With the opportunity to look back on previously assigned readings, I selected a piece which made sense at the time I was reading it, however makes a different impact after certain research experiences. When discussing why archivists choose to not include certain information in their files, the reason can be explained with something such as “it was not pertinant to the purpose of the file”. When discussing why not everything can go on the internet, answers can become more complex.
One important factors which can be overlooked when wanting to be able to find all archived information through the Internet is the sheer volume of papers that would have to be entered. This data not only includes the piece itself, but also the information which accompanies it, such as date, persons involved, or author credit. It must be considered when entering a physical archive to search which boxes may contain the information one wishes to look for. This is because of the potential miles of information gathered over one topic. Going into an archive with no regard for where to look is going to create a meaningless task.
_shown_in_her_laboratory_in_1947.jpg)
Other items are not as easy to scan as one may believe. Newspaper clippings which take up the majority of the front page may be bigger than a standard size scanner can handle, creating the need for an archvist to stitch together photos which may not match perfectly for several atttempts. Other materials may be preferred to digitize, however the question of how and how much to reveal comes into play as they may have sticky notes attached which obscure portions of the data.
Images, such as that of Barbara McClintock which is owned by the Smithsonian Museum, are digitized and placed within the creative commons due to their importance. Materials such as photographs of important figures can be counted easily as items to digitize without question a majority of the time. That person’s video slide, however, may not be as easy to digitize due to the way a scanner or camera is unable to capture what is seen when viewing the slide in its physical form.
Ensuring files are all digitized properly is another issue. Having been involved in the digitization of campus files, it is easy to see how taking the time to digitize all of even just one box takes so long it feels unworth doing. The papers tend to bend or be caught, and with one-of-a-kind works that is detrimental to their health and longevity.
Finally, while many of us think of digital files as “create and forget”, this is not the case. Over many years, corruption occurs on even the must sturdy of hardware, erasing portions of data. These files must be updated in this case, in which instance the physical files are once again. needed.
Digitizing records is nice for those who want to keep them short term and for a specific purpose. In the effort to bring information to everyone all the time, perhaps asking an archivist to find a particilar file or box and send pictures to ensure it is what one is looking for may be better than anticipating all archives to be digital soon.
This post is in reaction to Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives’ Why Don’t Archivists Digitize Everything? at PeelArchivesBlog.com, which can be found here.