Blogging as history…
For a long time, people have been talking about the Internet and how it’s killing historical documents collection because email, blogs, ezines and other forms of electronic documents are ephemeral and won’t last as technology changes. Yesterday, someone sent me a link to a blog that is historical. WWI: Experiences of an English Soldier is a blog 90 years after the fact. Bill Lamin had his grandfather’s letters and wondered what to do with them. He decided to start a blog of William Lamin’s letters to his family. Each letter will be posted as it was written on the blog 90 years after it was originally written. There’s a BBC programme about it also.
While electronic communication may or may not be ephemeral, it does have an impact on our lives now. Bill Lamin’s idea will allow us to read the worries, concerns, and daily life of an English soldier much as his family experienced it — waiting for word, hoping and praying that the next message they get is a letter and not a notification of his death or injury. This can and aught to be an wonderful adjunct to history units on WW1, a time and a war that most of us have only read about or seen in movies.
While history books may have a difficult time maintaining records of today’s world, this blog is an indication that perhaps the Internet may be a new tool in keeping our history alive for all of us now.