At the recent Joint Annual Meeting of the Council of State Archivists and the Society of American Archivists, the educational session addressed military archives best practice in the 21st century. The focus on the relevance and value of military archives to multidisciplinary research topics led into issues of processing massive amounts of digital records from the war in Iraq using innovative management and techniques. CMS Wire brought this interesting information to us in their article, “Thinking Beyond the Box: How Military Archivists are Meeting 21st Century Challenges.” There are compelling arguments for more focused records discussions in our military, some of which includes shrinking financial support.
Considering the vast amount of data, both digital and non-digital, available to historians, the benefits to going digital are beyond access and findability. Putting this cultural treasure of information online can help preserve it for the long term.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
