The Web
Comment #1:
“Once produced, the book sits on a shelf awaiting readers. It has a firm existence,” assert Daniel Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig in their chapter within Digital History entitled “The Web, Websites, and Web Pages” Digital History. Both Cohen and Rosenzweig make an excellent point. One of the major differences between traditional mediums of history and history web sites is the flexibility of the latter venue. Sure authors often revise and reproduced books; however this takes time. Coming out with second and third editions of their works is a lot more time consuming than tweaking a page or publishing/posting an article on ones web site. I wonder if this will or has broken down the traditional, often constraining nature of more formally aspects of the history profession and or publishing?
Comment #2:
In designing a web site it is important to keep in mind the type of audience you wanting to attract. And in doing so one must then apply that knowledge to the design of their website. Rosenzweig and Cohen in their chapter “Thinking About Your Website’s Genre and Features” Digital History contend that “although both are honorable professions, we encourage historians to think of themselves more like architects than plumbers. What kind of house are you building? What is the general area that it will be in? How will its design reflect or differ from the other houses in the neighborhood?” I have found such insights helpful in creating a site for my final project. I am trying to attract individuals of all ages and types thus it is important that the site be appealing to a wide range of people. However I am particularly interested in attracting young evangelicals as well, thus I will be including on my site links to Christians rock groups as well as links to sites where individuals can purchase cd’s or concert tickets. As discussed previously in class, if the site is not appealing or does not operate in the way users expect it is likely that they will quickly move on from your site.
Comment #3:
Cohen and Rosenzweig in their chapter “Naming Your Site and Presenting It to the World” Digital History address the issue of domain names and web addresses. Interestingly what is referred to as the top-level domain or TLD has more significance than one might believe. Different organizations or institutions use certain TLD’s by which web users can easily identify the type of site they are visiting just by reading the domain name. This is something I have always done to not only categorize sites, but it also determined there validity. For instance websites that end in .edu are academic more trustworthy on the whole. TLD’s such as .html are usually personal websites and .com’s I associate more with corporations or businesses. “More recently, the powers that govern the Internet have added the .museum TLD, which may hold attraction for some readers of this book, although most museums already use .org instead; to qualify for this new TLD, you must show the appropriate institutional bona fides,” contend Cohen and Rosenzweig. Although I have, over the years, used the TLD of sites as a filing or filtering system I had not known the proper term for the three letters at the end of a web address.
February 20th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
One random comment - I was surprised to learn of the .museum TLD when I read the chapter this week. I didn’t know it existed and just assumed museums would continue to use .org.
February 21st, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Reply to Comment #1:
I think that the easy revising that can take place on a website will actually heighten the polishing of a finished project. I know with a book, one painstakingly revises for another edition. On a webpage, however, one can always revise. Someone sees a typo and you can go in and fix it immediately. New information becomes available and you can easily add it.
I think the web obviously makes it easy to keep up with our quickly moving world, and it will be a boon to historians to be able to update and edit information at short notice.