Historians rely uncritically on date-ordered or algorithmically-ranked keyword search results, putting them at mercy of search algorithms they do not understand.
The historians -- librarians and archivists -- who came to the meeting were intelligent, kind, and encouraging. But they didn't seem to have a good sense of how to wield quantitative data to answer questions, didn't have relevant computational skills, and didn't seem to have the time to dedicate to a big multiauthor collaboration. It’s not their fault: these things don't appear to be taught or encouraged in history departments right now.
-Erez Leiberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel
We want web archives to be used on page 153 of a random book!
Canadian Political Parties & Political Interest Group Collection (ARCHIVE-IT/Toronto)
Lowering the barriers to entry so that humanists, librarians, and archivists can interact with large-scale web archive data, in a transparent way.
What if we had periodic gatherings where colleagues could get background information, learn how to use these tools, and work on a small project with other colleagues?