Cohen and Brown

The articles by David Cohen and Joshua Brown explored ideas about how the internet has influenced history. They touched on principles of how and why to preserve history digitally, the issues with converting to a digital medium and what it means not only to the public, but also to historians.

The overarching benefit of the internet present throughout the articles is that it has a massive capacity to present and collect resources. Upon visiting the website for the 9/11 Digital Archives one can immediately view how this resources is evolving. Since they are launching a new design, they offer a link to the old version. As a former web designer and current historian, I find this fascinating to be able to view how this very significant event is revolutionizing how history and the web interact.

When viewing the older site, you can see how it was an immediate reaction not only to memorialize, but also to collect information about 9/11. Now, it is more organized, has the Library of Congresses support and what made me view it as an archival source rather than just a website was the presence of a ‘Special Collections,’ much like many physical archives have.

My initial concern, as is a common one, is the reliability of the information collected. How can a researcher trust the information being collected is factual? I suppose it is no more or less a risk than reviewing correspondence materials in a physical archive, but it presents a valid concern for researchers. Reliability of websites though is a common issue. Cohen describes that the internet’s “failure to provide reliable clues that help one discern the real from the fake and the good from the bad” is a disadvantage not to be overlooked.

Cohen and Brown also describe the use of history websites and CDs as educational resources in contrast to printed materials. Unfortunately, I do not think it is impossible to comprehend a world without printed books, especially when it comes to educational materials. Younger generations are introduced to the digital world almost immediately, therefore, content producers should be taking this into account as well as older generations needs for printed materials.

The upside to all of this is access though, which I think is the more important issue. Don’t we want more interaction with history? Then we need to train educators how to teach students how to correctly analyze not only physical documents, but online ones as well.

I wonder how many teachers use the link, “Secrets of Great History Teachers,” http://historymatters.gmu.edu/browse/secrets/ .