In defence of progress

I know technology can be scary (as some have expressed in our digital history class . . .). I too have been a bit wary of embracing new technology. In fact, I was one of the last people I knew to cave in and buy a cell phone and then an ipod. But here’s the thing: now that I have them, I can’t imagine living without them.

I have been looking at a lot of history websites lately, searching for the perfect one for our website review assignment for Public History. I happened upon the Virtual Museum of New France through the Canadian Museum of Civilization website. The thing about this website is, it was created in 1997 and hasn’t been updated since 2001. These are exactly the years that I was in high school, which doesn’t seem insanely long ago, and back then we thought technology was pretty good. But it’s amazing how far we’ve come. The site is difficult to navigate, barely interactive, and makes very poor use of the resources available to a national institution. I’m sure it was cutting edge back when I was in grade ten. But now it’s almost laughable.

The point? Someone looking for information on New France will have an enormously easier time now than they would have ten years ago when the website was launched. No matter how scary technology can be, and no matter how dizzyingly fast it changes, it seems to me that the more resources that are made available, and the easier they are to search and navigate, the better. It’s just too bad that the Virtual Museum of New France hasn’t kept up.