Confronting the Digital

Abstract

This discussion piece argues that the design and structure of online historical resources and the process of search and discover embodied within them create a series of substantial problems for historians. Algorithm-driven discovery and misleading forms of search, poor OCR, and all the selection biases of a new edition of the Western print archive have changed how we research the past, and the underlying character of the object of study (inherited text). This piece argues that academic historians have largely failed to respond effectively to these challenges and suggests that while they have preserved the form of scholarly good practice, they have ignored important underlying principles.We are halfway through what has frequently been described as a revolution. In the last fifteen years trillions of words of printed text have been digitized and delivered to an eager audience in a keyword searchable form. Google books alone has digitized some seven million of what it estimates are 1.3 billion volumes, 1 and in the next ten years the pre-1900 archive of printed materials in most major languages will be available for keyword searching. 2 We are witnessing the creation of the Western print archive, second edition. Even now it is possible to research and write credible, evidence-based history on many topics using exclusively online sources. This is not to imply that the process is complete, or even nearly so. We have only just begun to digitize manuscript materials, ephemera, images and objects. There also remain serious issues about what should be digitized next, and what impact that selection has on the direction of scholarship. 3 But what has been achieved is nevertheless remarkable. Britain has been at the forefront of the international campaign to make this happen, and its academic community -and the wider community of scholars working on British subjects -

State of the Field: Digital History

“…Today it is hard to imagine conducting historical scholarship without technologies such as search engines, yet these technologies significantly impact historiography. 70 Furthermore, besides technological developments, a number of debates internal to digital history are likely to affect historical scholarship in the (near) future.…”

Index-Driven Digitization and Indexation of Historical Archives

“…There is hardly any doubt that humanists, and historians among them, make an increasing use of digital tools and resources (Chassanoff, 2013). Even if the number of advanced users among historians is still limited, hardly none is left untouched by the digital turn (Townsend, 2010;Hitchcock, 2013). Nevertheless, digitization rises a set of questions and challenges.…”

Data scopes for digital history research

“…While this takes too many forms to describe here, some examples may illustrate these questions. For instance, in archives of national media outlets (newspapers, radio and television broadcasts) which specific outlets are included and which selection choices were made (Hitchcock 2013)? Are there any missing editions or broadcasts?…”