This week’s readings made me think about the historians relationship with the structure of knowledge and sources.  Our relationship is changing.  We can now digitally reformulate the structure of knowledge to find different kinds of information from our sources.  This is a little bit disconcerting, because I am also learning how to deal with traditional structures of knowledge, like archives.  In my case, I am actually learning how to digitally structure knowledge first, before I’ve had first-hand experience working in physical archives. Interesting.

Reading Highlights

Erickson

This was a good example of a historian who decided to use a relational database for information management.  Erickson learned that “how we organize and interact with information from sources can affect what we discover in them.”  Once she had her ‘digital note cards’ she was able to sort and sift, and get ‘granular’ with the information she had collected.  Full-text searchability was a key factor here, which allowed her to organize what she had noted, but also to recognize new patterns.   The database was relational because Erickson was able to see how some information related to other information in ways she had not previously recognized.  I was encouraged by this example.

Hitchcock

I appreciated this article because it helped me see how historical authority has been based on archival work.  Archival work can be emotional and visceral, because of a sense of direct connection to the past.  Digitization changes the historians access to sources, takes them out of context of the archival structure.  Furthermore, Hitchcock pinpoints keyword searching as a factor in melting the archival structure.  I am not sure I agree with the statement that a changing relationship with archives “undermines … our claim to social authority and authenticity as interpreters of the past” (89).  Then again, I haven’t yet found something in an archive and had the pleasure of authoritatively interpreting it.  The point is taken that if all sources are digital, and therefore, reproducible, the historians special understanding of a source (found in an archive) could become less authoritative.