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This image
is in the public domain because it contains materials that originally came from
the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Author NOAA George E. Marsh Album, theb1365, Historic
C&GS Collection
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A recent New York Times article by
John Markoff, New Research Tools Kick Up Dust in Archives
talks about all kinds of issues with how we now do research that range from
intellectual property to access fees to repository revenue sources to new tech
tools for data mining to changes in how researchers research and much more.
For example, if patrons are now able to freely photograph
(or scan) documents in a repositories’ collections and so the repository has
decreased revenue, how does it accommodate that? Are changes in personnel and operations also
required? As resources ($ and people)
are re-purposed, are we losing some other important services?
The article ends with this statement ...
Now she often begins with electronic records. “Now my methodology has
changed for the better in terms of efficiency. What’s lost in the change is the
serendipity of what else might be in this box of materials, if I had gone
there.”
I can identify with this statement. With all the online access, we are often, in
a way, reading an “abstract” created by someone. How thorough is it? What information is included or not? What have we missed? How often have we “trawled” through records
and spotted something that has relevance and yet the “key term” was NOT indexed
and so we could not have searched on it?!?!
We are certainly living in an ever evolving world as we do
our research. This is both exciting and
stressful. The key is to keep ALL that
is good and not just rush forward and abandon “older” means of research which
are still relevant!
What “repercussions”
have you seen at your local archive as a result of all the new
technologically-based research tools?
What has been good, bad and maybe even ugly?
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