Having the discussion with Dr John van Wyhe, after being able to explore his website was very interesting. I had never thought about how hard it would be to acquire all of the material to upload them to the website for the collection. It was interesting to learn more about how the items were collected from different sources. Another topic that Dr. van Wyhe discussed, was the impact the wide spread accessibility of Darwin’s documents has had on different communities. This kind of digital history can make research on topics with historical ties much more extensive and all inclusive. This also gives historians the ability to explore historical figures that have large amounts of documentation or records created by the historical figure, that could have been kept. In addition, having all of these documents in one place makes it much easier than the many individuals continuously looking for information and trying to find who might have certain documents they are looking for. Putting this kind of collection in a digital format in one location is something that should be looked into for many major topics, not just people, as a way to explore them further, especially historically. Having the opportunity to speak with the man who was able to make this kind of project happen was very interesting, as well as learning about all the animals he has been able to jump on his bike. The discussion of a current day attempt at this project was also intriguing, because of the change in willingness to provide the documents for certain groups or organizations. Would a potential option would be to consider a compromise with a website that contains links to where the information can be found on sites that don’t want to give permissions?
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