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Roy Rosenzweig’s article on Wikipedia and its place in the digital history realm was intriguing. His comparisons between Wikipedia and other online encyclopedias were enlightening as I would have thought Wikipedia entries would have been chock full of errors. And the fact that vandalism happens less often than one might expect surprised me. Most significantly, however, I thought it was very telling that because “experts carefully vetted” content on Wikipedia’s “predecessor” Nupedia, it only published 20 articles in its first year and a half of existence. That’s miniscule compared to Wikipedia whose format encourages just about anybody and everybody to contribute. After reading about the phenomenon of Wikipedia and its lack of association with professional historians, I believe historians will only analyze Wikipedia from a distance as a digital, cultural or social event in history rather than become active collaborators on the site.

My personal Wikipedia entry edits were minor, but I think they were important. As an undergrad I read a number of published diaries, letters, and memoirs by U.S. Army officers’ wives on the post-Civil War American frontier. On the page about Elizabeth Bacon Custer, widow of George Armstrong Custer and author of three memoirs of her life with him, I noticed the entry referred to her as both “Libby” and “Libbie.” As I think it’s important to be historically accurate (and consistent) about the spelling of her nickname, I changed all of the references to Libbie.

While low on graphics and visuals, Pepys’ Diary (http://www.pepysdiary.com/) is a clever way to share material culture for historians and the public. And it’s very helpful to link to more background within the diary entries. However, I thought this was a verbatim digitization of his actual diary at first. I was glad that the project manager noted: “It should therefore be remembered that this is not Pepys’ diary as he wrote it, but a 19th century transcription which has in turn been used to create an electronic version.” After reviewing portions of History Carnival, this approach of using a blog to showcase a historical diary appears to be more popular than I realized.

I had no idea that History Carnival (http://historycarnival.blogsome.com/) even existed! I love the idea that each “issue” is created by a different contributor and looks different in addition to hosting a new topic each time. It’s interesting that the site is so upfront about the parameters for who can submit a blog for possible inclusion. For example, there is no formal definition of “historian,” enthusiasts as well as academics are welcome, giving this site a very welcoming and open feeling not usual found in the academic world. Like Wikipedia however, the major downfall of this approach though is the trustworthiness of the information shared. While a blog might look “credible,” can visitors accept the analysis as valid? However, the site appears fairly stricter about topics for inclusion. For instance, only blogs that tie current controversies to analysis of past events will be included.

Blogosphere (http://clioweb.org/blogosphere/) included an intriguing section on academic blogging that talked about the various arguments for and against it such as the potential for stealing a historian’s work or acting as a deterrent against theft. One article (http://www.earlymodernweb.org.uk/emn/index.php/archives/2005/09/so-why-would-i-champion-academic-blogging/) talked about the benefits of blogs, sharing research ideas and the sense of community when one blogger said nice things about another’s site. However, given that the history blogging world is still small relative to the entire academy, will this sense of camaraderie evaporate when more historians actively engage in the digital realm? Or will early history bloggers abandon their blogs when it becomes more commonplace to do it? I’m not sure what the answer is, but thinking about other technology trends, it’s possible. For instance, Apple/Mac users consider themselves an elite and special group, but now that Apple has revolutionized music with the iPod, has it turned off some of its diehards by becoming too mainstream? In addition, I thought about acceptable behavior in today’s history blogging world and how that might change as the concept grows in popularity. Not to criminalize traditionalists, but are early adopters of technology more inclined to try to promote community and advance the use of blogging technology by behaving nicely and not pilfering from the research of fellow historians? Will it become easier to “borrow” from another historian’s work when so much more of it is available online in draft form?

This week’s reading was very informative and extremely relevant to my semester project which involves digitizing vintage radio broadcasts currently stored on reel-to-reel tapes. Rosenzweig and Cohen state that “multimedia historians will probably spend a great deal more time fretting about legal issues than their text-based counterparts” and this certainly seems true from my perspective. I already have a number of questions for Peter Jaszi. For instance, while American University already has production copyright for many of the tapes in the collection I am working with, it does not own all copyrights nor can it authorize permission to cite from these sources. In addition, I understand that some radio programs have multiple copyrights, such as production, writing, etc. Given this situation, my digital archive will be housed on a test server at first and I plan to research copyrights for the recordings at the Library of Congress this summer in order to share the collection with the general public. However, if the situation does not work out as I hope, I’d like to see what Peter Jaszi thinks of some of our alternatives. For instance, could we include short excerpts of recordings where copyright is uncertain? Or only allow the American University community to access all or part of the recordings? On the bright side, it is possible to successfully create a digital archive with audio. Within the consortium, UDC features a web site with a digital collection of sound recordings of full-length interviews.

The discussion of orphan works also addresses a potential fear of mine involving my planned copyright research this summer. What if I cannot locate the copyright holder or his or her estate? It’s also possible that a syndicate may own copyright to some of the radio programs that I have recordings of. How does that impact the situation? Finally, what if the copyright holder is located, but simply does not respond to requests regarding copyright and permission to use the materials? What happens then?

Completely separately, I was astounded to learn in the readings that Corbis and other companies are selling images that researchers may obtain for free from institutions like the Library of Congress. I guess I should not be surprised at companies trying to take advantage of historians or others who might be unaware that royalty free versions of the same images exist, but it seems so cut throat.

The site I selected is the Natural History Museum in London that I simply stumbled across one day.  There is a very eye-catching and colorful frog that sits on the main page with his legs trailing down.  I like it because the site is peppered with information and resources but is not so busy that users do not know where to visit first.  The sections of the site are color coded - a very practical approach to navigation (ex: the kids only section is purple while the visit us section is red).  As the museum is targeting the general public, its site is clearly designed to appeal to a broad audience and does not have flash or other more sophisticated graphics built-in which some users might not be able to view. 

For this week’s readings on web design principles, I really liked Cohen and Rosenzweig’s discussion of control of a web page versus a book. Designers clearly grapple with such challenges as how a site looks in different browsers, whether a user has Flash or broadband access, and the limitations of software packages like Greenstone with overall design capabilities. During this semester, I’ve found significant differences with viewing our class web site on my Safari web browser on my Mac at home versus viewing the site on the PCs at AU with Internet Explorer. For example, I cannot insert a hyperlink or make text bold or italicized at home as those options do not appear on the screen with Safari. Instead of displaying this particular tool bar, the section of the screen is blank.

I also appreciated Cohen and Rosenzweig’s paraphrasing of the old adage that one must first learn to crawl and walk before one learns how to run. In some ways, I feel like I’m back in primary school learning about Dreamweaver and basic tools of web design. This has not been easy as a grad student. For instance, how can I convey compelling historic arguments if my technology skills lag far behind my current reading, research, writing, and comprehension skills? However, the readings and class discussion have offered reassurance that I do not need to be a computer science major, professional web designer or even the most technically savvy person to work effectively as a historian in the digital world.

As Josh notes, the historian can serve as a bricoleur, pulling together a digital project using various resources as long as he or she has a sound background in the fundamentals or basic rules of thumb for history web sites. For instance, for my class project, I’m working with AU’s Audio Technology department to use their equipment, software, and expertise for digitizing reel to reels. I’m also working with contacts within the library system who have already used Greenstone to create archival collections web sites and will benefit tremendously from their guidance and experience. While coordinating with these groups, however, I already have an understanding of what elements work and what does not online, and am keeping the needs of the historian foremost in mind regarding site structure, navigation, and design.

Separately, I also found the section on accessibility and Section 508 compliance to be an interesting parallel to class reading in my public history practicum this semester. We often read about federal regulations regarding physical accessibility for museums and historic houses. If a museum cannot adequately adapt its physical environment for the disabled, it must provide a legitimate alternative experience. The Tenement Museum in New York leverages the Web for this purpose as it could not reconstruct its interior to accommodate some physically disabled visitors. As a result, there is a fairly decent audio tour with slide show with 360 degree viewing capabilities on the museum’s web site. I had never thought, however, about maximizing accessibility to information on the Web in a similar fashion to maximizing accessibility to buildings.

For my semester project, I propose a digital audio/archival web site initiative, which relates to my professional interests in archival management. During my part-time work at the American University Archives and Special Collections, I have been cataloging the John R. Hickman Collection, which includes thousands of hours of radio programming from the 1920s through the 1970s. The programming includes major news events, such as D-Day and the funeral of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and entertainment, including musical performances and classic radio series like Gunsmoke and The Lone Ranger. Hickman, an on-air personality and producer at what is now WAMU, donated these materials to American and the majority of the collection is housed on seven and fifteen-inch audio reels. Currently, the collection may only be played on twenty to forty year old audio equipment, such as Otari or NAGRA reel-to-reel machines, making it almost completely inaccessible to researchers.

To share this collection with a wider audience, including historians and radio programming enthusiasts amongst the general public, Archives and Special Collections ultimately intends to digitize the content and I propose to kick start this major effort. I plan to digitize approximately ten hours of content which will be accessible through a prototype WRLC (Washington Research Library Consortium) special collections web site. In order to complete my project, I am working with a number of different groups within the American University community in both coordinator and participant roles. I am already working with the American University Audio Technology department to use their reel-to-reel equipment (NAGRA) and Mac software to digitize select reels from the collection. (My first lesson went quite well!) I plan to create a high quality master file of the audio programming and convert it to MP3 or WAV format to stream online. I have selected some of the best examples of the collection to digitize, including news coverage from key historic events, and vintage entertainment programming. I am also working with WRLC to create an online repository for the collection. WRLC prefers to use Greenstone Digital Library software to build its digital archives and my project must conform to these standards. However, I have flexibility regarding the way the site is built and content presented online. For example, I will be setting the parameters for search and browse capabilities.

In terms of design, I am keeping the historian’s needs foremost and plan to create a written methodology to accompany my online project, describing the site’s structure and how it (hopefully) encourages online historical research. The front page will include a banner image of reels in the collection and an overview of the collection. Users will be able to browse by selecting news or entertainment programming and then by choosing title, date, and subject of programming. They will be able to search news, entertainment programming or both by key words. I plan to include a biography of John Hickman connected via a link to the main page as well. Each of the reels will have its own individual web page listing Dublin Core elements about each reel, such as its subject, date of program on the reel, format, etc. For the reels that have been digitized, there also will be a link to the streaming audio. As my project also is a trial run for eventually digitizing more of the collection, I am seeking permission from the American University library’s IT department to house my prototype site on the library’s test server.

For me this project exemplifies several class discussions this semester. As I’ve been working with the physical Hickman collection for several months, this project is a natural progression into the digital realm. It also shares an important collection that is currently inaccessible to researchers (and, for some of the reels, in potential danger of falling apart) with a larger audience by digitizing the content and placing it in a formal web site. This type of archival site also spans both academic and public history since vintage radio programming often is used by social or cultural historians in their primary research, but simultaneously appeals to members of the general public with an interest in classic radio. Finally, since this is a project also related to my ongoing job, I ultimately hope to expand the digitization efforts and the web site during the summer months.

I have one quick follow-up comment to my web review presentation.  Rod asked me if the digital collections housed by some of the model university archives and special web sites appear in Google searches.  They do and are listed quite high with results.  For instance, I showed the class the Overland Trail collection at BYU.  When a user types Overland Trail into Google, this collection is the fourth web site to appear.  The Dolley Madison Papers at UVA appear second on a Google search for Dolley Madison, just after the link to the official White House bio on this First Lady!

In theory, new or digital media offers boundless possibilities to enhance history scholarship. However, in practice it does not always work out they way we want. I think we all can relate to David Bell’s first two examples. I absolutely love the ability to access newspaper and journal articles from AU’s library from home at 11 am or 11 pm, whichever fits my schedule. Or it’s so easy to simply log onto the Internet to track down an elusive quotation (or any random fact that I need!) instead of traveling to campus to visit the library. It’s also much easier to collaborate with colleagues across the country on research thanks to digital media. Yet, as my recent web review demonstrates with university archives and special collections web sites, not all digital tools are made or distributed equally. Whether it is the constraints posed by technology (dial-up modem, different standards for different browsers), cost (of accessing articles or even paying for a PC or ISP), or human beings (such as eye strain or the inability of the brain to adapt to non-linear formats), new media has made tremendous strides in the past decade, but it is still very much in development.

The Journal of the Association for History and Computing and the American Quarterly hypertext articles are great examples of digital media’s strengths and challenges. I thought the Journal was easy to navigate and loved how they listed reviews of web sites, online articles, and print/books side-by-side. However, some of the links to sites featured in older issues (such as those 1998 or 1999) are no longer active, making it frustrating for readers. The American Quarterly articles are chock full of information and visuals; a terrific way to blend the two media and allow readers to seamlessly access more information. Yet I found myself getting bogged down in hyperlinks, jumping from one topic to the next and then forgetting where I was in the “main” text. As I was simply browsing through the articles, this approach was acceptable. But I agree with David Bell’s comments that reading scholarship online can be very distracting, leaving readers questioning how much information they actually retained from the process. In addition, Roy Rosenzweig raises extremely valuable points when he notes that traditional academic reading skills (like pinpointing a thesis) may not apply with hypertext articles. Based on my experiences and these readings, I wondered if those of us in the humanities have a more difficult time using digital media based on our traditional reliance on print or text sources? Would a mathmatician have the same problem?

Roy Rosenzweig’s second article and Clifford Lynch’s overview of e-books complicate the situation further, raising issues that I hadn’t considered like ownership of e-books or the right for free access to online scholarship. It’s interesting that we expect to pay subscriptions for hard copy magazines, journals and newspapers that are delivered to our home or office, yet expect online versions of these media to be free?

In spite of these difficulties, it is clear that historians and other academics must work with new media even if the experience is not flawless or without challenges. As Bell wryly notes, it took early modern scholars centuries to fully exploit and understand the benefits of printing.

In addition, while academics may complain about the growing pains of digital media, we cannot forget the problems of print scholarship. This irony is demonstrated in the Benjamin Harrison article. Harrison turns my complaints about digital media - constrained by technology, cost, and human factors from ideally functioning - on their head and into complaints about print. He compellingly argues that print is expensive. Next, he shows the limits of print technology, maintaining that paper publishing is limited in scope and bandwidth from serving all potential readers simultaneously. Finally, the human factor involved in print, such as a slow peer review and revision process, bogs down the process.