Bringing attention to this topic helps people to re-evaluate what they originally thought as well as consider something new. These new ideas would help feed social awareness overtime, but I feel social change might be a bit much. These archives can gain traction, but I believe it would take some time for people to wrap their minds around the situation before change can take root.
So, when looking at the big picture, digitization has really shaken up how we look for things. Sources are much easier to find and read through. A quote from Guidone that I thought was interesting was (paraphrased), “Keywords should not be your first choice, learn the primary source and read it first.” The quote here goes back to my point on the fact that keyword searches can be good, but you lose the full force of the information the source has to offer. You can get the info you wanted, but it comes at the cost of not seeing what the full document or source. There very much is a good and bad side to digitization of sources; and as Milligan suggests, we as digital historians need to take it upon ourselves to become well acquainted with the technology to preserve the original context and be able to glean fuller information from our sources.
Works Cited
- Milligan, Ian. “Illusionary Order: Online Databases, Optical Character Recognition, and Canadian History, 1997–2010.” The Canadian Historical Review, University of Toronto Press, 27 Nov. 2013, muse.jhu.edu/article/527016.
- Marr, Bernard. “What Is Data Democratization? A Super Simple Explanation And The Key Pros And Cons.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 12 Dec. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/07/24/what-is-data-democratization-a-super-simple-explanation-and-the-key-pros-and-cons/#7a6bd8126013.
Footnotes
- Fully: “Illusionary Order: Online Databases, Optical Character Recognition, and Canadian History, 1997–2010”. The article discusses how many historians are unfamiliar with digitization and databases and how the information can or can not be up to par with what is being researched. The author stresses that historians should strive to become familiar with the technology in order to create more reliable databases.
- https://www.readex.com/
- OCR or Optical Character Recognition is a term used by Milligan. The technology was used more for business files and is not necessarily equipped to tackle much older documents.
- A digital archive devoted to giving a voice to the slaves held by George Mason. Using various letters and other sources, its brings their story to the forefront. https://ecgm.omeka.net/
- A project with a much more broader scope than Project ECGM. It focuses more on George Mason and his family and the people and territory associated with him. https://www.masonslegacies.org/
