A ‘TAKE AWAY’ QUOTE

Science  has  provided  the  swiftest  communication  between  individuals;;  it  has provided  a  record  of  ideas  and  has  enabled  man  to  manipulate  and  to  make extracts  from  that  record  so  that  knowledge  evolves  and  endures  throughout the  life  of  a  race  rather  than  that  of  an  individual.

Bush, Vannevar. “As We May Think.” The Atlantic July 1945. The Atlantic. Web. 19 July 2013

I find this quote quite relevant for a snippet out of 1945. Last weekend The Weekend Australian published a feature story in their glossy about a team of historians chipping away at the records of over 70, 000 Tasmanian convicts. Prisoners shipped over from the UK in the 1800’s were incredibly well documented – down to the scars on their bodies and lurgies suffered in transit by boat, to their movements within the gaol system and sometimes beyond. These records are being digitised. The story also pointed out that MIT in the USA are compiling the largest international database of human records ever, in their attempt to digitise/prolong/maintain/get buried under history.