Dan Cohen: Is Google Good for History?

“Is Google good for history? Of course it is. We historians are searchers and sifters of evidence. Google is probably the most powerful tool in human history for doing just that. It has constructed a deceptively simple way to scan billions of documents instantaneously, and it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars of its own money to allow us to read millions of books in our pajamas. Good? How about Great?

But then we historians, like other humanities scholars, are natural-born critics. We can find fault with virtually anything. And this disposition is unsurprisingly exacerbated when a large company, consisting mostly of better-paid graduates from the other side of campus, muscles into our turf. Had Google spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build the Widener Library at Harvard, surely we would have complained about all those steps up to the front entrance.”

Read full story

Beyond the Museum: Working with Collections in the Digital Age

Humanities Computing Unit, University of Oxford: 20th April 2001

“Is the new digital age the answer to the prayers of museums, archives, and libraries? Does it free up collections allowing unprecedented access facilities for scholars and the public? Or is it all built on a house of cards? Do the new technologies really offer us anything, and are they sidetracking the holders of the nation’s heritage into areas that really have unproven benefits? Is funding being diverted away from more needy services? Can the museum, or similar institution, actually survive in such a fast-changing culture?”