Haines' Funeral Article
- Thread starter RednekF350
- Start date
Funny how the Burlington County [Behind the] Times did not even cover the funeral! Not that the Courier Post is much better as a daily local or even regional newspaper. Both papers are not quite ready for Prime Time!! But, then again, the head of the New York Times isn't sure they will be publishing a hard copy of their newspaper five years from now, so we may see many daily papers disappear from the newsstands, sorry to say, as these important news sources transitioned to the Internet. Although not considered primary sources in historical research, most good historical narratives would be sadly lacking without information gleaned from local newspapers, so the loss of hard copies will be sadly missed by historians in the future!!
I pity future historians who attempt to document our lives here in the present. For all the information sources currently available, little of it has the permanence of the records left by our forefathers. We write emails instead of letters and most of us do not keep penned diaries or journals. Financial data, formerly kept in daybooks, journals, and ledgers, are, today, just bits and bytes on a hard drive in the server. Much of what might document our times currently resides in the ethernet and could disappear with the detonation of an EMF device or data corruption. The migration from a stable paper-based society to the fleetingly transitory digital age is both exciting and frightening at the same time.
I could no longer conduct my professional work as a historian without the wonderful tools available on the Internet, but I'm glad I still have collections of books, maps, post cards, photos, and other materials in my library. I'd be lost without them!
Best regards,
Jerseyman
