The Center for History and New Media is pleased to announce the launch of Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives http://gulaghistory.org, a new online resource exploring the history of the Soviet Gulag.The project is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities; Title VIII, The U.S. Department of State; Kennan Institute; and Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University; and was produced in association with the Gulag Museum at Perm 36, Perm, Russia and the International Memorial Society, Moscow, Russia.

Many Days, Many Lives draws visitors into the Gulag’s history through bilingual exhibits (English and Russian), a rich archive, a series of podcasts, and other resources. Exhibits are presented with a thematic approach that illustrates the diversity of the Gulag experience through original mini-documentaries, images, and the words of individual prisoners. A searchable archive includes archival documents, photographs, paintings, drawings, and oral histories that give visitors the opportunity to explore the subject in much greater depth. Later this summer, Many Days, Many Lives will also feature a virtual visit to the Gulag Museum at Perm 36.

In addition, this site offers a variety of resources related to the study of the Gulag. Episodes in Gulag History is a new podcast series featuring scholars, survivors, public historians, and others in conversation with historian George Mason University historian Steven A. Barnes. Each podcast will be followed by an online conversation in which the featured guest will answer questions from listeners.The inaugural episode features Lynne Viola discussing The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements. Other resources include a select bibliography for further reading, and a teaching unit prepared at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies intended for use in middle and high school classrooms.

Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives is the first online exhibition produced by CHNM for general audiences under the Division of Public Projects. Others will follow in the months and years ahead, including a major exhibit in partnership with Mount Vernon on the life of Martha Washington and the women of the Revolutionary generation.

The National History Education Clearinghouse, an online project that brings U.S. history teachers high-quality support and resources, has been launched by George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media (CHNM) and project partner Stanford University. The clearinghouse is now available to the public at http://teachinghistory.org.

In October 2007, the U.S. Department of Education awarded a $7 million contract, if fully funded over five years, to CHNM, in partnership with Stanford University, the American Historical Association, and the National History Center. The online project focuses on historical thinking and learning and is designed to help K-12 history teachers become more effective educators, thereby expanding student knowledge of U.S. history and its relevance to their daily lives and future. The clearinghouse provides links to the most informative and comprehensive history content on the Internet. It also provides teaching tools and resources such as lesson plan reviews, guides to working with primary sources and models of exemplary classroom teaching. The clearinghouse will link to a number of national history education organizations and associations. The website is interactive, allowing teachers to ask questions, comment on topical issues and share information on what and how they teach.

“The National History Education Clearinghouse will put into the hands of any teacher with an Internet connection the highest quality materials for teaching U.S. history,” says Sam Wineburg, professor and chair of curriculum and teacher education at Stanford and executive producer and senior scholar of the clearinghouse. “We are honored to be part of the digital revolution that is changing history teaching.”

The clearinghouse is funded under Teaching American History (TAH), a federally funded program created to raise student achievement by improving teachers’ knowledge and understanding of traditional U.S. history. TAH has funded more than 800 projects across the country since 2001.

“We are thrilled to play such a prominent role in helping K-12 U.S. history teachers and in bringing together the many communities involved in history education,” says Kelly Schrum, director of educational projects at CHNM and clearinghouse project co-director. “The Teaching American History program and the clearinghouse demonstrate the federal government’s dedication to improving history education, and we know that the clearinghouse will continue to improve and educate as it develops.”

The website, co-directed by Schrum and Sharon Leon at CHNM, and Daisy Martin at Stanford, is organized around seven features: history education news, history content, teaching materials, best practices, issues and research, professional development and Teaching American History grants. The clearinghouse uses the latest advances in digital technology to explore history teaching through interactive images as well as audio clips and videos of classroom teaching and historians discussing primary sources.

Offline support will include a yearly conference, a newsletter and an annual report on the state of history education in the United States.

About the Center for History and New Media

Since 1994, the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University has used digital media and computer technology to democratize history—to incorporate multiple voices, reach diverse audiences and encourage popular participation in presenting and preserving the past. CHNM combines cutting edge digital media with the latest and best historical scholarship to promote an inclusive and democratic understanding of the past as well as broad historical literacy. CHNM’s work has been recognized with major awards and grants from the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the U.S. Department of Education, the Library of Congress, and the Sloan, Mellon, Hewlett, Rockefeller, Gould, Delmas and Kellogg foundations.

About George Mason University

George Mason University, located in the heart of Northern Virginia’s technology corridor near Washington, D.C., is an innovative, entrepreneurial institution with national distinction in a range of academic fields. With strong undergraduate and graduate degree programs in engineering, information technology, biotechnology and health care, Mason prepares its students to succeed in the work force and meet the needs of the region and the world. Mason professors conduct groundbreaking research in areas such as cancer, climate change, information technology and the biosciences, and Mason’s Center for the Arts brings world-renowned artists, musicians and actors to its stage. Its School of Law is recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top 40 law schools in the United States.

The Center for History and New Media participated in the annual Victims’ Rights 5k run/walk held at George Mason University on April 15, 2008. We had a great group of more than 20 runners and walkers (mostly walkers) and a great time. Go team!

Please join friends and colleagues of CHNM co-founder Roy Rosenzweig for “Morning Coffee with Roy Rosenzweig: A Remembrance” at the Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting in New York City. The session will be held in Beekman Parlor of the New York Hilton on Saturday, March 29th, from 8:00 to 9:30 a.m. Coffee (and tea) will be served to all who attend, along with “Thanks, Roy” coffee mugs.

Speakers will include:

• Presiding: Joshua Brown, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
• “Roy and the Organization of American Historians,” James Horton, George Washington University
• “Roy and George Mason University,” Michael O’Malley, George Mason University
• “Roy and the Center for History and New Media,” Kelly Schrum, George Mason University
• “Roy as Labor Historian,” Gary Gerstle, Vanderbilt University
• “Roy as Radical Historian,” Ellen Noonan, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
• “Roy and Collaborative History,” Elizabeth Blackmar, Columbia University
• “Roy as Humorist,” Jean-Christophe Agnew, Yale University
• “Roy as Mentor,” Elena Razlogova, Concordia University
• “Roy and New Media,” Stephen Brier, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
• “Roy as Public Historian,” Cynthia Copeland, New-York Historical Society
• “Roy and the National Endowment for the Humanities,” Barbara Ashbrook, National Endowment for the Humanities
• “Roy as International Scholar,” Shane White, University of Sydney

Please us celebrate the life of our founder, mentor, friend, and fellow member of OAH in New York next week.

On Tuesday, March 11 at 4:00-6:30 p.m., the Rosenzweig Forum on Technology and the Humanities welcomes Ken Price to College Park, MD to present:

“Edition, Project, Database, Archive, Thematic Research Collection: What’s in a Name?”

Ken’s abstract: What are the implications of the terms we use to describe large-scale text-based electronic scholarship, especially undertakings that share some of the ambitions and methods of the traditional multi-volume scholarly edition? What genre or genres are we now working in? And how do the conceptions inhering in these choices of language frame and perhaps limit what we attempt? How do terms such as edition, project, database, archive, and thematic research collection relate to the past, present, and future of textual studies? Drawing on a range of resources including the Walt Whitman Archive, I consider how current terms describing digital scholarship both clarify and obscure our collective enterprise. In addition, I’ll use the final term, thematic research collection, to discuss yet-to-be-developed parts of the Whitman Archive dealing with place-based cultural analysis and translation studies as a way to illustrate the expansive possibilities of this new model of scholarship.

Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Price received his B.A. from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, and then earned both M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago. He is University Professor and Hillegass Chair of Nineteenth-Century American literature at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he also serves as co-director of the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. Price is the author of over forty articles and author or editor of nine books. His most recent book is co-edited with Ed Folsom and with Susan Belasco, Leaves of Grass: The Sesquicentennial Essays (University of Nebraska Press, 2007). His other recent books include Re-Scripting Walt Whitman: An Introduction to His Life and Work , co-authored with Folsom (Blackwell Publishing, 2005) and To Walt Whitman, America (University of North Carolina Press 2004), a main selection of The Readers Subscription, a national book club.

Since 1995 Price has served as co-director of The Walt Whitman Archive an electronic research and teaching tool that sets out to make Whitman’s vast work, for the first time, easily and conveniently accessible to scholars, students, and general readers. The Whitman Archive has been awarded federal grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the U. S. Department of Education, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services. The Whitman Archive has received many honors, including the C. F. W. Coker award from the Society of American Archivists and a “We the People” grant from the NEH to build a permanent endowment to support ongoing editorial work.

We will meet on Tuesday, March 11 fom 4:00-6:30 PM in the McKeldin Special Events Room (6th floor, room 6137), McKeldin Library, on the University of Maryland campus in College Park. There will be an informal dinner downstairs in MITH after the forum, at a cost of $10 per person. Please RSVP to Matt Kirschenbaum (mgk[at]umd[dot]edu) by March 7, 2008 if you would like to have dinner (money will be collected at the door–please have cash).

Co-sponsored by the Center for History & New Media (CHNM) at George Mason, the Center for New Designs in Learning & Scholarship (CNDLS) at Georgetown, and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), the Rosenzweig Technology and Humanities Forum explores important issues in humanities computing and provide an opportunity for DC area scholars interested the uses of new technology in the humanities to meet and get acquainted.

McKeldin Library is located at the top of McKeldin Mall at the center of the University of Maryland, College Park campus. There is free shuttle service to campus from the College Park Metro station (Green line). Best parking for visitors is the lot next to Stamp Student Union, less than five minute walk to the Library.

The Center for History and New Media and the Minnesota Historical Society are pleased to announce the public beta release of Omeka, the free and open-source software that provides museums, historical societies, libraries and individuals with an easy-to-use platform for publishing collections and creating attractive, standards-based, interoperable online exhibits. Omeka is designed to satisfy the needs of cultural institutions that lack technical staffs and large budgets. Bringing Web 2.0 technologies and approaches to small museum, historical society, and library websites, Omeka fosters the kind of user interaction and participation that is central to the mission of those cultural institutions. Omeka’s development is the result of ten years of digital public history work, experimentation, and technology development on projects such as the September 11 Digital Archive and Object of History: Behind the Scenes with the Curators of the National Museum of American History. Omeka is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The theme-switching process and plug-in architecture at the heart of Omeka will be familiar to users who are accustomed to working with popular blogging software, but Omeka includes a number of features that are directed specifically at public history users and other humanists. First, the system functions using an archive built on a Dublin Core metadata scheme, allowing it to be interoperable with existing content management systems and all other Omeka installations. Second, Omeka includes a process for building narrative exhibits with flexible layouts. These two features alone provide cultural institutions with the power to increase their web presence and to showcase the interpretive expertise of curators, archivists, and historians. But Omeka’s plug-in architecture also allows users to do much more to extend their exhibits to include maps, timelines, and folksonomies, and it provides the “hooks” and APIs (application programming interfaces) that open-source developers and designers need to add additional functionality to suit their own institutions’ particular needs. In turn, a public plug-ins and themes directory will allow these community developers to donate their new tools back to the rest of Omeka users. The Omeka team is eager to build a large and robust community of open-source developers around this suite of technologies.

Available in private beta since September, Omeka has already accrued over 150 test users, and a number of successful projects are using the software:

• The Light Factory and Cultural & Heritage Museums in South Carolina are using Omeka for an online collecting site to accompany their physical show, River Docs, in which contemporary artists documented their personal interactions with the Catawaba River over the course of a year. Omeka has enabled the curators to collect images and reflections from the public, extending the reach of the physical exhibit and deepening the connection of the visitors to the project.
• The New York Public Library is testing Omeka for an online overview of its most popular collections, Treasures of the New York Public Library.
• Virginia Tech has used Omeka to collect remembrances and memorials of the sad events of last Spring, The April 16 Archive. Omeka’s flexible design and architecture enabled the launch of this site within days of the tragic shootings.

Other projects using Omeka include:

• Object of History: Behind the Scenes with the Curators at the National Museum of American History
• Hurricane Digital Memory Bank
• A Look Back at Braddock District

Omeka is now available for download and includes the following features:

• Basic themes that are easy to adapt with simple CSS changes
• Exhibit building with 12 basic page layouts
• Tagging for items and exhibits
• RSS feed for new items
• Drop box plug-in for batch adding items (available at )
• Contribution plug-in for collecting items from visitors
• COinS plug-in making all Omeka content readable by Zotero
• Geolocation plug-in for displaying items on a map
• Bilingual plug-in for adding language fields to item metadata
• Site notes plug-in for administrators to leave instructions for users

System Requirements:

• Linux operating system
• Apache server (with mod_rewrite enabled)
• MySQL 5.0 or greater
• PHP 5.2.x or greater
• ImageMagick

About the Center for History & New Media

Since 1994, the Center for History and New Media has used digital media and computer technology to democratize history—to incorporate multiple voices, reach diverse audiences, and encourage popular participation in presenting and preserving the past. CHNM combines cutting edge digital media with the latest and best historical scholarship to promote an inclusive understanding of the past as well as broad historical literacy. CHNM maintains more than two dozen online history projects directed at diverse audiences, making them available at no cost through its website. In 2007, CHNM’s websites had 300 million hits and 10 million visitors—making it one of the busiest non-commercial history education sites on the entire World Wide Web. CHNM has been a leader both in using digital media to improve the public understanding of history and in developing innovative, easy-to-use digital tools for accessing historical content. In terms of public understanding, CHNM maintains several very popular and award-winning web-database projects, including educational projects such as History Matters, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, and World History Matters and public history projects such as the September 11 Digital Archive, the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, and Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives. CHNM’s work has been recognized with major awards and grants from the American Historical Association, the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, the Department of Education, the Library of Congress, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the National Historic Records and Publication Commission, Atlantic Philanthropies, and the Sloan, Hewlett, Rockefeller, Gould, Delmas, and Kellogg foundations.

About the Minnesota Historical Society

The Minnesota Historical Society is a private, non-profit educational and cultural institution established in 1849 to preserve and share Minnesota history. The Society collects, preserves and tells the story of Minnesota’s past through interactive and engaging museum exhibits, extensive libraries and collections, 25 historic sites, educational programs and publishing. The Library, Publications and Collections Division encompasses the departments and programs that collect, preserve and provide access to historical resources through a wide variety of means. The primary area of service for the Society is the state of Minnesota, with an estimated population of just over 5.1 million people. But researchers from all over the country and the world make use of its collections, in person and, increasingly, through its web site, which hosts a number of excellent and innovative resources. For example, in FY06, over 570,000 people visited the Society’s museums and sites; the Library had over 32,000 researchers in attendance; and the web site enjoyed over 6.6 million total visits.

We are delighted to announce that beginning this summer the Center for History and New Media will undertake a major two-year study of the potential of text-mining tools for historical (and by extension, humanities) scholarship. The project, entitled “Scholarship in the Age of Abundance: Enhancing Historical Research With Text-Mining and Analysis Tools,” has just received generous funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In the last decade the library community and other providers of digital collections have created an incredibly rich digital archive of historical and cultural materials. Yet most scholars have not yet figured out ways to take full advantage of the digitized riches suddenly available on their computers. Indeed, the abundance of digital documents has actually exacerbated the problems of some researchers who now find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of available material. Meanwhile, some of the most profound insights lurking in these digital corpora remain locked up.

For some time computer scientists have been pursuing text mining as a solution to the problem of abundance, and there have even been a few attempts at bringing text-mining tools to the humanities (such as the MONK project). Yet there is not as much research as one might hope on what non-technically savvy scholars (especially historians) might actually want and use in their research, and how we might integrate sophisticated text analysis into the workflow of these scholars.

The project will first conduct a survey of historians to examine closely their use of digital resources and prospect for particularly helpful uses of digital technology. It will then explore three main areas where text mining might help in the research process: locating documents of interest in the sea of texts online; extracting and synthesizing information from these texts; and analyzing large-scale patterns across these texts. A focus group of historians will be used to assess the efficacy of different methods of text mining and analysis in real-world research situations in order to offer recommendations, and even some tools, for the most promising approaches.

CHNM is pleased to announce its latest initiative, THATCamp.

Short for “The Humanities and Technology Camp”, THATCamp is a BarCamp-style, user-generated “unconference” on digital humanities. THATCamp is organized and hosted by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, Digital Campus, and THATPodcast.

What is an “unconference”?

According to Wikipedia, an unconference is “a conference where the content of the sessions is created and managed by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by one or more organizers in advance of the event.” An unconference is not a spectator event. Participants in an unconference are expected to present their work, share their knowledge, and actively collaborate with fellow participants rather than simply attend. There are many styles of unconferences. The most famous is probably BarCamp, an international network of unconference events focused largely on open source web development.

What should I present?

That’s up to you. Sessions at THATCamp will range from full-blown papers (not many of those, we hope) to software demos to training sessions to debates to discussions of research findings to half-baked rants. You should come to THATCamp with something in mind, and on the first day find a time, a place, and people to share it with. Once you’re at THATCamp, you may also find people with similar topics and interests to team up with for a joint session.

How do I sign up?

Unfortunately, we only have space for about 40-45 participants, so we’ll have to do some vetting. To apply for a spot, simply send us an email saying who you are, what you’re thinking about presenting, and what you think you will get out of the experience. Please don’t send full proposals. We’re talking about an informal email of maybe 200 or 300 words, max. If you want to attach a C.V., that’s OK too. Send your email to thatcamp.info@gmail.com.

Where?

The Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, MSN 1E7 Fairfax, Virginia.

When?

May 31 – June 1, 2008.

Who?

Anyone with energy and an interest in digital humanities.

How much?

As with most BarCamps, THATCamp will be free to all attendees. But a $25 donation towards snacks and diet coke will be much appreciated by the organizers.

How do I sponsor THATCamp?

A limited number of sponsorships are available to corporations and non-profits. Please send an email to thatcamp.info@gmail.com.

The Center for History and New Media is pleased to announce the relaunch of the ECHO (Exploring and Collecting History Online) website. ECHO is a portal to over 5,000 websites concerning the history of science, technology, and industry. In addition to better helping researchers find the exact information they need and granting curious browsers a forum for exploration, the new site also provides access to the latest in blogging on the topics of digital history and histories of science, technology and industry.

The project is based at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. ECHO has been funded by two generous grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Roy Rosenzweig Prize in History and New Media Established in Professor’s Memory

The Center for History and New Media (CHNM) and the American Historical Association (AHA) have agreed to institute a joint “Roy Rosenzweig Prize in History and New Media.” The Rosenzweig Prize will be awarded annually for an innovative and freely available new media project that reflects thoughtful, critical, and rigorous engagement with technology and the practice of history.

Roy Rosenzweig died from cancer on 11 October 2007. He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and lectured as a Fulbright professor. As the AHA’s Vice President for Research, he urged the Association to open all book prizes to publications in new media form. The Rosenzweig Prize will be the first to specifically recognize contributions developed in digital form to the profession at large.

In 2005, Rosenzweig’s Web-based project, History Matters earned him and CHNM the James Harvey Robinson Prize of the American Historical Association. In 2003, he was awarded the second Richard W. Lyman Award for his work with CHNM, particularly History Matters and the September 11 Digital Archive.

The AHA and the CHNM together will select members of the prize selection committee and develop prize guidelines. The award winners will be announced at the AHA’s Annual Meeting.

The George Mason University Foundation, Inc. will manage the funds for the Rosenzweig Prize. Contributions may be tax deductible to the full extent allowable by the law.

Gifts for the AHA/CHNM Rosenzweig Pize may be mailed to:

GMU Foundation, Inc.
4400 University Drive, MS 1A3
Fairfax, VA 22030

Checks should be made payable to the GMU Foundation, Inc. and indicate that the gift is for the AHA/CHNM Rosenzweig Prize. Gifts may also be made online at give.gmu.edu, but funds must be specified for the AHA/CHNM Rosenzweig Prize in the comments section.

For questions or information on alternate methods of giving, individuals should contact:

Heidi A. Bruce, Director of Development, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Phone: 703.993.9319, e-mail: hbruce@gmu.edu

Contributions may also count toward the Center’s National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) matching grant in accordance with NEH guidelines.

About the Center for History and New Media

Since 1994, the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University has used digital media and computer technology to democratize history – to incorporate multiple voices, reach diverse audiences and encourage popular participation in presenting and preserving the past. CHNM combines cutting edge digital media with the latest and best historical scholarship to promote an inclusive and democratic understanding of the past as well as a broad historical literacy. CHNM’s work has been recognized with major awards and grants from the American Historical Association, the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the U.S. Department of Education, the Library of Congress, and the Sloan, Mellon, Hewlett, Rockefeller, Gould, Delmas and Kellogg foundations.

About the American Historical Association

The American Historical Association (AHA) is a nonprofit membership organization founded in 1884 and incorporated by Congress in 1889 for the promotion of historical studies, the collection and preservation of historical documents and artifacts, and the dissemination of historical research. As the largest historical society in the United States, the AHA provides leadership and advocacy for the profession, fights to ensure academic freedom, monitors professional standards, spearheads essential research in the field, and provides resources and services to help its members succeed. The AHA serves more than 14,000 history professionals, representing every historical period and geographical area. As the only national association for historians studying all areas and fields of history, the AHA currently confers 25 prizes and awards, recognizing a wide variety of distinguished historical work in the form of books, distinguished teaching, and even film. Since 1896 the Association has conferred 1,276 awards that represent a catalogue of the best work of the historical profession over the past 111 years.