Digitization
The idea that grabbed my interest in the reading for this week was the digitizing of historical texts. Although scanning can provide a more accurate image of the text, it’s not as easy to read as a transcript version. As mentioned in the reading, it is difficult to translate texts to a virtual copy without loosing some of the meaning. This issue caused me to think about translations of various texts from one language to another. How many texts are not as accurate as they should be because some phrases or words are lost in translation?
I also found it interesting how much of an influence funding is when it comes to digitizing images and text. Of course, it makes sense that the better quality equipment and copies you have to work with, the better your digital reproduction is. However, it still seems sad to me that if there isn’t enough funding, an image or text may not get the quality it deserves in a digital environment. It should be interesting to see how this process changes things down the road, as both our digital and analog histories begin to merge into one.
Research Question Idea: What was the initial purpose of YouTube as a website? How has it changed over the years?
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