The course blog for Digital History Methods a graduate seminar at American University. One of the explicit goals of this course is for us to develop as communicators on the public web. So please do join our conversation, but please do so respectfully. We are all learning how to do this together.
Hi Kerri,
Glad to know that I’m not the only one who’s also struggling to wrap my brain around the ends and outs of digital objects. I think you raised an interesting point how digital objects aren’t static files, but are actually changing over time, similar to other living things. I particularly liked the section in Trevor’s post where he presented the idea of analog materials having their own fixity check. When thinking about preservation in general, I find myself focusing on how different digital and analog materials are, but in fact they each have the their own internal “DNA” of sorts. Nathan mentioned in a comment on his blog that “digital archives and preserving digital objects is not a paradigm shift in archives, but rather a natural extension of the work that has been going on for centuries.” I completely agree with him, and think it’s important for us to keep this idea in mind when we formulate plans to process and preserve this digital data. However it is important to realize some differences between the two. As Trevor mentions in his blog, digital objects are inherently allographic as their physicality lies in their encoded data, while analog object’s encoded material itself (pant, ink, etc.) has it’s own historical value.
Sarah
I really liked Trevor’s comparison of fixity checks between humans in an MRI and a digital content check. It just goes to show that all things are in a constant state of change, even digital things. But I do agree that it’s important to recognize the differences between digital and analog material so that we can treat/preserve them accordingly.