calderwood

When reading Chapter 7 of Digital History (”Owning the Past”), I was disheartened at times and encouraged at others.  As a historian, the prospect that so many aspects of our recent history will be off limits or exceedingly difficult to obtain for several generations sickens me.  I understand producers deserve certain rights, but the courts seem to be erring too far on the side of producers at the public’s expense.  Fortunately, the public still has rights when engaging in “fair use” of copyrighted materials.  Cohen and Rosenzweig’s contention that, in the interest of fostering a “creative commons,” historians need to exercise this right encouraged me.  Despite copyright restrictions, historians have a right to do what they do, and they must exersize that right if they hope to keep it.

In their discussion of “fair use” on the web, I think one component was missing.  It seems to me that we can feel reasonably comfortable about digitizing historical materials when there are comparable materials currently available online.  In my case, I feel comfortable making blues lyrics available on the web because there are already many sites that do this sort of thing.  When you add in the fact that my purposes are more clearly academic, and that these purposes entail modifying the lyrics to some extent, I don’t think I need to worry about copyright issues.  In general, I think historians are in a more secure position in presenting material online because they bring a level of critical thinking and educational intent that may be lacking in other comparable sites.

On the subject of fair use, reading Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use made me wonder whether historians have established a similar statement of best practices for their profession.  Then, on second thought, I realized that Chapter 7 of Digital History represents an effort to outline best practices for historians.  If I were to ever be questioned on whether my claims of fair use fell within the standards of my profession, I could always point to this chapter as evidence of those standards.

On a somewhat different aspect of copyright law, the U.S. Copyright Office’s Report on Orphan Works made me think about the different types of users of materials protected by copyright.  Surprisingly, I had not considered the dilemma of institutions (such as archives, libraries, and museum) that want to make materials public but do not know whether these materials are protected by copyright.  This report, to an even greater extent than the other readers, made me realize the number of vagaries that copyright law leaves for both users and copyright holders.

For many years now, I have admired the design of the Internet Movie Database.  Even though advertising and Flash technology surround the edges of the page, these things don’t get in the way of the content.  I like how each search result (e.g. a movie) brings up other data (e.g. the names of the movies cast and crew members), most of which function as a link to other data (e.g. other movies on which the cast or crew member worked).  This kind of structure allows for haphazard exploration and discovery, and the fact that the overall layout of each page doesn’t change brings a comfortable consistency to it all.  Additionally, if the visitor is particularly interested in an entry, there is a list of links along the lefthand margin that leads to further details.

In Ten Reasons to Learn and Use Web Standards, Roger Johanssen provides great reasons for using web standards.  In my own endeavors, reasons 5-8 seem the most important: I want to make my site accessible, improve its search engine rankings, make it easy to maintain, and ensure its future sustainability.

All this begs the question: What exactly are web standards?  After reading Chapter 4 of Digital History (”Designing for the History Web”), I have a sense of what separates good web design from bad.  (As I understand it, it all comes down to making a site as accessible, its content as apparent, and it structure as transparent as possible.)  Still, understanding the effects of good web design is not the same as knowing the standards for good web design.

Fortunately, I have an inkling of what web standards are after following the link from Roger Johanssen’s list to Dave Shea’s A Roadmap to Standards.  Apparently, following web standards means making a website’s code as readable as possible.  It involves consistently closing elements, as well as using techniques like CSS to separate code regarding a site’s presentation from code regarding its content.

These are practices I hope to implement as I design my own website. 

For the final project for this course, I’ve decided to start a website that will enable visitors to search for specific words among a large collection of blues lyrics.  This means that, in addition to designing the site with standard HTML, I’ll have to enable searching by incorporating database software (such as MySQL) or marking up the lyrics using XML.  My ultimate decision on how to enable searching will depend on which process is easiest to learn, which uses less memory, and which will best accommodate ongoing additions to the website.  Whichever process I decide to use, I want it not only to enable Boolean searches for words in the lyrics, but also to limit the searches by the artist, the date of the recording, the musical style (e.g. classic, country, urban, or electric blues), the artist’s gender, and the geographical region with which the artist is associated (e.g. Southwest, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Southeast).  I would also like visitors to be able to view their search results either by relevance or in chronological order.
 

In addition to enabling searches, I want the website to enable browsing by artist, song title, or any of the other categories I mentioned above.  (Perhaps I can list all of these categories in a sidebar.)  I also want the website to present the lyrics in a format that is easily readable (e.g. by clearly indicating stanza breaks and refrains) and printable.  In many cases, a blues lyric will also require annotation so that I can explicate unusual words or expressions, indicate the variations among different recording of the same song, and acknowledge wherever I think my transcription might be inaccurate.
 

My reason for creating this site involves a combination of personal interest and the possibility of future research.  Having previously written on the blues, I have always wanted an internet resource that would allow me to search blues lyrics for specific words.  At the same time, I foresee that this site will appeal to many people interested in the blues, whether they are scholars or members of the general public.  Since this site is primarily a search engine, a resource for others to interpret the past, it will not offer an explicit historical argument.  Even so, in order for the lyrics to appear in a standard, searchable form, I’ll occasionally have to do violence to the lyrics.  (For example, if I want to facilitate searching, I cannot register the aural difference between songs that use “walkin’” and those that use “walking.”)  For this reason, I think my site should include a page that briefly discusses the issues involved and the decisions I made in order to make the lyrics searchable.
 

Finally, I want to point out that I expect this website to continue growing well after this course has ended.  For the purpose of this course, I would like to have a site including more than 100 lyrics that would still fit on the AU server.  After the course is over, I hope to add lyrics, move the website to another server, and (maybe) to include streaming audio to accompany the lyrics.  My first task, however, is to get a search engine with a substantial number of lyrics up and running.