Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Digital Archives

This article by Solberg was interesting to me because I can relate to it. I think every student these days has had to explore a digital archive - generally for a research paper or project where facts and credible sources are vital.

I can recall wading through hundreds of pages of digital articles for business research or analysis papers, or going through historical documents for English essays. Now, this can make the process easier because everything is so readily accessible - however for me it also makes it challenging because I'm a very tactile learner. I like to be able to highlight things, fold pages, spread items out on my desk and refer back to them physically. Archaic perhaps, but I function best this way. I've noticed that with a purely digital reference platform, I miss things in the copy&paste madness.

There's also the continuing issue of not being digitally inclined. So every time I do a search in one of these massive archives, I think I'm missing something, or not searching correctly. Which may not be the case at all but that's how it makes me feel (cuz feeeeeelings are SO important).


On that note however, I think if I didn't have digital archives as a back up/filler, I'd be lost. Sunk. Defunct. Not effective at all.

1 comment:

  1. And sometimes that ready accessibility is, as you talked about in class today, overwhelming, or not that easily accessible after all.

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