Evolution of the Historians Craft since 1945 - Term Paper Example

Evolution of the Historian’s Craft Since 1945 Evolution of the Historian’s Craft Since 1945 A historical craft refers to the methods and procedures that historians use to record information that they have collected through research, analyzing it and drawing of inferences and conclusion from it. Historian’s crafts include the diaries, photographs, documents and artifacts mostly found in schools, museums, archives and libraries. Evolution in the way information is collected and stored has rapidly changed in Europeans countries such as France after the Second World War in 1945. Historians in France used methods such as the use of diaries and artifacts in documentation of information. Information Technology has promoted the use of digital age computers in recording information collected rather than the actual writing in scrolls and tablets, a method used by historians in past eras before 1945. The historians have been gradually trained on how to use IT tools in recording information. The historian’s practices were totally changed with the invention of IT tools where some of them became programmers whereas others became nothing in failure of adopting the IT tools in recording their information (Daddow, 2010). In Britain, there was introduction of digital histories and historians whereby information from primary sources such as artifacts is documented in computers. Historians have been trained on how to document information in computers and people started to access it from computers but not directly reading from the primary sources. In the 21st century the introduction of websites has made many people to access information through the internet and not only from primary sources in the libraries and archives and this marked a major breakthrough of documentation in Europe. In Europe there has been an open digital society for scholars and other readers and an open acces digital primary sources due to advancement in technology after the Second World War. It is evident that historian’s crafts has developed in Europe since 1945 since the use of computers in documentation of information and printing of books has been adopted during that period (Daddow, 2010). Some primary sources and old books in the digital formats exist even today. They are stored in libraries and archives. There are projects which have been developed so far where important collections of freely accessible e-books out-of-copyright by use of the Internet Archive with Book server, the Gutenberg project and the Open Library in the USA and the Gallica2 project in France, Europe. The idea of accessing the primary sources and scholarly literature in our computers has been campaigned for, resulting to the creation of cyber-networks. The importance of having an open access software, open Archives and cyber-networks in documentation of information has made it possible for worldwide access of the scholarly literature. The historian’s ways of documenting their works did not provide access to information to many people since the primary sources and artifacts were few and were stored in few libraries around the world. The advancement in technology during this period has promoted the access of information to many people which has not been achieved by the historian’s crafts in history marking another breakthrough in evolution of the historian’s crafts (Daddow, 2010). In United States, primary source collections started to be published in libraries and then distributed to other countries’ libraries and archives making that information accessible to many people which had not been achieved by historians before Second World War. Scholarly articles and primary sources were later published in computers which made it possible to be accessed by many people. Libraries started to digitize their own old collections of scholarly articles, books, newspapers, maps, archival documents and photographs. They also integrated the digital artifacts in their Open Access Catalogues increased their dissemination of information promoting their digital heritage (Daddow, 2010). Libraries further attempted to differentiate the way their collections, information and documentation reach their users. This led to creation of a new web in 2009 which made the digital sources not to be owned by digital libraries but be owned by those historians who wrote the articles. Audio visual sources of information were developed during this era making information to reach the targeted audience more clearly. This was an improvement in the historians who most of the times wrote information in books, scholarly articles and newspapers but never represented that information in real sense (Daddow, 2010). The advancement in technology led to emergence of televisions and radios. Information written by historians were now expounded on national radios making it reach to masses of people and in a more clear and understandable manner. Some scholarly articles contained plays were now acted in real sense and disseminated through televisions. The message contained in the historian’s scholarly works reached out to many people and this had not been achieved before the Second World War. Those people interested in reading a historian’s book had to access or possess the book itself but with the advancement in technology one could access the book from wherever in this world through the internet (Daddow, 2010). Digital history has been known to be adopted not only in U.S but also in Asian countries like Japan and China. Digital history involves producing the information written by historians in the past years through the use of the e-resources and the new media available on the web nowadays (Daddow, 2010). The production and documentation of information was a task to the historians and were needed to be aware of the production process of e-resources, information about the resources, methods used to select the best e-resources and meta-resources from digital historical websites and the use of e-resources in writing history for a web. These practices were very complex in 1960s and 1970s when historians were first confronted with the task of creating digital histories on the web for easy access of the readers. The tasks involved were typing of information using keyboards which was tiresome since it was their first time and in history they had only learnt how to write. Some notable developments in information processing and documentation in U. S. and other countries is that many cultural institutions are disseminating their information through the internet with works of historians such as the archival documents, photographs and old scholarly literature books (Daddow, 2010). References Daddow, O. J. (2010). Historian’s Craft Evolution since 1945: Historiographical perspectives on integration. Manchester [u.a.: Manchester Univ. Press. Read More