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Letters from war
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| H&N photo by Ryan Pfeil Lisa Hall looks over a postcard her father sent her while he was serving in the Vietnam War. |
Digital age brings changes in preserving history
By RYAN PFEIL
H&N Staff Writer
Some of the greatest biographies and historical accounts written are based mainly on various correspondence and letters — not unlike the letters featured in the Herald and News series, “Letters from War.”
But things are changing.
While letters are still important sources for historians and biographers, local experts are saying the future of documenting communication will have to focus more on e-mail and other electronically archived documents.
“The interest in how people communicate is always going to be there,” said Ann Hiller Clark, librarian with Oregon Institute of Technology’s Shaw Historical Library. “The tools we use to find them are going through a change.”
Electronic resources
Todd Kepple, Klamath County Museums manager, said more material will be available by utilizing electronic resources, but the stories contained within may not be as rich as those contained in personal letters.
“It’s creating much more of a historical record, but it will certainly be less personal and less fascinating,” Kepple said.
Clark said e-mail also will be harder for historians to access at times. While larger businesses and numerous government organizations provide backups of employee e-mails, personal e-mails will be trickier.
“Individuals don’t have those kind of policies,” Clark said. “E-mails are harder to preserve.”
Subtleties lost
And it’s not just words lost. Kepple said a shift to electronic documents will eliminate important subtleties contained in handwritten letters.
“There will be certain types of details that will be lost,” Kepple said. “We won’t be able to use certain types of things, like handwriting analysis.”
Kepple said e-mails are also often “off the cuff,” or hastily written messages that the author would sometimes regret. Such messages, potentially seen by historians years down the road, would not speak positively of the times we lived in.
“In our business, we always say that everything we do could be historically significant someday,” Kepple said, noting that in sitting down to write a letter, a person has much more time to think and construct what he or she wishes to say.
See Thursday's Herald and News for the latest installment in the "Letters from War" series. This month covers letters written to children on the homefront.
But things are changing.
While letters are still important sources for historians and biographers, local experts are saying the future of documenting communication will have to focus more on e-mail and other electronically archived documents.
“The interest in how people communicate is always going to be there,” said Ann Hiller Clark, librarian with Oregon Institute of Technology’s Shaw Historical Library. “The tools we use to find them are going through a change.”
Electronic resources
Todd Kepple, Klamath County Museums manager, said more material will be available by utilizing electronic resources, but the stories contained within may not be as rich as those contained in personal letters.
“It’s creating much more of a historical record, but it will certainly be less personal and less fascinating,” Kepple said.
Clark said e-mail also will be harder for historians to access at times. While larger businesses and numerous government organizations provide backups of employee e-mails, personal e-mails will be trickier.
“Individuals don’t have those kind of policies,” Clark said. “E-mails are harder to preserve.”
Subtleties lost
And it’s not just words lost. Kepple said a shift to electronic documents will eliminate important subtleties contained in handwritten letters.
“There will be certain types of details that will be lost,” Kepple said. “We won’t be able to use certain types of things, like handwriting analysis.”
Kepple said e-mails are also often “off the cuff,” or hastily written messages that the author would sometimes regret. Such messages, potentially seen by historians years down the road, would not speak positively of the times we lived in.
“In our business, we always say that everything we do could be historically significant someday,” Kepple said, noting that in sitting down to write a letter, a person has much more time to think and construct what he or she wishes to say.
See Thursday's Herald and News for the latest installment in the "Letters from War" series. This month covers letters written to children on the homefront.
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