Background
In April 2005, the University Library hosted a conference titled Southern Sources: A Symposium Celebrating Seventy-Five Years of the Southern Historical Collection. Fifteen speakers presented papers to an audience of over 150 about the joys and challenges of conducting archival research in the Southern Historical Collection and related archives throughout the world.
Edward L. Ayers, then at the University of Virginia, challenged librarians and scholars to expand the role of digital archives. "We have seeded the fields but barely begun the harvest. The digital sources we’ve created up to this point are digital enough to travel easily but not digital enough to do the work we really want them to do."
Each of the Southern Sources speakers referred to the promise digitization holds for creating better archives and improving the lot of those conducting archival research. Participants acknowledged that what the archivist saves critically affects what the scholar produces. What the archivist chooses to digitize will have an equally important effect. One scholar emphasized the need to use digitization to apply thematic and topical categories to collections in order to reveal otherwise hidden linkages and stories. Collaboration between the scholar and the librarian, always essential, takes on new urgency as archivists continue collecting original sources and simultaneously digitize those and historical printed materials. The conference papers make clear that researchers expect digital access to manuscripts and historical printed materials. Scholars no longer consider manuscript archives and print archives as distinct places in which to conduct their work. Instead, scholars seek integration of resources and collections stored in different places and under different thematic rubrics.