The emergence of advanced technology in higher education today reminds me of the great changes in education that began in the 1960s on campuses. Young people about to attend higher education are luck today. If they prepare and choose carefully, they can enroll where they can conduct the most demanding scholarship into classics and research electronically and publish it online. Those of us beyond academic enrollment who like to read scholarly works online may also use many of these same scholarly sources. This is a bonanza for independent studies and homeschooling.
The central mission of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities is to provide scholars in the humanities with the time, the tools, and the techniques to produce lasting contributions to the human record, in electronic form. They have 24 notable projects online this academic year.
One such project created through the institute is The Valley of the Shadow. It tells the story of two cities during the American Civil War by making digitized accounts available online. This digitized archieve includes thousands of original letters, diaries, newspapers, speeches, census records, and church records left by people in Augusta County, Virginia and Franklin County, Pennsylvania. This archieve gives personal, human voice to the history of life in that era.
Walt Whitman fans will appreciate The Walt Whitman Archieve.