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A Message from the CIUS Director | The Changing Face of Ukrainian Studies
It will come as no surprise to anyone that we live in a world where constant and often radical change is now the norm. We experience this first-hand in our daily lives, which are being dramatically transformed by the relentless march of technological innovation that creates new ways of doing things and quickly relegates traditional practices to the dustbin of history. Not only has the pace of everything accelerated, but the fluidity of the environment creates the feeling that everything is in flux and could fundamentally change at any moment.
The work of scholars has certainly evolved in many different ways in the span of my own lifetime, and it continues to incessantly change as I write this text on my relatively new computer-which, along with my phone, will become outdated in a few short years. In just a couple of generations, researchers have gone from accessing books and archival materials in rooms filled with typed index cards to calling up digitized documents, and increasingly books, in seconds on their desktop or portable computers. In many cases, it is now no longer necessary to physically visit libraries or archival holdings, or to travel to an office to be able to work. When we once used to think that the introduction of photocopying in archives was an enormous leap forward after having to laboriously copy-in hand, usually with a pencil-texts that were brought in from an off-site storage place, today such documents can frequently be viewed and printed out in mere minutes while sitting at one's desk half a world away from the original source material
