As computers becoming an important item in our daily life, not only we need space to store real
paper documents but also we need space to store our digital documents in our computer. We need a
way to organize information therefore digital archiving is invented. In the last ten years, digital
storage has become cheaper and smaller. Now digital content is stored locally, or can be remotely access via computer networks. Home users usually store their photos, songs, movies; and companies usually store customer information, databanks, and price points in their computers.
paper documents but also we need space to store our digital documents in our computer. We need a
way to organize information therefore digital archiving is invented. In the last ten years, digital
storage has become cheaper and smaller. Now digital content is stored locally, or can be remotely access via computer networks. Home users usually store their photos, songs, movies; and companies usually store customer information, databanks, and price points in their computers.
Smart phones and Ipods make it possible for our digital archives to be mobile. We can upload large files and share them with your friends using for example, Megaupload and Mediafire. Google search engine is another popular tool of digital archiving; it creates indexes pages by keywords and operators. Google street view can plan your trips but terrorists can also plan their trips at the same time. Google art project is another useful function of digital archive. Google art project is taking high-resolution pictures of artworks from all over the world. Facebook is another digital archive which people can tag others in videos and pictures. Just like in the reading, Stacy Snyder gets tagged in a picture as a “drunken pirate”, and then lost her job opportunity as a teacher.
Wikipedia can also be a good example of digital archive. It is launched January 2001, founded by Jummy Wales and Larry Sanger. Wikipedia involves 17 million articles, 279 languages, 365 million users, ranks the 7th most popular site on the Internet, and anyone can edit and make changes. It is user generated, so how accurate is it? Wikipedia is not a proper academic source but why do we still use Wikipedia? Because it’s easy to use, it’s summarized, it’s digital.
Just like everything in the world have its positive side and negative side. On one side, digital archiving helps people in many ways. For example, medical archiving provides detailed information for both patients and doctors. Social medias like Twitter and Facebook plays an important role during natural disasters like Haiti earthquake. Right after Haiti earthquake happens, people in Haiti with access to twitter and facebook broadcasts list of people who is still alive to others who are concerned.
As long as digital archiving brings convenience to us it also has its own issues. Digital archiving raises issues of ownership, copyright, privacy, and so on. Problems with licensing occurred and the Times magazine lost it’s Supreme Court case after it tried to make free-lance documents available online. Privacy is also an issue. Facebook users willingly submit their personal information which everyone can see. Facebook is essentially an archiving service because it saves everything we’ve posted, and the definition of privacy is changing because we are willingly submitting everything there is to know about ourselves to companies.
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