Rethinking Tradition: The Impact of Technology & the Loss of Serendipity on the Historical Research Process

The move towards the digital humanities will see a growing interest in tools such as Ebooks. This study examines how historians perceive Ebooks and other technologies as impacting their research process. Findings indicate that historians are concerned that the digital environment reduces the possibility of chance encounters with a text. They continue to recreate the environment that encourages serendipity to occur within their field, and would readily welcome tools that facilitate this.