“ …[W]hile we must accept blogging into the historical archives, we must also realize that we may have lost another unique form of communication and historical information — personal correspondence. Why “may have”? Well, people wrote those letters under the impression that they were personal and private. And then, after they died, the letters were made public, put into collections, sold for profit, and displayed for all the public to see. What makes you think that something similar will not happen with people’s email? ”
from a comment I wrote on a recent Blurring Borders post about the shift in what historians will use as primary sources. Read the post and the other comments here.
UPDATE: 6 Oct 2008: Chris over at Cynical-C posted recently about one of his grandfather’s letters. Certainly is interesting to compare the letter and the Wikipedia entry.
