Archival Work Blog Post

There are variety of historical objects that could be digitized for the purpose of preservation. One type of text that out tribe considered would be important to preserve digitally would be various sacred texts from around the world. So what constitutes a sacred text? It could be the cultural or practical importance that a writing has had on a large group of people. This could include religious texts such as the Bible, Torah, and Koran. Sacred texts could also include books of science like Darwin’s “Origin of Species”, or Einstein's “Relativity: The Special and the General Theory.”  Our tribe would even consider sacred texts to be literary classics such as Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”, or  Salinger's“The Catcher in the Rye.” Through various means of preservation these documents would be accumulated in a single digital space so that they could be experienced by a wide variety of people, for free.

The best way to preserve these sacred texts are to digitize them. While books and other forms of documents can be physically preserved for as long as they can, digitizing texts can preserve items for an extremely long period of time. One way to digitize documents is to scan the original piece and place it in an archive. This gives the reader a similar feel to reading the actual text in the original form. Another way we can digitize sacred documents is by retyping the traditional piece into a form that is more modern. Some texts deserve to be preserved in a way that they can viewed in many forms, which is why our tribe thinks that it important to save sacred texts.

Moreover,  archives offer a way for DHers to preserve important information for hopefully for a very long time. An archive is essentially a database of valuable information,  in theory that information could be anything. Archiving sacred texts is pivotal to preserving the knowledge of our ancestors and to allow future generations to learn from those who have come before, in hopes of enlightening future generations. The benefits of archiving sacred texts are boundless; the preservation of those who stood against injustice,  ignited revolutions, or even changed how we look at our own lives is a pivotal aspect of our history that deserves preservation. All of this knowledge could enlighten a future generation to positively change the world.