Clio Wired (History 696)

The most important question then seems to be what can and should be done with what we have now. A review of several academic institutions involved in digital scholarship seems to focus on at least maintaining that level of professionalism which print journals require i.e. original research, based on primary sources, evaluated through peer review, clear prose, and consisting of a clear argument. After that there seems to be some general agreement that digital media provides the ability to use other media tools such as graphics, maps, audio, and hypertext, but how? The short answer is anyway that works, we’ll figure that out as we go. This experimental approach in and of itself is healthy. Through experimentation one can see what works and what doesn’t or at least one can see what worked for some and failed for others in the manner in which they used the various tools at their disposal.

For this assignment I examined "The Difference Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities," http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/AHR/ produced Will Thomas and Edward Ayers and "Images of the French Revolution" at http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/imaging/home.html organized by Lynn Hunt, Jack Censer. The question I posed as I went through these sites was what was the promise they made, how high had they aimed, and how closely had they made it to the mark. Both sites clearly laid out their goals. The Thomas and Ayers site examined how slavery divided American society prior to the Civil War by examining two counties only 200 miles apart with the same geographic conditions. One of which lay in the north in Pennsylvania and the other in the south in Virginia. They sought to “translate the fundamental components of professional scholarship-evidence, engagement with prior scholarship, and a scholarly argument-into forms that take advantage of the possibilities of electronic media” (Thomas and Ayers, Citation: Key = TI). They sought to fuse the electronic articles form with the argument itself, reconstruct the flow of their logic, use spatial analysis and spatial presentation through GIS analysis, to express that spatial analysis through the structure of the article, and allow for unseen connections with future scholarship. Hunt and Censer state that the digital format provided an opportunity for collaborative study and openness. A group of six scholars came together to evaluate 42 images of the French Revolution. After posting their observations they engaged in discussions about their insights and refined their work further. The website opened up this process to the general public by clearly displaying the source of this discussion, namely the images as well as the give and take between the scholars. They approaches both websites take certainly does not make use of all the numerous tools available to this media but wisely, though not necessarily successfully, they chose those tools that seemed appropriate to their subject, sources, and scholarly objectives.

Thomas and Ayers organized their site around the physical separation of the two counties in question. After setting out their argument in an effective narrative they proceed to breakdown the areas of society as impacted by their location with slavery being the variable in question. Issues were addressed in a standard journal style but unlike a journal they took the additional step of not just referencing their sources but instead mapped out how each conclusion was arrived at separately for each location. This area of the site is more extensive than the narrative itself and so seems to turn the focus from their conclusions to how they reached them. Going a step further they lay out support for that logic through numerous maps, charts, and tables. This is, at the same time, their best attempt to make use of the digital media and their largest miss-step. Visualization as described by David Staley attempts to use graphics to organize meaningful information in multidimensional spatial form. In the common tongue this means to present data not through extensive written narrative but through collections of symbols. Examples of this such as maps, diagrams, panoramas, charts, and graphs should organize information and present it in two and three-dimensional forms. Their use makes sense here considering the geographic nature of the analysis. As the visual presentation of data guru Edward Tufte states in the introduction to his book Envisioning Information, “The world is complex, dynamic, multidimensional: the paper is static, flat. How are we to represent the rich visual world of experience and measurement on mere flatland?” Presentation on paper was Tufte’s challenge when he wrote that in 1990. Thomas and Ayers have a leg up in that they are dealing with a medium suited for escaping from flatland. Despite this natural advantage and seemingly good fit their maps fall flat (excuse the pun). They are difficult to read due to poor color and text combinations. There is little explanation of what is displayed beyond a minimalist key and there is little imagination used to combine them into maps representing more than one or two variables. Interactive controls could have allowed one page to present several different views. This causes them to use far more maps than are probably necessary thereby creating more and more links to plow through if one sustains interest. Despite this disappointing return to flatland the site does meet its overall goals and succeeds for the most part though with less of a bang than was possible.

Hunt and Censer and Images of the French Revolution follow a similar path. Though much of the site could have been produced in a print publication the openness to the public of the discussion process is rarely if ever put into print. It could in fact be the very experimental nature and evolutionary climate surrounding the Internet that encourages and actually follows through on ideas such as this. Through their use of collaboration the discussion takes on a slightly less formal tone, more inviting and is thus more inclusive. They are aware of the teaching aspect of this format as they state in their conclusion, “Our readers' own interests, values, and aesthetic contexts will enable them to see things in these images that we have missed. Our hope is that we have given you some guidance in your own efforts to make sense of the visual imagery of the French Revolution.” As with Thomas and Ayers however this site’s use of its greatest asset the 42 images suffers from problems of execution. The benefit of digital media here is the ability to present a large number of color images that would be possible in print but very costly. Hunt and Censer attempt to take the images further by allowing large versions of the images to be displayed on the screen at the same time at various sizes, something not possible with print media. Unfortunately their methodology falls short. When first viewed the images are represented by thumbnails along with the following instructions, “Rollover detail image to preview the entire image. Click on the detail to open the entire image in a new window, including the caption, source, medium, dimensions and links to commentary on the image in essays or discussions. Use the Image Tool to take a closer look.” First time users, unaware of what the Image Tool is as well as unable to see it since it falls below the fold (too far down to be displayed on screen) naturally assume that clicking on the thumbnail will reveal the larger image. The window that opens does present the promised information but also an image that while complete is smaller in scale than the thumbnail. Even after finding the image tool one is distracted by the fact that the numbering scheme is different. The first set of thumbnails for example is labeled one through fourteen while the first window of the image tool contains only ten images that are not numbered. Flipping back and forth makes it difficult to match the additional data in the first new window with the larger images opened in the second window. The net effect is to frustrate the viewer and reduce the effectiveness of what could be the highlight of the site. But as with the Thomas and Ayers site, Hunt and Censer manage to meet their goals as set by themselves.

Both sites fulfill the traditional objectives of print scholarship with regard to effectively putting forth an argument and supporting it and both attempt to go further, perhaps cautiously so, by utilizing some of the tools available through digital media. Their promise of digital scholarship was never the proverbial rose garden, not the whole enchilada, but a reserved promise to make it worthwhile to pursue this avenue of publication instead of print. To that end these sites succeed.