Blog Post #1

“Digital tools” by definition has a rather all-encompassing scope, changing based on a number of different variables, from profession or field of study of the individual to their interests, the possibilities are limitless when narrowing down one definition for digital tools or digital humanities. However, personally, when I mull over the numerous possibilities of a definition what sticks out most prominently in my mind is what we previously discussed in class: “Digital tools for a digital age.” For this week we read The Digital Humanities: A Primer for Students and Scholars by Eileen Gardiner and Ronald G. Musto.

One might ask, what do digital humanities cover? In essence, everything with a digital interface. A good example of this would be augmented and virtual reality games that many people play on a multitude of different platforms including consoles, computers, and smart phones. I find the digital humanities and the use of digital tools so fascinating because in the twenty-first century this field has become so ingrained in our society and it would be literally impossible to remove these tools and this field from our society. As historians and academics we rely on digital tools every day of our lives writing papers, sending emails, and reading e-books, but what if it was all gone? Libraries, archives, special collections, museums, colleges, universities, and hospitals all use digital tools to keep their collections, catalogs, websites, medical records, charts, digital exhibits, and other important information much of which is kept only in digital formats. This is important because we live our lives online, digitally, or with a screen in our face constantly but at some point I feel its necessary to back up our lives so we don’t lose our very existence. Maybe I am “old school,” but there is something so amazing about going into a good old-fashioned library working with the books or documents in the special collections that perhaps haven’t been seen in hundreds of years.

Personally, my research before this point in time has revolved around using JSTOR at great length to obtain the needed information for my previous master’s research on Nat Turner, African American memory, and William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner and the implications his novel had on African American memory. JSTOR has always been a great digital tool that many universities and colleges encourage their students to use and it has helped me a great deal throughout my academic career. While I have just started my second master’s degree, I have begun to look at my two main primary sources that will aid me in my thesis research, as well as in research in other classes. Hopefully, I will be using these two main primary sources in the final project for this class as well. I want to look at these sources in every possible way. My research is looking at race in the Sanford jail and court system. However, only one of my sources potentially could be seen as a digital tool. I will be using digitized versions of articles from the Sanford Herald starting in 1930. The Sanford Herald was originally a printed newspaper and has become digitized overtime. The fact that the newspaper has been digitized has made it easier to access the articles I need because I can access them from anywhere.

Gardiner, Eileen, and Ronald G. Musto. The Digital Humanities: A Primer for Students and Scholars. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2015.