E. Digital archives

Increasingly paper records are being replaced by digital archives – on disks, on main-frame computer systems, and in the internet (“the cloud”). Many records are now created on computers as digital records. There are no paper copies to store in boxes.

Digital archives are in theory easier for people to access – key words and names can be searched electronically, by computer; people can read them without travelling to a distant location where the boxes are stored; it is easier to copy and transmit information once it has been found.

But there are huge problems with digital archives, which we still need to solve.

• In many countries poor people and communities still have difficulty gaining access to computers and to the internet.

For many people the ability to access digital records requires electricity. computers, smart phones, and internet connections which they do not have regularly and reliably (or sometimes at all). • Decisions about what is important enough to digitise and store on the web are made by those in power, often by people living in the Global North. Key historical information from other countries, or from those who do not have power, cannot be found on the web. • The process of recording and transcribing can also lose information, whether from technical problems or from a lack of understanding by technicians about what is important. (For example, see the case study on the TRC archives).

• And finally digital technologies age rapidly. Older digital records cannot be accessed by more modern machines, and need to be copied over into new formats. • Also, the laws covering archives, and storing and accessing information, need to be updated to cover digital archives.

Swathes of documentary memory are being lost, especially in electronic environments. While 21st century record-keeping is primarily electronic, public archives remain geared to paper-based realities. Numerous cases have been reported of records ‘disappearing’.

... but where can I plug this in?