This is our fourth mailbag column! The mailbag is where folks ask us questions about the wherefores and what-have-yous of history and we try to answer them. If you like our mailbag articles, let us know and submit questions for future articles. We’re especially eager to hear from students wanting to know more about the nuts and bolts of doing history.
This time, the mailbag tackles two related questions about how historians do their research, and there’s a TV recommendation at the end!
Why do historians go to archives? Hasn’t everything already been digitized?
Let me tell you about a common experience among historians. You tell your family about an upcoming trip. You’re going to Washington, D.C. Your destination, however, isn’t a monument or vacation spot, it is a government archive with records that may make a big difference to your research. Your family gives you a look that’s one part interested (or maybe no part at all) and one part confused. They’re thinking: are you really going to travel that far for research? What if they don’t have what you need? Isn’t that a waste? Do you really need to travel in person, can’t you just get stuff off the Internet?
It can seem like we live in a world of infinite digital content. Hop online and you can quickly find libraries of e-books or ready-to-download pdfs of journal articles (for more on journal articles or academic publishing in general, take a look at last week’s mailbag). But for historians, who examine primary sources (letters, memoranda, photographs, speeches) as well as secondary sources like books and articles, your options for digital materials can be a bit of hit-or-miss.
There are large digital repositories like the HathiTrust and the Online Archive of California through which the e-books and primary source archival collections of various academic and research institutions are made available. There also are “born digital” repositories like The Digital Public Library of America and the Digital Library of the Caribbean which contain digitized texts, photos, videos, and sound recordings.
The emergence of these digital repositories has even pushed older historical record offices to up their digital game. Foreign relations historians in particular are grateful for all the amazing work done by U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Historian in adapting their Foreign Relations of the United States series for the digital age. Researchers can jump to different pages through embedded hyperlinks and there are easy to find and understand source citations. Furthermore, and who doesn’t love this feature, when your cursor hovers over a name of a person listed in a series of documents, the site offers a reminder of their title and tenure of service. What a world!
From these examples, it sounds like a revolution in digital archives truly occurred. I would be dishonest if I said these developments had been minor or had not really helped historians much, but the boom in digital source availability is an uneven phenomenon that has not come close to eliminating archival visits, something that was never a goal in the first place. I am fortunate to have digitized sources to work with, yet I know I am an exception to the rule. If you research government agencies, major institutions, and well-known politicians and policymakers, you are much more likely to work with digitized text sources. If not, your project may not utilize many digitized primary sources at all, especially if you’re working with manuscript sources—handwritten documents like letters, diaries, and account books.
Why not digitize everything, though? Digitizing historical materials takes significant money, resources, and institutional support, and the work itself takes time, expertise, and lots of equipment. Scanners and software need to purchased, servers set up, and data management companies chosen to ensure the network does not crash because of file size or site traffic. If additional staff aren’t hired for the work, digitizing duties are added onto the busy plates of the current archivists. Large multimedia files take time to upload. Scanned or digitized files need to be organized uniformly so they can be easily located, grouped, and put in the correct order. If not uniform, files can be sorted into the wrong collections, becoming essentially non-existent to the researcher in search of the file. Digitization may seem like a way to preserve original material, and it can be, but the process itself can pose risks, and a digitized version may not replicate the original in the ways that researchers need.
Copyright can also be a major problem for archives tackling digitization projects. The Netherlands embarked on an ambitious 7-year, $200 million campaign to digitized the bulk of its audiovisual archives. But less than 3% of the material is available to the public, while schools and researchers can access up to 15%. Why is so much unavailable then? The government must secure the copyright holder’s permission to make audio and visual material public. Licensing agreements have to be struck between the government and record companies or film studios. These agreements take time and money to negotiate and copyright holders can always say no.1
For these and many other reasons, most archives aren’t focused on digitizing the bulk of their collections. But even in situations where digitization is the goal and the hurdles are lower, historians encounter significant gaps in the digital availability of relevant material. A 2018 report from the U.S.’s National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the independent agency tasked with collecting, preserving, and making public government records, stated nearly 235 million pages of records have been digitized, but only 15% of the digitized files are available to the public. NARA hopes to reach 500 million pages of digitized papers, but that goal won’t be hit until fiscal year 2024, and while half a billion digitized pagesis a lot, that’s out of a total number of 12.5 billion pages of records. That represents only 4% of all government documents NARA has in their collection.2
I learned about this gap in digital sources early in the my graduate training. For my master’s thesis, I examined President Lyndon Johnson’s economic and agricultural assistance programs to India. At both Johnson’s Presidential Library in Austin, Texas and on the library’s website, researchers learn the library houses more than 45 million pages documenting the history of Johnson’s administration. There are over 500,000 photos and thousands of recordings and oral histories of administration officials. But a little digging reveals very little of this has been digitized, and what is digitized are select sections of files.
Johnson’s national security files, for interest, have been broken into 41 different research areas. Some smaller areas have 100% of their files digitized, but many others are at 25% or less. Some haven’t been digitized at all. Only 2% of national security files on Vietnam are digitized and the main Country Files section are at less than 1% digitized. Since my research depended on the India country files, Situation Room files, and the files of Johnson advisor Robert Komer, I could only access and incorporate them into my thesis by visiting the archive and spending days reading the physical papers.
So historians travel to archives because that’s the only way to access most of the materials preserved in archives, but they also go there to work with and learn from archivists. I’ve done research at all types of archives (government, state historical societies, non-profit organizations, university and municipal libraries, U.S. and non-U.S. repositories, etc.) and archivists are, in my experience, helpful, friendly, and knowledgeable individuals who strive to help visiting researchers do their work.
This matters because the work of performing historical research is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. Researchers have to balance other work commitments and family responsibilities in finding time to go spend in the archives, especially if it involves long-distance travel. Research also costs money—not only travel and secure lodging but also for food and research expenses like copies and photographs. You may be traveling hundreds or thousands of miles for your work, but even nearby trips take time and energy. Your work day revolves around when the archives are open, whether that’s 9 to 4, or 11 to 3, or 12 to 4 on alternate Wednesdays, and the people who work in archives help you make the most of that time. For example, the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library’s candor in stating there is little accessible digitized material is helpful, as it allows people to plan their research accordingly.
Archivists are also the only reason researchers have useful access to materials in the first place. Any historical collections you use in an archive probably started out sitting in boxes, waiting for an archivist to map out exactly what was in there, make decisions about how to order and preserve that material, and write a guide to the collection—often the most valuable thing an archive can provide in digital format. And when I say “waiting for an archivist,” I really mean “waiting for the archive to have the time, money, and staffing to be able to process the materials it wants to make available to researchers.”
This experience and expertise is part of why visiting an archive is valuable for scholars. When I visit an archive, there are files I know I am going to look through, but many times an archivist recommends additional files. They help researchers make connections between their subjects, helping us see the larger story in front of our eyes. Archivists suggest other repositories that might have similar or other helpful materials, either nearby or far away. They put you in touch with other archivists or researchers who have worked on similar projects or have expertise that might help your work. As your work moves from research to writing and presenting, archivists want to hear your findings and how your visit made a difference in your project. Archives often invite researchers to lecture or participate in workshops, they also might ask for a copy of your thesis or dissertation. I know this because there is a copy of master’s thesis at the Johnson Presidential Library.
My thesis research there prepared me well for dissertation research in physical archives. For the past 4 months, I have been living in India as a Fulbright scholar. I have 9 months to do research in 5 archives, using national security and foreign policy documents, many of which are still classified or have only recently been opened to researchers. As in many countries, the digital availability of historical material in India is growing, but not enough to replace travel to India to spend time in these archives, looking at materials and learning from archivists and other researchers.
This mailbag reflects my research stories, but here at Contingent, we have an entire genre of pieces dedicated to traveling to archives, libraries, or historical sites. We’ll publish our first “Field Trip” later this week. The more historians share their research experiences, the more we can demystify our work, which could lead to more funding and fewer skeptical looks from loved ones.
Okay, the TV recommendation.
Lately, my wife Libby and I have started watching the Indian food documentary series, Raja, Rasoi Aur Anya Kahaniyaan (Kings, Kitchens, and their Stories). The show profiles the cuisine of different Indian cities and states (sometimes regions), how they arrived in India, and their relationship to Indian history. It is well-shot, informative, has English subtitles, and often features historians as guests. Most importantly, the food always looks incredible. You can watch the episodes out of order and not miss anything. I recommend starting with the episode on Kerala. We just visited the south Indian state and immediately started craving appams (pancakes made out of coconut) and sambar (a vegetable stew that Keralites eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner). The show is available on different streaming platforms and you can find episodes or long clips on YouTube. If you love food and history, I strongly recommend the show.
Contingent pays all of its writers. Like what you read? Donate to keep the magazine going. Learn more about our mission.
- Tina Amirtha, “The Trouble with Digitizing History,” Fast Company, September 11, 2015, https://www.fastcompany.com/3048283/the-trouble-with-digitizing-history
- National Archives and Records Administration, 2018-2022 Strategic Plan, February 2018, https://www.archives.gov/about/plans-reports/strategic-plan/strategic-plan-2018-2022
