The Center for History and New Media is seeking an entry-level Drupal/PHP Programmer to work on digital humanities projects such as the National History Education Clearinghouse. This is a contract-funded, two-year position that is particularly appropriate for someone with a combined interest in technology, and the humanities and social sciences. Knowledge of Drupal and some combination of the following would be particularly helpful: JavaScript, CSS, XML, PHP, MySQL and object-oriented programming. Ability to work in a team is very important.

Apply online for position 10411z at http://jobs.gmu.edu/; then e-mail a resume, salary requirements, and a cover letter describing relevant programming projects and experience to chnm@gmu.edu with subject line “Drupal Programmer.” We will begin considering applications on September 2, 2008, and continue until the position is filled. Applications without a cover letter will not be considered.

Multimedia Developer

The Center for History and New Media is hiring a Multimedia Developer to work on a variety of innovative, Web-based history projects. This grant-funded position is particularly appropriate for someone with a combined interest in technology and history. The successful candidate will be an energetic, well-organized person who takes initiative; works well in a team; and learns new skills quickly. Experience with audio editing, video editing, Final Cut Pro and/or Flash preferred.

Please apply online at http://jobs.gmu.edu for position 10412z, then e-mail a cover letter, resume and links to any prior Web-based multimedia work to chnm@gmu.edu with the subject line “Multimedia Developer.” We will begin considering applications on September 2, 2008, and continue until the position is filled.

About CHNM/GMU

The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, which is known for innovative work in digital history, is located in Fairfax, Virginia, 15 miles from Washington, D.C., and is accessible by public transportation. George Mason University is an innovative, entrepreneurial institution with national distinction in a range of academic fields. Enrollment is 30,000, with students studying in over 150 degree programs at campuses in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and the United Arab Emirates. GMU was recently named the #1 “Up-and-Coming” university by U.S. News & World Report.

http://hnn.us/HowStupidAreWe/media.html

When only 2 out of 5 citizens are able to name the three branches of the federal government, only 1 in 7 can find Iraq on a world map, and the majority believe the war in Iraq was caused by Saddam Hussein’s involvement with Al-Qaeda, Shenkman questions the ability of American voters to make intelligent and informed decisions for guiding the world’s most powerful government.

Shenkman further suggests that the majority of American voters are not only unaware of current events and unable to differentiate between facts and spin, but they simply do not care to learn more if it involves reading a newspaper or book rather than absorbing their news from entertaining network news shows.

Speaking with Jon Stewart, Shenkman questioned the depth of the news presented on television, including the Daily Show, and pointed to the host’s responsibility to present relevant information to viewers rather than focusing on entertaining details. Stewart praised Shenkman’s call for intellectual accountability: if the American people are going to criticize the current administration, they should educate themselves in order to be able to enact critical change.

In addition to being the editor of the History News Network (http://hnn.us), Rick Shenkman is an Emmy-wining investigative journalist and the New York Times best-selling author of six books, including Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History and Presidential Ambition: How the Presidents Gained Power, Kept Power and Got Things Done.

To apply for this position (number F5343z), go to http://jobs.gmu.edu, then mail a letter of interest, a CV and three letters of recommendation to: Chair, Search Committee, MS 3G1, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA, 22030. For specific inquiries about the position, please send an email to tkelly7@gmu.edu. Applications will be reviewed beginning October 15, 2008.

George Mason University is an innovative, entrepreneurial institution with national distinction in a range of academic fields. Enrollment is 30,000, with students studying in over 150 degree programs at campuses in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and the United Arab Emirates.

The Center for History and New Media, founded in 1994, uses digital media and technology to preserve and present history online, transform scholarship across the humanities, and advance historical education and understanding. Each year CHNM’s many project websites receive over 16 million visitors, and over a million people rely on its digital tools to teach, learn, and conduct research.

George Mason University is an equal opportunity employer encouraging diversity.

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.

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.

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.

“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 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.

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.