Getting to Digital
Getting to Digital

Summary/Abstract: It has been over 40 years since archives began to automate their processes and digitize content. During that period, archival practices and ideas have experienced unprecedented development, archives have established substantial digital presences and records creators have shifted almost completely to digital production. Today archives are being looked to by Artificial Intelligence developers and scholars alike as one of the few remaining sources of big data, both for training Large Language Models and for surfacing new knowledge about the past and humanity. And yet archives have yet to reach “full” digital capacity and fluency, and not simply because of resource limitations. One might ask whether they ever will – or even should? This lecture looks back on the history of digital developments in archives, examining the motivations and challenges arising at different points. It contemplates why and how the goalposts have repeatedly moved, and how the questions that have arisen in archival decision-making have changed as a consequence and how they may continue to do so as we look to the future nature, roles and practices of archives.

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