While approaching this new era of the internet and looking at other digital databases in the digital humanities realm, many databases we have seen are not successful for many reasons. Many of the projects that we looked at for our midterms have failed due to inactivity or lack of innovative technology holding the database updated and current. My idea is based off of an idea that my midterm had, create a database with a social media aspect. In this analysis, I will be talking about why I think my idea of turning the database for the Center for American War Letters into an online database with social media aspects would be successful.
Digitalization of documents is the “new” era of accessing old documents. In the article, Scarcity or Abundance, the author, Roy Rosenzweig talks about the accessibility of documents being online. “Digital information is mounting at a particularly daunting rate in science and government. Digital sky surveys, for example, access over 2 billion images.” This is extremely useful and beneficial to the public because you are granted free, or paid, documents at your convenience. This ultimately could destroy and force physical libraries to move completely online. I also think that adding a social media aspect to it would be innovative and draw more users to interact and speak their voice to the authors or the institution. The project I did for my midterm was an interactive exhibit where the employees got to write a blog post and you could view their profile and comment on their work. This made me feel like I was included in the work and kept me coming back!
As a digital humanities scholar, the possibilities are endless with coming up with new ideas to embrace and innovate this industry. The Center for American War Letters needs a revamp to its process and can do this very easily. At Chapman, we have the tools and services to digitize its collection. By digitizing them it only doesn’t give access to the public but it also grants us, digital humanities scholars, the option to use custom tools to analyze the documents.