Week 5 - Web Production - “These are open forums, you’re able to come and listen to what I have to say.”
This week’s reading was a good introduction into website production. It gives a great overview of important factors and also gives definitions of some of the important terms without getting bogged down in the technology.
I liked their metaphor of historians being more like architects of their websites rather than plumbers. I think if I tried to do all the detailed technical aspects of my own site, not only would the history element suffer, I think the overall image/structure of the site would suffer as well. I think it’s very important to contemplate the many aspects of how your site is presented, but then to use tools that make programming/design easier. That’s why I’m thankful for software like streetprint. This is the database creating software that we talked about in class last week. At this point I’m planning on using it for my project of digitizing a publication to put in searchable format on the web. Streetprint takes care of all the technical design issues and the many other functions for searching, etc that would be incredibly difficult to program, especially for an historian.
The authors also note the importance of examining other websites like your own. This is also important for creating a site that both connects with what material has already been published in your field, but making it easy to recognize what new components your adding with your website as well. (You can also learn from the mistakes/models in this process). I’m looking forward to the web review for this reason - to see how my website will compare to others like it, possibly on the same subject or with the same scope.
I’ve considered some of the factors that they discuss in their section on funding near the end of the chapter as I’ve tried to find funding for my own project this semester. Unfortunately, I don’t envision my website getting a lot of mainstream traffic as it seems the primary people that want to read about the Conservative Mennonites are the Conservative Mennonites. I did write a grant proposal to the Conservative Mennonite Conference, but I don’t think they often give money away for historical projects so I’m not too optimistic that they’ll fund the project. If that fails I may have to turn towards organizations that are interested in preserving documents.
February 20th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
You wrote a grant proposal for your website? That’s great! Hopefully you might get some money for it! I also like the ability of being able to put together many models etc. Often its after you put together your site that you realize the navigation is completely off and have to recode…
February 20th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
I am grateful for the programs like streetprint available to us, too. There is definitely a point where we have to admit if we don’t have the ability to make something that would look or work well enough to appear professional. One of the CTE people told me today about surveymonkey.com, which allows you to sign up for free and create surveys that you can then link to on your site. As administrator, you can then look at the results. Unfortunately, you’re limited to 100 results for each survey, unless you pay $19.95 a month. But, if you’re not expecting a huge number of results, this could be useful.
February 21st, 2006 at 11:43 am
I completely agree with oyur point regarding historians needing to be more like architects, in fact I address the very same issue in my posting as well. I think it is important that we keep in mind the appeal our sites or history site in general need to have in order to reach the intended audience. Linda makes a good point about programs like streetprint. Which brings me to another question Linda and I have been kicking around the past few days: “Is it “cheating” to use programs like streetprint, surveymonkey, or to download dreamweaver templates?”
February 21st, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Personally, I don’t think it’s “cheating” at all, any more than it’s cheating to use Microsoft Word to produce a paper in lieu of a compositing stick and letterpress printing…I strongly believe that as historians we need to take advantage of any and all tools available to us; to throw out two overused metaphors, we want to be “standing on the shoulders of giants” rather than “reinventing the wheel.”