Tony Guidone’s 1 presentation was really informative. It was great to see the artifacts that he brought in, especially the newspaper from Salem. One of the things that he talked about was viewing primary sources with more context. Specifically what stood out to me was when he showed the individual ads in the back of old newspapers and then mentioned how they can be viewed as part of the entire paper. When you look at the whole source, like a newspaper, you can see what else was going on in the area at that time. For example, The Virginia Gazette has historic newspapers all digitized. If you just look at the ads you see what people are selling, or looking to buy, maybe a horse has been stolen, etc. But when you also read the stories covered in the other pages there may be information about how many Virginians are selling out and heading back to England. It gives context that the advertisements alone don’t have.
One of the other things that Tony mentioned that I thought was great was keyword searches. Just using keyword searches may bring back good information, but it also could bring results that have nothing to do with your research. He mentioned that words that we commonly use to describe things today are not what they may have been called historically. I know I have encountered this in my current internship. In the late 19th century, Fairfax County Circuit Court called all of the things the County Clerk dealt with “judgements” because it all was approved by a judge. However if you go to the records room today they are filed under “term papers”. The archivists there know the difference in language and can point people to the right places.
Which brings me to my next topic on Tony’s presentation. He showed the class the slave index file cards that the Historic Records Center maintains, and how they have been digitized as part of the Mason’s Legacy Project. It really made sense when coupled with Posner’s presentation on data. Those cards in their physical sense are archives, but they are also data since they have been digitized into a searchable database. It helped to tie the ideas together into something easier to understand. Her example of a photo album2 as data also really made sense to me, the ability to physically interact with history is something that is lost when working with digital media. Seeing a jpg of an old newspaper isn’t the same as holding it in your hands. The text and information is there, but the smell of old paper is missing. The physical records of something have sentimental value in the way that a database doesn’t. Just the act of calling it data somehow strips some of the sentimentality 3.
Overall, between Tony’s presentation and Posner’s blog post I have a much better understanding of how digital history projects are relevant and very useful to historians today.
- Guidone, Tony. “Keyword Searching.” 9 Sept. 2019, Fairfax, Virginia, George Mason University, HIST 390.
- Posner, Miriam. “Humanities Data: A Necessary Contradiction”. Miriam Posner’s Blog. June 25, 2015.
- Posner, Miriam. “Humanities Data: A Necessary Contradiction”. Miriam Posner’s Blog. June 25, 2015.
