Archive Reflection

I chose the Blake digital archive. I’d definitely say it’s easy to navigate—the different sections are clearly demarcated and at the top of the page, so it’s easy to tell where things are. It’s also aesthetically appealing—the color scheme is good—not too high or low in contrast, the layout simple.

I think perhaps the greatest benefit of archives like this is that you get to actually look at and experience the work in a way that is frankly impossible through a book or textbook. You can zoom in on the images, resize them so the details are clearer, and see documents in the original form, rather than the text simply being typed out on a page. It’s not the same sort of interactive experience that going to a museum that houses Blake’s paintings would be, but it is definitely more interactive than seeing them in a textbook—an image that is considerably less detailed than the one on an archive.

Archives like this are also useful in terms of research because they tend to have a focus on primary sources, which can be difficult to find. Most academic sources that students have access to are secondary sources. Archives make primary sources accessible to the general public.