Digitization, historians, and more
The reading on digitization for this week raised a number of interesting points and I thought it was the most eye-opening chapter in the book thus far. I’ve generally thought of the benefits of digitizing historical documents or books/articles, rather than the pitfalls, but some of the downsides are worth practical consideration. For instance, I never considered the significant amount of intellectual capital necessary to select and prepare a historical document for high quality digitization. However, it is good to know that select historians may be engaged in the process rather than having libraries or universities simply outsource all the work to third parties or relegate it to a purely technical team.
Digitize everything http://www.digiwik.org/digitize-everything/
neatly captures the dilemmas of whether to digitize or not to digitize and, if yes, how much and by whom. It’s really a thought-provoking blog entry. In particular, the question about marketing a digital collection raises a number of subsequent questions. In addition to noting that a collection is digital does it need to carry a “warning label” to users that the digital version of a document or oral history interview may not include all the original notes? We may cover this with copyright issues, but are reproduction or usage rights different for digital materials versus originals or analog copies? Should libraries and similar institutions focus marketing efforts on promoting digital downloads of materials versus encouraging customers to visit in person? What does that mean for training of library or archival staff (and historians)?
February 6th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
From trying to locate an archival job, I can tell you it is already changing the field. In addition to knowing the usual about processing collections, it helps to know how to design web pages, scan, and use online databases. Archivists are becoming their own digitizers as a norm.
February 7th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Very good questions. I did not even think about having different copyrights for a digital source until I read your post, but it does make sense if it is different material. I feel that we will all need to become digitizers, as Liz reiterates, and I am very thankful that hoepfully this class will put me above the curve. I also agree that I usually consider the benefits and not the drawbacks to digitization, but even now I think that the benefits far outweigh the costs.
In addition, I like your green background and different color font a lot. You have inspired me to experiment with my own blog site.