| It suggests that trends in information retrieval, research, and teaching using modern information technology point toward a unidisciplinary field, Historical Information Science, which potentially can grow out of older quantification and Social Science history, the interplay between History and Information Science, and new methodologies and multimedia technology that merge visual, audio, textual, and data sources in the study of the past.
Major trends are delineated over a little more than a decade from circa 1984, after widespread personal computing began to accelerate change in work habits, by surveying the automated bibliographic control over historiographic literatures and archival control over primary sources; interdisciplinary methodological discussions; research and instructional projects in History that employ databases, image and textual, and use Social Science research methods and linguistic analysis; and those developments that employ computer technology, consider appropriate applications of technology, use telecommunications, and try new multimedia to inform, teach, and advance research. Emphasis has been on developments since the mid-1980s, when the impact of personal computing, frame relays and packet switching for efficient telecommunications and growth in networking, increased retrospective conversion of sources into digital form, production of current documentation electronically, and growth of electronic archives and libraries came into play. Problems posed to History by the new technology, especially regarding the nature of historical evidence, interpretation, and presentation, are discussed. Achieving a super-informed history with methodologies to master the vastness of accumulated information for historical synthesis and interpretation requires a veritable revolution in conceptualization from historiography that mines fragmentary and incomplete sources to one that addresses the richness syndrome of mass of data beyond current capabilities to control, analyze, or comprehend.
Educational reform is called for both in teaching history and in training professional historians in graduate programs. It is recommended that a hybrid field of study be recognized, Historical Information Science, which integrates equally the subject matter of a historical field of investigation, quantified Social Science and linguistic research methodologies, computer science and technology, and information science, which is focused on historical information sources, structures, and communications. An extensive bibliography is supplied as a backdrop to the discussion and for further reading. While not an exhaustive bibliographic survey, the works cited constitute concrete examples of the broad trends discussed, illustrate the rich secondary sources available for curricular innovation, and provide the ingredients for the synthesis attempted. |