Visiting the Special Collections was an experience that helped to gain a stronger feel of what theatre was like in the 1930s. We have discussed in class the importance of digitizing information for preservation purposes, and the possible negative effects of digital data. Having the ability to feel actual documents from the Federal Theatre Project proves both points. Seeing the fragility of documentation, learning about the proper way to hold a piece of paper, and the need to be so careful when handling the items shows the importance of digitizing information because without proper care, these documents would become damaged and lost forever. However, as the Coordinator talked about in class, the digitization of tactile items can change the way in which people interact with history. We lost the ability to engage with the senses, which can ultimately impact the way we absorb information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Another difficulty with digitization is the risk of bias in choosing sources. As Thomas Padilla noted in his interview, art can be political, and it is up to the archivists, politicians, etc. who get to be remembered, forgotten, or silenced through historical records. <\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> At George Mason, the archivists digitize one of every document, based on what the Coordinator told us. She mentioned that this can become difficult with documents that have multiple pages or annotations, and that as a team they decide whether the additional information will be included in the archive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Archives, at least George Mason\u2019s, is a sort of hub of knowledge and history. The public is gifted an opportunity to interact with our history in a way that is not always available in a classroom setting. Researchers are able to use the data and artifacts for their own projects, at a price<\/a>, whereas without an archive this information may be lost. The Library of Congress argues a similar concept with born-digital records. Susan Manus believes that future archivists, or even current, will look to historical records on original forms of technology in order to preserve digital works that may become historically significant as time goes on, just how the hard copy works of the Federal Theatre Project are important to our understanding of history today. <\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Visiting the Special Collections was an experience that helped to gain a stronger feel of what theatre was like in the 1930s. We have discussed in class the importance of digitizing information for preservation purposes, and the possible negative effects of digital data. Having the ability to feel actual documents from the Federal Theatre Project … Continue reading “Blog Post #8-Special Collections”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1702,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699\/revisions\/1702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}