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27 January, 2011
08:00
On a broader, more philosophic level, the notion of digitization as an agent of equality needs a bit of scrutiny. Contrary to the rhetoric, it is not really value-free. Databases are like maps; they are representations of reality and similarly model a set of relationships, for example between author and title and language (or land and water and altitude), which means that selection is always involved. Even with the conversion of paper records, someone has to make editorial decisions about what material will be given priority, which is why you hear genealogists complain that LAC is resisting digitizing newspapers.
