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Need more help? Contact us at info@twc.edu Example 3 An Issue in my Field Essay Digitalization or Digital History is a currently emerging part of public history and museum studies. This new way of conducting public history has slowly become one of the main focuses of historical organizations no matter the size of their collection. With the emergence of technology, digital history can bring a museum or archives collection to a larger audience. This involves the creation of online databases and exhibits of a historical collection. In many ways, this has proven to be beneficial in providing researchers and academic historians further access to information at the tips of their fingers. Another way digitalization has had a positive influence is by allowing museums to show more artifacts regardless of the size of their physical space. Never having enough space to display all of their collection is a common problem in all types of historical organizations. Being able to have a large portion of your collection available for viewing online increases the historical significance of your artifacts and allows more people from all over the country to become familiar with your organization. For these reasons, the digitization process has become standard knowledge to many in the public history field. With this widespread adoption of digital history projects, many unfavorable issues have arisen with the process of creating online databases and exhibits. Although the evolution of technology allowed for digitization in the first place; it is also part of the issue when trying to provide sustainable access to historical collections. Within a few years of completing a digital history collection, the technology will become outdated and need to be updated to keep up with the latest versions of software and other products. This compounds into an issue, which could become a large strain on any small organization. The equipment costs that are incurred with a digitalization project can be quite extensive, needing at least a computer and scanner. Not only is the basic equipment needed, but the computers and scanners must be able to produce high- quality images of archival documents and collections. This means that having to update the equipment for the new software in the long run can be expensive. Additionally, the constant upkeep of a digital collection needs staff at least partly devoted to its growth in items and overall upkeep. That leads to taking away staff that could be assigned tasks in the physical museum or archive. This could be especially taxing when the evolving technology causes a collection to be re-digitized. By having resources devoted to digital history, it is also possible to have the physical collection suffer with fewer special or rotating exhibits and less traction in tours since individuals can go online to view the items they want to see. Although we are in a digital age, the decrease in physical museum spaces is something that must stay out of the realm of consideration despite the increase in online databases and exhibits. Finally, a problem with digital history techniques becoming quickly outdated is that the access that it provides can be delayed or incomplete for varying periods of time while the organization updates its content. These issues with digital history have been a topic of discussion leading each historical organization to decide on the benefit of digitizing their collection. Despite these issues with digital history, many historical organizations have decided to combat these issues as they come. They believe that the positives of having their collection accessible to a wider range of people will make up for its negatives. By having artifacts online, more awareness can be given to untold parts of history. Also, in the long run, digital history allows for better preservation of original documents and objects due to decreased handling and viewing. Despite the issue present in digital history, the field has continued to preserve to further our efforts to preserve and tell the stories of our forefathers for every generation going forward.

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