Die technische Möglichkeit mit eigenen Geräten (iPhones, iPad, Digitalkameras etc) in Archiven und Bibliotheken schnell und kostengünstig Kopien herzustellen, bringt ganz neue Zugänge und Chancen für die historische Forschung.
In einem Artikel der New York Times „New Research Tools Kick Up Dust in Archives“ werden deutlich die Vorteile herausgestrichen.
… In just a few years, advances in technology have transformed the methods of historians and other archival researchers. Productivity has improved dramatically, costs have dropped and a world distinguished by solo practitioners has become collaborative. In response, developers are producing an array of computerized methods of analysis, creating a new quantitative science.
However, the transformation has also disrupted many of the world’s historical archives, long known as sleepy places distinguished by vast and often musty collections of documents that only rarely saw the light of day. It has also created new challenges for protecting intellectual property and threatened revenue streams from document copying, creating financial challenges for some institutions. …
Also: weg mit den Fotografierverboten und Bezahlschranken …!
Quelle: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/science/new-research-tools-kick-up-dust-in-archives.html
Bezug genommen wird dabei auf eine sehr lesenswerte Studie Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Historians von Jennifer Rutner und Roger C. Schonfeld (Dezember 2012), in der die Praxis untersucht wurde:
This study, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, uncovers the needs of today’s historians and provides guidance for how research support providers can better serve them. We explore areas such as content discovery, information management, scholarly analysis, collaboration, library use, the writing process, professional interactions, and publication, among others.
Our interviews of faculty and graduate students reveal history as a field in transition. It is characterized by a vast expansion of new sources, widely adopted research practices and communication mechanisms shaped by new technologies, and a small but growing subset of scholars utilizing new methodologies to ask questions or share findings in fresh, unique ways.
Research support providers such as libraries, archives, humanities centers, scholarly societies, and publishers – not to mention academic departments that are often at the front line of educating the next generation of scholars – need to innovate in support of these changes. This report provides context and a set of recommendations that we hope will help.
Aus dem Executive Summary:
… For archives, we recommend ongoing improvements to access through improved finding aids, digitization, and discovery tool integration, as well as expanded opportunities for archivists to help historians interpret collections, to build connections among users, and to instruct PhD students in the use of archives.
For libraries, we recommend ongoing improvements in the provision of collections, including by addressing changing format preferences, by collaborating to maximize access to collections, and by offering discovery environments that incorporate the full range of needed materials. We also recommend that libraries develop new research support models that address historians’ related needs for expertise at a sub-disciplinary level and for assistance in discovering and accessing primary source materials.
For providers of digital and digitized sources, we recommend addressing the absence of foreign language and non-textual materials and providing additional transparency regarding their collections to maximize their value for computational research. In addition, we note the singular reported importance to historians of Google’s offering and recommend that other providers evaluate their distinctive role in this light. …
Siehe dazu auch: http://www.sr.ithaka.org/research-publications/supporting-changing-research-practices-historians