OK — I’m tired and ready for bed!! And it’s only 6:15 PM!!!!!! However, I am beginning to make more sense of the digita world as it relates to history. As defined in Our Cultural Commonwealth, Digital Scholarship is defined as:

a) Building a digital collection of information for further study and analysis

b) Creating appropriate tools for collection-building

c) Creating appropriate tools for the analysis and study of collections

d) Using digital collections and analytical tools to generate new intellectual products

e) Creating authoring tools for these new intellectual products, either in traditional forms or in digital form

In this structure, I can relate to digital scholarship better through researching primary sources for genealogy: census, military records, immigration records, etc. After comparing the digitized records to hard copies (which I am not ready to give up), I am comfortable with a lot of the primary source documents that have been digitized.

But I admit that I still have a long way to go. I still prefer books that I can hold and read. After a while, my eyes just hurt while looking at a computer screen. I need to switch off to other media as sources for history. And I still like to rely on several types of media for information. But then, that is the point of the readings for Wednesday — there are many sources of information. We just need to determine which ones are the best for each of us as individuals.

For the most part, I use Wikipedia for fum and general information.  It could be just me showing my age, but I trust books and primary documents more than Wikipedia.  But that’s just me.  I do think that Wikipedia has the potential for becoming stronger through limiting the editing by anyone.

In regards to the multiple choice testing forms, I have seen these used since I was in the first grade.  The only change that I have seen is filling in the bubble in the online versions of certification exams.  I don’t really have a problem with the online version of the form.

All three authors emphasize the points I made on the previous articles. Although the media is changing, there is, and probably always will be, resistance to the change. Change isn’t always comfortable. I noticed this during a genealogy conference that I attended in January. The course coordinator of the track I attended has a great deal of experience in doing research at NARA and the Library of Congress. Both are great repositories of original documents. At one point, I mentioned that I viewed census records online at Ancestry.com and included Ancestry.com in my citation along with the NARA citation. At that point, he just tensed up because I actually included Ancetry.com in my citations — the man is just more comfortable with the actual document citation!

I would have loved to have been sitting in on an actual conversation among the participants. Each of the participants brings a unique perspective to the the definition and importance of digital history as the next generation of telling the story of events. Most of them seem to agree that digitizing is a dynamic process and has a lot to give. There is still some resistance to the digitization process, but resistance goes with the territory.

The introdution presents a good overview of what to expect in this book. The promises and perils of digital history are probably very similar to prior methods of presenting information. After all, in recent history, radio brought the sounds of events and stories to life and people were left to imagine the sights that were connected to those sounds. Television brought sights and sounds together and left a lot less to the imagination.

Researchers seem to want to hold onto the documents and artifacts found in archives. There is just something about being able to touch or to smell the “real thing”.

The authors do a really good job of introducing what is out there in the first chapter of the book. Some sites or blogs are definitely better than others. Many sites bring information to people who would otherwise be unable to research information. One such site is www.ellisisland.com where one is able to search the passenger lists of ships bringing immigrants through the Port of New York, see photographs of the ships as well as a description of the ship. Actually going to Ellis Island helps to bring the immigrant experience closer to home by seeing the facilities used to process immigrants into the country and some of the artifacts left behind.

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