[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0ngLBa4ewM[/youtube]
Digital humanities opened an endless avenue offering possibilities for online research and teaching. As long as you have the democratization of the internet and the accessibility to technology, Digital humanities can expand knowledge and scholarship beyond academia. The great achievement of the field/medium needs to be that. The democratization of knowledge and technology. People having access to research and information. However, as digital technology comes with expensive prices in its components, digitization and storeging also costs lot of money. According to Cohen and Rosenzweig, changing a analog document into a digital one naturally comes with a loss of quality or meaning (Digital History, 82). The authors quote one leading library scholar, Abby Smith to explain in details how that loss usually works. According to Smith “analog information can range from the subtle tones and gradations of the chiaroscuro in a Berenice Abbott photograph of Manhattan in the early morning light, to the changes in the volume, tone, and pitch recorded on a tape that might, when played back on equipment, turn out to be the basement tapes of Bob Dylan” (Digital History, 82).
Just like physical libraries are spaces that contain and preserve books, articles and general archives like primary and secondary sources, digital spaces have the capacity to serve as slots of knowledge too. In this context, Google Books and the Open Content Alliance (OCA) emerge as mega hubs to digitized files. The OCA presents itself as a hub in which you can find other digital archives
Although OCA blog presents news about the digitization of files from other places, their last update was in 2010 – saying the television network C-Span was about to make its entire video archive available, free and open on the internet. They even added a comment on the fact: “This is news of monumental importance, not only for history buffs but in support of a democratic society.” Thus, making politics very clear. Connected to OCA, there is the Open Library project hosted by the non-profit Internet Archive – According to the website “Open Library is an open project: the software is open, the data are open, the documentation is open, and we welcome your contribution. Whether you fix a typo, add a book, or write a widget–it’s all welcome.” In other words, Open Library is a collaborative project that works organizing ebooks with the help of digital librarians. In addition to these web places, I would add the website Open Culture as a hub for free digital information and knowledge. Different from the websites presented before, Open Culture provides material that goes beyond scholarly written archives such as audio books, online courses, movies, and textbooks.
In general, these webplaces have the capacity of supplying the internet with knowledge that most of people do not have access on their own physical libraries. They serve as international libraries with a diversify selection of files and authors enriching the internet with the possibility of finding quality material for scholarly work or even for entertainment. Particularly speaking I am positive about these places, I use them often and they were always helpful for my objectives, however, there are complex debates surrounding their existence. Discussions about copyright, copyleft, creative commons, and all issues that implicate licenses and registrations. But, well, this is a whole different topic that we will approach in November.
After reading a few other blogs (and based on my own experiences) we all seem quite negative on googlebooks, but more appreciative of archive.org. Based on your through review of things to consider when digitizing, do you think either of these services really does a good job? If digitizing projects lived up to their full (rich, as you note) potential, what would they look like? Are they any projects live now that have these attributes?
I would be curious to see what “rich” digitizing efforts look like as well. However, I’m left wondering if that is even real/true goal when considering the notion of sharing information. I bring this up because as a Black woman I have ALWAYS been taught that I that I have go beyond the surface/mainstream to uncover the “truths” of the Black experience as most text are rarely providing that information. This becomes a factor for me because I wonder even if “rich” digitizing reached its full potential, would it offer comprehensive resources that critically engaged with the nuances, complexities and contradictions of the Black bodies or any marginalized/underrepresented group who continues to defend and redefine destructive narratives that impact their overall daily lived experiences.