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In this analysis of my project I will assess in four sections: The topic, the new media, the technology, and finally, the outcome and future direction of the project itself.

The topic: I believe that digitizing the Brotherhood Beacon has been a good project (and will continue to be). The best components of this project were that it forced me to learn the process of grant proposal writing and that it will eventually develop a terrific resource for those researching the Conservative Mennonite Conference (at least from the 1970s on). The unfortunate part of this project is that it is not the most innovative/malleable kind of project. Since I built the site primarily with researchers in mind, to some extent I had to follow the expected norms of researchers. While this was helpful in designing the project, I think it also limited the creativity and historical argument. It was helpful in that I am a researcher of sorts and so I could shape the database in ways that I thought would be helpful if I was researching - thus, a search function is absolutely necessary. However, you also want to be able to place each article within its historical context so it’s important to note the date and be able to browse the rest of that particular issue (some of these concerns will continue to shape the project as it progresses). On the other hand, orienting the database toward researchers also limited the space for overt historical argument. The project presents more subtle and fundamental arguments about the importance of a small religious sect, as well as emphasizing the importance of primary documents printed by the subjects of research in the historical endeavor. But researchers also want to see what they expect to see, so that also limits the shape of a research-oriented database. Read the rest of this entry »

Polling the Nations Database information through AU Library website

Covers polls from 1986 to Present

Library website - Databases by Title

They have a section “All About Polling” - this gives some of the history of polling from 1936 on and also talks about many of the factors in polling (how data is collected, random sampling, margin of error, etc) - These polls are all people who are scientifically selected to take the poll.

Most of the polls are from the U.S., but there a few from other countries as well.

You can search with dropdown lists or entering your own search criteria and full text search, try a variety of options to cover everything.

You can do a search function and also define geographic region of the poll (under the Universe category) and then you can export the ones that interest you most then have them emailed to yourself or download them in a nice printout format.avaona voan

I went to this workshop on 11/30/05 and found it very informative.  It seems like a great database that could be very useful intrying to ascertain/understand public opinion during important historical eras.  I asked a few questions regarding how Americans perceived the Sandinistas as well as the Iran-Contra Affair.  The site held a bit of information regarding public opinion oriented towards these subjects.

The primary shortfall of this database is that it only extends back to 1986.  But if your research area falls within the last twenty years, this is a great database to use.

Here’s a link: Brotherhood Beacon.

I actually tried to contribute to wikipedia a couple months ago, but got scared when I actually went to change the page, so I just put it in the “discussion” of the page (it’s still there). I had been reading about when Orlando Letelier and Leonard Moffitt were killed in Sheridan Circle and then checked it out wikipedia and saw that they reported the two were killed in Dupont Circle and it actually happened in Sheridan Circle, which is just a couple blocks from Dupont. So I put that into the discussion page and somehow someone saw it, replied to my comment and then changed the article. It would be interesting to know exactly how they track such changes.

So today I thought I would make a change to some history that I felt I’ve read a lot about.  I thought - how about Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz and the CIA’s operation PBSUCCESS which overthrew him in 1954.  Alas, there was much written about both him and operation PBSUCCESS.  So I wandered over to the Conservative Mennonite Conference article at wikipedia.  I had looked at it before and realized that it mentions the Brotherhood Beacon, but not any of the conference’s earlier publications.  So, I added one sentence mentioning the previous publications of the conference and when they were started.  You can find it right near the end, under the heading “Status.”  There is definitely room to add more on both of these previous publications as they were both distinct from the Brotherhood Beacon in various ways, but since I wasn’t actually sure about all the differences I decided to leave it alone for now, but I think someday maybe I’ll go back and add a bit more.

Yes, that is a George W. Bush quote, only he was talking about Social Security (obviously).

Let me begin by saying that I love wikipedia. I know it’s been subjected to some ridiculous atrocities such as students using it as a source of academic writing and a bout or two with slander issues in the past. But that is the ridiculous side of it. It really is simpy phenomenal. I find it to be extremely useful for getting the information you want on nearly any topic. Obviously, if you’re going to contribute to any real debate on a subject you should move beyond wikipedia to more secure information, but the fact is that it provides excellent introductions to almost any topic. And for that I love it.

Rosenzweig writes an insightful overview of wikipedia which is contains, I think, an excellent balance of sympathy and critique, which will be coming out in the June 2006 issue of the Journal of American History.

Rosenzweig notes that according to Alexa Traffic Rankings, wikipedia was the 41st most popular website in the world. According to the latest data, wikipedia has moved up the rankings to number 17. I don’t know how long it’s been since this article was written, but anyway you look at it, that’s an impressive ranking. By the way, Alexa Traffic Rankings are very cool, and who knew that craigslist was doing so well.

To extend my sheer amazement at wikipedia even further, Rosenzweig notes that as of September 2005 the entire project only had two full-time employees. It almost makes me want to cry, it’s so great. Who would ever imagine you could run such a successful and innovative site that changes the way we think about information and the internet with two employees?

In a funny note, he comments that wikipedians have created an article “Wikipedia: Errors in the Encyclopedia Britannica that have been corrected in wikipedia.” I thought this was a great article and that Rosenzweig appropriately called the spirit of this page “gleeful.”

One final note on wikipedia - I think it’s amazing how fast mistakes are fixed. Rosenzweig mentions that vandals “defaced” the article on Calvin Coolidge only 10 times over a two-year period. And that the average time to repair the damage was three minutes. That’s simply amazing. And it connects to an article that I read recently about an experiment done by Esquire magazine, in which they wrote an article about wikipedia and placed it on wikipedia. As an experiment they included factual errors and wrote it very poorly. They comment that the factual errors were all fixed within minutes and then wikipedians moved on to “refinement, clarification and making the article more readable.” The article was edited 224 times in the first 24 hours it was posted, and another 149 times in the next 24 hours. You can read an article about the experiment here.

I attended a library workshop yesterday called “Googling for Scholars.”  The session was very informative and helpful in various ways.  The main tool that we focused on was Google Scholar.  I’ve heard of Google Scholar in the past, but after having tried it out once or twice, wasn’t really too impressed with what it could do in comparison to other online databases available through American University’s library website.  Fortunately, through this workshop I was able to learn how to use Google Scholar more effectively, especially now that it has been linked with American University’s library in some important ways.  Here I will try to compare the potential strengths of Google Scholar with other databases available through the library’s site.

We mainly talked about how Google Scholar could be used for historiographical purposes or to learn more about individual authors and how connected their scholarship is to other contemporary scholarship.  Google Scholar has a feature where you can search for an author, see what they’ve written, and then see how often that article/book has been cited by other authors.  This is an essential tool for both building source lists and seeing what the most important work is in the field.  Before, this was the primary use of Google Scholar, but now if you access it through the library’s Aladin website (Library’s main site, click on Research/Aladin and then Aladin homepage) you can actually access full text articles online if they are available through American University’s subscriptions.  This increased usability makes Google Scholar a far more useful tool.  You can also search for books in the American University library directly from Google Scholar since it is now linked with the library, just make sure to go through the library’s site to get to Google Scholar to use all these additional features.

So, how does this compare to what’s already out there in terms of historiographical tools?  Currently, I tend to use a combination of resources for finding book reviews and historiographical essays.  J-STOR is an excellent tool for finding these sources in full-text if the articles are at least 5 years old, but for newer reviews things get slightly more confusing.  EbscoHost and Proquest search (both available through the American University Library) cover this time period, but are a bit more sporadic in bringing up reviews and giving you access to full-text versions of those reviews.  Nonetheless, they often do the job.  I’ve also used the History Cooperative (through the library’s site) to search for reviews/historiography on more recent books and it will often bring up reviews that were hard to find other places, but it is not exactly comprehensive.  Two other online sources that I need to experiment with further, which were mentioned at yesterday’s workshop, are Project Muse and America: History and Life.  I used America: History and Life in writing my thesis and it is useful for finding anything that has been written on a subject as it searches dissertations and unpublished works, but does not always provide easy access to these materials.  I need to experiment further with Project Muse to see what it’s strengths and weaknesses are.

The library workshop on Google Scholar was great in that it showed me some great ways to use that resource and provided the vital information (which grants Google Scholar true usability) that it had been linked with the American University Library.  The discussion about what sources to use at different points in searching was also quite helpful for future bibliography building as well as finding reviews and constructing historiographies.

So, maybe you’ve noticed or maybe you haven’t, but I feel it’s probably appropriate to give credit where credit is due this week as we talk about intellectual property and copyright.  In the title for each of my weekly writings I use a quote and those quotes all come from the mouth of George W. Bush.  It’s amazing how well his words often lend themselves to the topic at hand (example of when this did not work out - this week, as Hanukkah and bin Laden don’t have a lot to do with copyright, but it was just too funny to not use it, and for that I apologize).

George W. Bush has said, “I can only speak to myself.”  Unfortunately, this is not true, so as long as we all have to listen we may as well enjoy it.

Copyright discussions make me tired. Thinking about setting up a website with lots of images, quotes, and other paraphernalia might be fun, but add the copyright issues and you get nothing but a headache. Unfortunately, this issue is something I’ll have to think about more in my digitization project.

Originally, I didn’t think that copyright would be much of an issue as I was hoping to publish/digitize the publication of the Conservative Mennonite Conference on their own website. The Conservative Mennonites don’t seem too concerned with copyright and that combined with publishing it on their website made me think I could avoid it. While I’m still hoping this proves true eventually, things have gotten more confusing in the short term. Unfortunately, I am having to build the website at a different location and then transfer the archive to the Conference’s website. Currently, I’m using a little space through the Center for History and New Media, but was also thinking I should check with the Conservative Mennonite bible college, Rosedale Bible College, to see if they could host at least during the construction phase and maybe for a longer period of time. Unfortunately, the librarian there has brought up copyright questions. I haven’t actually talked with him about it yet, but I’m already worried about how this conversation will go. I simply don’t like the problems of copyright.

This week’s reading did help me to see how I can identify with both sides of the debate, but I think it would be fair to say that I still generally fall on the side that says that copyright should be less restrictive. I know that original artists should be paid there dues, but in the academic setting we’re far more focused on protecting/claiming our ideas rather than making money off of them. It’s easier to use other people’s ideas in this way, you simply have to give them credit by citing them. This is fairly simple, but add in money/profit and things get confusing.

One interesting debate on this subject (which I’m hoping Peter Jaszi will mention when he comes to speak to our class) is the demise of the fantastic documentary - Eyes on the Prize. This is probably one of the best overarching documentaries on the Civil Rights Movement. However, they have recently run into copyright issues and haven’t been able to make a DVD version of the video series or continue producing the series. Thus, it now sells on ebay for sometimes close to $1,000 for the complete series on VHS. I (like many others) think this is a ridiculous tragedy. We are losing one of the best documentaries on the Civil Rights Movement, because the producers can’t afford to renew copyright usage agreements. This story was reported on quite a lot about a year ago (Washington Post, Wired News, etc) but I’m not sure where it stands right now. At one point, a Civil Rights Movement activist even encouraged people to violate the copyright and burn digital copies of the series to preserve it. Many of the articles also quoted people from the Center for Social Media at American University who were very interested in this topic as well. I’m a huge fan of this series and would hate to see it disintegrate on old VHS tapes before somebody creates a digital version, but that is what copyright costs are doing.

I’m going to go out on a limb and choose the black sheep among all things academic - wikipedia. I know it’s written by people who might not know what they’re talking about and there might be some incorrect information, but I really think that it’s one of the best places on the web to learn what you want to know about a subject in a short amount of time. So what makes wikipedia so good?

I actually like their frontpage where they have news stories, a featured article, and an “on this day” section. The featured article and “on this day” sections make for great, interesting time-wasting material, but more importantly I think that following the links in their news articles gives potential to explore as much of the background to any news story that you want to learn more about. Say you’re reading about the Canadian prime minister and then want to find out who the prime minister was before him. Easy to do in wikipedia, not so easy on cnn.com. Or you may want to learn more about how the Canadian government is set up in order to understand the prime minister’s actions in that context. Wikipedia can do that for you.

I simply find that wikipedia gives you the information you need and links to more if you want it.

In terms of design I think they put interesting material out on the front page in a very clean, efficient, and easy-to-read manner, but the search function is obviously the most used function and it works well too. I like that they have links to other related articles at the bottom of the page and links throughout if you want to supplement the information on the subject you’re reading about with whatever information they link to. The perfect example of how well wikipedia does things is the Japan article. You’re not inundated with images that clog your browser, but you can link anywhere in the outline of the article and get the essential infromation very quickly.
Not only that but wiki is coming out with lots of other types of information as well, so if you don’t like them now, you better start liking them soon.

The Conservative Mennonites are a relatively small group of people, some 10,000 members spread across the United States. They are relatively unknown and unheard of. Their monthly publication, the Brotherhood Beacon, has been published since 1971. However, most of these issues are stored in only a few libraries in the country and are not easily accessible. The Conservative Mennonite Conference is beginning to build a presence on the web through their homepage, but could greatly increase people’s potential to learn about their history through opening access to the Brotherhood Beacon through their website as well.

My project intends to do just that. I am planning on digitizing the earliest five years of the Brotherhood Beacon and placing it on their website. Hopefully this digital archive will expand to include the entire 35 year span of the publication and allow for the conference’s webmaster to easily upload new issues into that database as well.

My primary audience is most likely members of the conference catching up on issues of the publication that they missed or searching for articles that pertain to some historical interest. Another audience that I think will benefit from the project is researchers. I know that there is an historian doing research currently to write the centennial history of the conference and I expect that this will be a useful source for him. This will also be a useful source for me as I hope to include the Conservative Mennonites in my research at some point. My latest idea is to include how they perceive and interact with Latin America and U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America. This digitized archive will allow me to research this subject in an efficient way. A third potential audience might be people who simply stumble upon the website and peruse articles to learn more about the Conservative Mennonites.

Considering my various audiences, I will be using streetprint software to create an online database that is both searchable and browsable, segmented into individual articles. The search function would allow people to search within articles as well as within title and author subfields. The process that each article has to go through in order to complete the archive is this: To begin with each page of every issue must be scanned in and cleaned and made uniform. Then each page must be sorted into articles, scanned by OCR software, and uploaded through streetprint to the website. The attached text file created by the OCR software will allow users to search through the text and then bring up the image of the page to read the article. To complicate matters, each issue will be scanned at the Mennonite Historical Library in Goshen, Indiana and then burned to cd and mailed to me for the completion of the process.

The general layout of the site will be manipulated through streetprint, but I expect a fairly simple, clean layout where users have a simple search function that brings up thumbnails of the pages one which their search terms were found and then they can access those articles through the thumbnail links.  I would also think that in terms of style they will match the Conservative Mennonite Conference website’s layout possibly by importing their style sheet, or maybe more simply just matching colors, etc.

The argument of my project is not too exciting and fairly simple–that increased access to Conservative Mennonite documents is essential for researching and understanding the history of Conservative Mennonites.  This history is important both for Conservative Mennonites and for those researching them to see how they fit into larger historical themes.