I really enjoyed Tony Guidone’s presentation last week. It allowed me to gain a new perspective on digital history and how digital media may not always be the best resource for us to use. Text searching has certainly changed the way society engages with information, but not always for the better. When using text searching in research, we may be able to get said research done quicker and easier, but there is an added risk on missing out on vital information if we are relying solely on text searching and not reading thoroughly through the primary sources offered. However, in instances where text searching is used for non-research purposes it is a great tool to allow us to find information easily and quickly. This also encourages searching for answers to our questions as it is so easily accessible and easy to do with limited knowledge on the subject.
Tony focused a large part of his presentation on how digital projects can certainly benefit society, but can also allow some things to be lost after translating sources digitally. Despite what may be lost, digital media is still a great resource as it makes projects and research more easily accessible and attainable than they previously would have been. An example of this can be found in Ian Milligan’s article where he talks about the impacts of the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star being digitized. Before digitization most newspapers were cited around the same amount. However, after the Toronto Star was digitized, it was cited far more frequently than its non-digitized counterparts. 1 Due to its digitization making it so easily accessible, other sources such as the Ottawa Citizen were being ignored, creating an unnecessary hierarchy of sources. Original meanings and context can also be lost due to digitization. One of the examples given in the presentation was that of German currency. During World War II, German coins started being made with a much cheaper metal than previously used. This is easily noticeable when holding a coin from before and after the war as the weight difference was significantly lighter in the cheaper coin, despite it appearing to be very similar online. 2
- Milligan, Ian. “Illusionary Order: Online Databases, Optical Character Recognition, and Canadian History, 1997–2010.” The Canadian Historical Review, vol. 94 no. 4, 2013, pp. 540-569. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/527016.
- “1 Reichspfennig, Germany.” Numista. 15 Sept. 2019 <https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces2586.html>.
