Going Down the Digital Highway

Abstract

The Internet and its related technologies offer both exciting opportunities and daunting challenges for voluntary organizations such as the Canadian Historical Association. While the digital revolution has not been as transformative as some of its early prophets predicted, it has changed the habits of most academic historians who order books online, communicate with colleagues primarily by e-mail, and increasingly expect to find journal articles in cyberspace. If Google and other Internet search engines have their way, we will soon have access to the libraries of the world at the click of a mouse. In such a communications climate, the CHA has the opportunity to make its intellectual resources, in particular its journal and booklets, more accessible by going online. The challenge is to do so without undermining the structures that help to sustain our operations which are always close to the bottom line.