The Current State of Primary Historical Soures Online

Authors

Richard Hacken

Keywords

Mormon studies, online resources, history, primary historical sources

Abstract

As a vital first step in substantiating and documenting historical details, there can be no substitute for a primary source derived from as close and contemporaneous an observation of a given event as possible. A historian unable to consult authoritative and honest voices from the past can verify little but is left to tinker with tradition and supposition. Until quite recently, the main mode of examining a primary source has been one on one—one scholar face-to-face with one original document in one physical space. Historiography has been slowed by travel expenses, time constraints, vagaries in obtaining permission, and other logistical difficul- ties standing between a historian and a source, wherever it may be housed. The steps of human progress in the arts and sciences of transcription, publication, photography, photocopying, and microfilming have been pre- cursors to digitization, the latest boost that virtually places a document’s image or essence before the critical eye of the scholar.

Recommended Citation

Hacken, Richard (2008) "The Current State of Primary Historical Soures Online," BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 47: Iss. 1, Article 9.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol47/iss1/9