Analog historians in the digital age

You can tell from the theme of the 2026 Philippine Historical Association Conference that its board is not as senior-friendly as it used to be. “Kas[AI]sayan: Pananaliksik at Pagtuturo ng Kasaysayan sa Panahon ng AI”—facing the challenges of research and teaching history in the Age of AI (artificial intelligence)—was timely and relevant. The opening keynote by Manuel Quezon III laid the foundation for the papers and panels that followed; he talked about the current state of AI in historical research, praising its promise while warning against its ethical challenges. I delivered the first plenary session, drawing on my conversations with Google Gemini on Philippine history. The second plenary, before breaking for lunch, was delivered by Teodoro Kalaw IV, who built on the earlier papers to illustrate the legal implications of AI in history.

With Halloween around the corner, I changed my presentation title to “Ghosts in the Archive: The [ab]uses of AI in History.” My cold-case opening slide showed how research usually begins today: with a glowing empty screen on Google. Academics use a more specialized Google Scholar, which draws mainly from scholarly literature. Meanwhile, youth start their searches with a more powerful tool bundled with their accounts—Gemini—that is more than a search engine; it is AI.

For nostalgia, I flashed a photograph of a library card catalog—the search engine of those in the room who, like me, were born in the last century. From the podium, I saw the clash of generations. Young ones considered it an ancient artifact excavated from the past, while the “young once” smiled widely in recognition. This was truly analog. Research began not by typing out a keyword in a search box, but by pulling out a wooden drawer and manually flipping through index cards. Of course, the card catalog was slow. It required knowing how to search alphabetically by name, title, or subject. And searching was physical—it required going through card after card after card until you found what you were looking for. Today’s impatient generation generates answers to a query faster than they can type out G-O-O-G-L-E.

Card catalogs developed eye-to-finger coordination and the most important muscles in a historian’s skill set: patience and perseverance. If you didn’t find what you were looking for on the first pass, you went through the cards a second time. If that didn’t work, you changed the search term and went through all the cards again. You didn’t stop at a dead end; you kept going, inspired by the biblical phrase: “Seek and ye shall find.” Sometimes, you found something you didn’t know was there all along. So much for serendipity in historical research. Though too clunky and Jurassic for Gen Z, the card catalog instilled habits of mind that remain vital despite advanced technology: curiosity, critical thinking, and cross-referencing (validation).

For added merriment, my next slide featured a typewriter (manual and electric)—our version of a word processor. A bottle of Liquid Paper correction fluid. A slide carousel, a slide projector, and an overhead projector were our presentation tools that didn’t require Wi-Fi. Manila paper with text handwritten using a Pentel pen was the presentation tool that didn’t even require electricity to work!

Every semester, I begin my Rizal class by asking students to draw Jose Rizal. An audible groan often greets the task, with many complaining that they cannot draw. Many cannot even read or write cursive. I flashed their work on the screen. Forty years ago, students dug into their pockets, pulled out a one-peso coin, put paper over it, and rubbed it with a pencil. A few still do this or copy the image on the coin. The majority, however, pull out their smartphones instead of their wallets; they choose from hundreds of Rizal images suggested by Google. Some copy the image, while others set their phone brightness to high, place paper on top of their screens, and trace the image. This was the 21st-century version of the pencil rubbing.

The same 40-year-old exercise, completed in three different ways. This task is not really about drawing; it is about re-presentation in history. It is about method: searching online, cross-referencing results, validating sources, and questioning intent. The process is more important than the end result.

This trip down memory lane was not a call to return to pre-internet methods, but a way to appreciate the habits of mind that AI cuts out of the learning process. Moving forward, AI forces me to review the assessments made obsolete by technology. A professor’s lecture can be recorded to generate an executive summary and transcription in seconds. The same goes for assigned readings. Texts in foreign languages are instantly translated. I look at the promise all these wonderful tools bring and wonder what my work would have been like if I had them 40 years ago. Then I look at my students and realize that Oscar Wilde was right about youth truly wasted on the young.

See Also

‘Nothing is over until it’s over…’ (2)

(More on Wednesday.)

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