Information and Communications Technology
ICT has been a major driving force thoughout the project; indeed, most of what has been achieved so far would have been almost impossible to have undertaken using traditional methods.
Digital Photography
The digital camera brought about the early stages of research, and without it, the subsequent technological processes employed are meaningless.
It has been the ability to photograph complete War Diaries and Defence Schemes held by The National Archives that has perhaps played the largest part in allowing me to process the sheer volume of data gathered.
This has had numerous advantages:
- Once the camera and rechargeable batteries have been bought, there are no additional costs
- The number of documents that can be covered in a day greatly outweighs what was previously possible within a week
- This means fewer visits to TNA, saving money
- Whole documents can be examined at leisure without the need for extensive written notes
- As the documents don't all need to be printed, space and resources are saved
- In an initial digital format, photographs of documents can be manipulated, e.g. for use as image overlays
Other forms of ICT
Aside from digital photography to gather data and photograph my fieldwork, other forms of ICT are employed; these are discussed on their own pages:
Other technologies such as a GPS receiver and voice recognition software are also employed.
It is the volume of data that is to be processed that has forced me to embrace technology; my databases automate many processes and list recorded defences according to customised criteria permitting fast, efficient processing of the raw data.