Archives

I hadn't thought of looking into archives for my project. Archives are a valuable way to preserve and organize information. I hadn't thought of incorporating previous years youth groups. Since my paper is about an urban Ft. Wayne church it would have probably been quite interesting to see how the youth representation in the church shifted as the city of Ft Wayne as it developed into an industrial hub of the upper midwest and as it declined with the downturn of the economy and the closing of factories in Ft. Wayne led to a significant turn for the worst in parts of the city. Where once had been well employed and affluent families now sit condemned houses and graffiti.

Using internet archives and databases is a huge step for research in general. My parents couldnt imagine accessing so much information about such obscure topics with so minimal effort. Where people once paid hundreds of dollars for encyclopedias we can now get the answer to almost any question in the world in complete detail on our Blackberry for $20 a month. There is a reason this is called the information age. With our current ability to receive data we are probably living through the most important information illumination since the written word.