The Virtual Past

Here’s a link to my practice webpage: The London Eye.

We’re going to keep this post short, sweet and to the point.

On page 26 of The Cognative Style of Powerpoint Edward Tufte is asked the following question.

“The problem is with presenters who misuse PowerPoint. PowerPoint is just a tool; why blame the software for bad presentations? When a Carpenter makes a crooked cut, do we blame the saw? Just because some people do silly things in PP doesn’t mean that PP has a problem; people do silly things in written reports also.”

Tufte’s response is perhaps the reasons why I love and hate PowerPoint. As a presentation tool, it gives individuals with no presentation skills something that will distract their audience from their horrible public speaking ability. Tufte states that yes, some responsibility does fall with the presenter, but that in fact as a tool, PowerPoint is set up a way that facilitates ‘bells n’ whistles’ over content.

In my few large classes in undergrad I attended lectures that were based on PowerPoint presentations produced by the textbook company. There was no reason to even go to the courses except for tests and quizzes and homework—in actuality, these courses gave me my initial nerve to (yes shockingly) skip class and make better use of my time…Even presentations when the content is almost entirely on the screen….slide after slide of words and more words its mind numbing, intellectually insulting and perhaps a bit ugly.

However, If done right (as Tufte mentions later on in page 26) a presentation can use PowerPoint to engage the audience with visuals, and low volume text as well as physical tactile handouts. Another compromise between the digital and the reality based world.

On a side note: I was rather shocked by the Columbia slide shows….those are presentations that seriously should not be given over a medium meant to summarize information. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was humorous—but allowed Tufte to make his point. PowerPoint should not be a replacement for good oratory and good communication skills.

As for the websites—I had to link everyone to this post from Presentation Zen. Yoda vs Darth Vader? Who would have thought!

Also barring any other tools to build my exhibition last summer in London, I used PowerPoint to design my exhibition. Not an ideal media for exhibition building, but without any other software at my fingertips it did its job nicely. (Here’s a screen captue of my exhibition in Powerpoint..).

From the latest chapter in Digital History one can imagine and develop a historical website with relative ease and harassment. Though I am already familiar with a lot of the topics in the reading for this week having a refresher explanation for some of the abbreviations was much appreciated. That being said, I did not have many questions regarding the process of building a website, so instead I thought I would nestle my questions regarding this subject in with a process story of how I became interested in web design….

My Junior year of high school, I was taught the basic concepts and coding behind html for an English project regarding the novel The Great Gatsby. Meant to be a sort of reference, my class split up various themes and using html coding built individual pieces for a larger three-class website. My particular part related to locations of the novel which you can see here. (For the main page of the project: WSHS Great Gatsby Project. My class was Period 2.)

After I cringe at the design elements in my personal page (too much turquoise) I do have to recognize what that project taught me in the long term. I have to be honest. I hate coding. I hate C++, C, etc. That being said, while I hate, I can appreciate its place in the larger world of computing. For some reason though, I understand html. Now this was a coding language that seemed simple, not mind straining, and really a snap to deal with, and I have had no trouble using it since. That being said, it is no longer necessary to actually know the coding language, but it is a good tool to know for reference sake. (For a quick and easy coding resource go here: HTML Goodies.)

There is one format of web design that the text for this week did not mention—and that is, your very basic, low maintenance Netscape Composer. In essence a word document, this program devised the code for you (it generated the code as you placed things on your document) and all you had to do is use a Microsoft Word based toolbar for design. In my freshman year of college I built an online travel site for a Saturday class that involved traveling to various places in Tidewater VA. Unfortunately I lost my webspace last year (though I have the site on disc) so the site is no longer live. In terms of basic web design, for this project I initially used Netscape Composer, and then three years later in a bout of frustration regarding the design, I stepped back to fix all the errant and extra coding put in by the generator to make the site look more manageable and better. In terms of design the pages were all basic backgrounds, with text and images from the trips highlighting what I had learned in a very public way. (So—yes, I would not recommend using Netscape Composer ever again.)

And then I found Front Page—and later Dreamweaver, both of which are a lot more sophisticated in terms of web development and make the process of creating your web site a lot less unwieldy…..and more presentable to the public at large. This leads me to some thoughts on the connections between history and technology and public history as a whole. There is a clear parallel between the process of building a history web site and the process of building a historical site. (This stems from yesterday’s Public History Practicum class where we talked about Falk and Dierking’s The Museum Experience, and a book Judy Diamond’s Practical Evaluation Guide.)

Both need clear mission statements, and ideas of purpose and content as to why a particular topic is important. Both require a thought to pathways, and flows, and more importantly require planning in the form of front end surveying and observation to determine the best means of presentation. To some extent, in choosing a topic, methodology and tools for building a particular web site we, as historians are learning to produce and operate our own mini-historical sites. While there are some differences, i.e. Historic sites exist in the physical rather than virtual worlds—which affords a lot more considerations the core elements still remain. Who is the audience? What story can we tell? What are the best tools to present this story? How do we maintain the site? And perhaps just as important: How can we constantly improve it?

(The reading for this week mentioned The Sonic Memorial Project--if you weren’t able to check it out, do so. Its an unique array and collection of audio files that gives another deminsion to how we remember September 11.)

The best way to describe this post is that it is full of metaphor…

Metaphor 1: I have this memory from elementary school. A group of us second graders (or was it third grade) are seated in the library watching a video series on the Dewey Decimal system [you know, the organizational schema for most library systems]. It is not just any video—rather its an adventure, a grueling, blood and guts story about an alien invasion and a book-mobile which is trying to find some way to save the last remnants of human information before they all get wiped out. (Don’t worry, its very fake, and fairly cheesy). Amidst this fighting, we students learned about the simplistic design of the Dewey Decimal system, and as I look back, the ideas behind information preservation. To my knowledge, while they did not broach the topic of digitalization, the tenants appeared to be similar in design.

I’m not sure why this story popped into my head as I read the materials for this week. A combination of articles on organization and archives this material detailed out many of the issues that we have been discussing as subsidiary to digitalization, history and technology. The narrative on the Dewey Decimal system mimics need for clarity in the metadata (organizational data) attached to the digital archives i.e. one that is intuitive or easily understood by those in the future. That being said, the material also made me think about my own spatial and sense of organization—and how that might reflect into any digital and written projects that I design.

Enter Metaphor 2: In my room there’s a very specific organizational structure to my book collection. Due to spatial considerations, many of the books that I own—but do not read often (i.e. Tom Clancy, old textbooks) are in the basement. In my room are the ones more recently used. This is how they are organized:

1. Hardcovers and Magazines on the tiny shelf.
2. On the big book shelf the order is based on subject matter—so all my paperbacks dealing with a particular space-opera on the top, followed by textbooks and library books relating to current classes, then all my other “leisure reading books” which includes Harry Potter, Homer, Tolkien, Jane Austin and Danny Wallace (a British Author who is hilarious!). The bottom shelf includes reference books—anything that I may need to look at in a moments notice from undergraduate classes.
3. In the corner of my room are three piles of 30 books each—which represent all my texts from the last three semesters…these books are in transition. I may or may not look at them often, but their physical presence allows me some comfort to know that I can search through them without having to move very far.

I’m sure you’re asking the following question: Why is she telling us all this? Well…like the science fiction library adventure, the organization of an archive is clearly connected to the ability of a variety of users to retrieve the data at minimal stress. In both the Dewey Decimal system and my own schema spatial configuration and document form are important.

Metaphor 3: Take a snowflake for example (it snowed this weekend if you didn’t notice). Repeating patterns, that form a very intricate and very beautiful crystal that when dropping en-masse from moisture ridden clouds at specific conditions looks like a puffy even layer of cold cotton. How do you find data about the individual snowflake when it is immersed in the masses? Through the search function which gives users a way to wade through the materials in a productive manner. The three websites we examined each gave a way to increase productivity—not necessarily dealing with finding data, but to daily life. I think the one I appreciated the most was LifeHacker–“Don’t live to geek, geek to live.” Lifehacker talked about taking caffeine naps—coffee followed by a nap chaser…the perfect stimulant to get you through the day….(and maybe ruin your health along the way?) Also having recently been indoctrinated in the wonderful world of Endnote, CiteULike added to that wonder and awe of tools to make a researchers life easier.

My questions for organization are connected to the discussion of archives where issues of organization and preservation of digital material seem to be intimately connected to finding an industry standard. While documentation (through html comments, readme files etc) and backing up seem to be a way to preserve information, it really depends on constant vigilance by the archivist.

Also…I’m not so sure I agree with Margaret Hedstrom who says there is a contradiction between the ideals of mass storage and long term preservation…..to some extent mass storage allows for preservation of more archives. So once again I guess it depends on what our definition of preservation is. In once sense, mass storage keeps information in trust, but it’s the quality of preservation that is threatened—and the quality of preservation is dependant (in the digital world) on things like backups on a variety of media.

I would have to admit that I spent a lot of time looking at the archives on Streetprint Engine. American Decadence, Scrawl, and Urban Record all are examples of how successful digital archives can be in allowing the inaccessible to be accessible. I did have a few questions in conjunction with Scrawl. How does archiving graffiti change the meaning of the art when its taken out of the urban context? Does it change the meaning?

Also, although the deadline has passed—I would love it if you would fill out my survey if you have not yet.

Alright,

I had trouble getting to a lab (travel issues, meetings etc all conspired to get in my way). Instead what i’m going to put up are some images from my trip to London as well as one image that I manipulated for an old website that I had….

This first image is of the London Underground tube alert map not long after the second set of bombings this past summer. When I initially brought it on my computer the image was a little blurry, so using Photoshop at a friends place I sharpened it a little. The image file is actually quite large, so in posting it, I also cut the size down from roughly 1000×1500 to 486×648.

This second image is one that I thought was cool, because of the meaning behind the image. Its from a Fourth of July night cruise I took with my flatmates on the Thames. The interesting about it was that we were on a boat flying a flag from Austrailia.

Finally, this is an image that I was messing with from one of my first websites. Obviously the basis was the London Underground Tube map–but in place of the central blue bar, I had the blade of a red lightsaber…. This image however was constructed in Microsoft Paint, so isn’t quite as clear as I would like it to be.

…and a very fascinating one at that. This week we had to read a chapter on Digitalization from our Digital History text. As usual though I’m going to interrupt this stream of consciousness world to entreat my fellow classmates to please fill out the online survey regarding the department website. (See below posts)

All of my thoughts coalesce around one topic. Outsourcing….who would have thought that this topic that is such a major contention in the political arena for businesses also has penetrated the world of digitalization. Crazy!

Seriously though, the reading for this week made me think about how different the technology is for text, image, video, and audio digitalization. Learning what TIFF, GIF, and JPEG actually stood for was good, but the amount of shifting that is constantly occurring in the realm of technology constantly fascinates me. We started this class talking about how just ten years ago the internet, for all intents and purposes, was not a tool for the public. Now though through digitalization—accessibility has jumped through the roof….

This leaves me to ponder a historical conundrum, which is not only alluded to in the text but also is intimately connected to the ethical issues of historical practice. Who is doing the interpretation? Is it the historian who chooses the pieces to be archived? The archivist who creates the finding aid? The scanner, who handles the document and/either depending on the level of funding, types up the text into a text file, or makes a photographic copy of the physical document? Also the discussion of machine error when using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software…how does that reflect in the already interpretive laden world of historical analysis?

I have no answers….but perhaps I would say that technology and digitalization presents itself as merely another layer in a continuous redefinition of the historical field. The fundamentals may remain the same, but the tools for practices continuously evolve…and demand newer ethical and creative rules.
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As for Collecting and Searching….I plan on using much of the information from the previous class in my current research project. That being said—until recently I had plans to co-develop a website with Linda (another student in the class) that linked public history to various audiences. I believe we are rethinking the outline of the project but can see and recognize the different levels of importance that the variety of techniques practiced may have on the project for this class. I do like the idea of collecting stories. Self-narrations make the past real, and tangible— and when produced in conjunction with multiple groups of people reveal just how meaningful the past can be.

The material from class gave me some tips i.e. key words, and searching tools that I can use for my research seminar paper on natural monuments. Also it was interesting to learn about D-spaces—something which I can see having enormous potential in both an academic and non-academic sense.

Directly connecting to the conversation above—the ideas of trust, validity of methodology and practice are things that effect many different fields—even outside the digital world. For example on this morning’s CBS show Sunday Morning a piece was done on the J. Paul Getty Museum’s difficulty (and mayhaps the Met and MFA in Boston) regarding the acquisition and collecting of looted artifacts from Italy and other areas.

Here’s the text about the piece off of Sunday Morning’s Website.:

BRUSH WITH THE LAW
Anthony Mason explores the new Getty Villa that’s just opened in Los Angeles. And we get to find out just why the Italian government is looking so intensely at several American museums. Is that looted artwork Americans are seeing in their museums? We look into the case of the Getty’s former curator of antiquities, Marion True, who is now on trial in Rome for allegedly trafficking in looted artwork. We will also talk with Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, about that museum’s negotiations to return some of its treasures to the Italian government.

I guess to sum up my thoughts in a single statement?

It’s a changing world—but the transformation is in the handling—not the content