Documenting Clemson University's AAUW
Nov 23, 2025
Interacting with physical archives will always be part of the historian’s process. Despite the plethora of online sources, the vast majority are not available digitally. Additionally, there are certain aspects of place-based research, as well the handling of physical documents, that cannot be replicated with online databases. Other considerations, such as the inaccuray of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) must also be taken into consideration.
Traveling to an archive can be expensive, and therefore inaccessible to many researchers. However, the experience of travel, especially outside of one’s own country, gives the researcher more context, cultural awareness, and insight into the present-day implications of the history they study.1 Additionally, the process of sifting through folders and boxes of documents often forces the researcher to notice things they would otherwise miss, especially in a keyword search.2
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