History and Internet: historical research at the beginning of the third millennium

di Serge Noiret
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 3 (1999), p. 7

This introduction to the special issue Languages and Spaces: the History Online has been conceived as a pragmatic approach to the topic. Dealing with history on Internet, today involves facing new languages, new professional practices and new communication procedures, which, at the beginning of the third millennium, should not be ignored anymore. Nevertheless, Italy still suffers from being underdeveloped in its Internet infrastructures. In this country the www is underestimated by the academic and istitutional set, and this essay tries to focus on how Internet could be used by historians. In order to understand the changes and to exploit the new virtual resources, three basic questions should be answered before entering the www. First, we should understand "what" may be found and what is not yet available on Internet. Answering this question requires a certain knowledge of Web developments and contents. How to find what one is looking for on Internet, is the second question. How an historian could best exploit the resources found on the net, is the last one. Answering these basic demands is the main object of this introductory paper.