Technology and Historians

Technology, foremost in my mind, has affected me the most by making information and sources so much more easily accessible. Especially in a small school like Nipissing, the amount of materials and resources available online now, both through the school and with the ability to borrow from other schools, makes research so much easier and rewarding. Also, many primary sources that otherwise I would either not have the opportunity to see, or I would have to buy a book with primary sources that costs lots of money just to use one source, are also available online to do research.
In general technology, in the form of the printed word and now with the growing availability of information online, has ensured to all historians the distribution of ideas and works. This allows for a greater sharing of ideas, resources, and therefore an expanding of historical knowledge as a whole. However, as Gore Vidal has said “Thanks to modern technology…history now comes equipped with a fast-forward button.” One can take this as a good thing, in that it is easier and faster to get to the information that is of interest. On the other hand though, one can miss so many things that are of importance, perhaps even to ones own study, that, unless you are aware of them, you won’t know to search for them. For instance, if one is reading a book online, often one can just look for those parts of it that talk about exactly what you are looking for. Yet, if you were to read the entire book there is probably so much more that you could learn and most of it probably valuable to the original research itself.
Overall, I would argue that technology has been more of a positive force to history. One need to just be aware of the problems that may arise when using technology and be prepared for those, as well as infuse old methods of research with the new.