Archival Notes

Lisa Spiro,"Digital Humanities in 2008," Part I and Part II, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 7 and 24 February, round up recent developments in the field. Digital History – Methodology for the Infinite Archive is the new wikihome of our former colleague, William Turkel. Hat tip.

Eric Jager,"Lost in the Archives," CHE, 6 March, recalls his research about a duel in 14th century Normandy to point out that most documents are not available on the internet. Some of them in the archives can't even be found.

The city archive building in Cologne, Germany, collapsed yesterday. The archive includes manuscripts by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as well as Heinrich Böll. Injuries to people were limited, but there are no reports yet on damage to the manuscript holdings. The collapse may have been related to construction of an underground transit tunnel. For current reports, see: Klaus Graf's Archivalia.

"The First World War Poetry Digital Archive and The Great War Archive," a British venture featuring World War I era documents in private hands is now online. Esther MacCallum-Stewart reviews it and Stuart Lee responds in Reviews in History, January. Hat tip.

Frederick J. Graboske,"Nixon Tapes Archivist, explains why he concluded Stanley Kutler's alterations were deliberate," HNN, 28 February, offers an archivist's account of his judgment about the Nixon Tapes controversy.