Tony Guidone’s lecture was one that I, for the most part, agree with. The digitization of historical data and information is immensely important, as it provides previously difficult to access historical data to anyone with an internet connection. Data that would previously take hours or days can now be found in a matter of minutes, all due to the digitization of data. Personally, I find that concept to be very encouraging, because I have always believed that such information should be readily available and easy to access.
Many times in the past, I have come across topics that have interested me in my free time, and I have been inspired to research them, only to find that the information I sought was in some records office several states away, or in another country. For example, I have always had an interest in researching my family tree. I want to see how far back I can trace my family lineage. My father did a similar project when he was my age. He spent months going through old family and court records, and he eventually crafted a family tree that was highly detailed for the 20th, 19th, and 18th centuries. Further back, the tree is sparse and uncertain, and it ends with one man who lived in England in the 1600s.
Ever since I saw the sparse areas in the older parts of my family tree, I have wanted to fill it in and see how far I can go, and I have wanted to do so for both my dad’s family and my mother’s family. However, I keep facing the same wrinkle every time: the ancestors I wish to research all lived and died in Europe or in South America, and nearly all their records are in other languages. It is my hope that one day those records will be digitized and accessible online. As I am the stereotypical broke college student, traveling to Europe and South America is out of the question. So for me, the idea of such information becoming digitized and available to the public is exciting and filled with possibilities.
However, I understand the flipside of this issue as well. As information and data becomes digitized, the context is often lost. This can be a real problem when trying to understand history accurately. Ian Milligan is one of many who addressed this issue, and he noted that since many researchers are relying on information found online the “research process is built upon an often misunderstood foundation”(Milligan, 2013). Miriam Posner is another who addressed this issue. She noted how data, such as historical photos, was being stored in disorganized digital lists, completely without context or organization.
I do believe that this is a problem, as historical information and data requires context in order to truly understood. However, I believe that ultimately the digitization of historical data is a very good thing, and I believe that over time, and through trial and error, we will find out how to best deal with this issue.
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, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/527016.Posner, Miriam. “Humanities Data: A Necessary Contradiction.” Miriam Posners Blog, 25 June 2015, http://miriamposner.com/blog/humanities-data-a-necessary-contradiction/.
