macdonald

This week’s reading definitely provided a tremendous amount of information about copyrights.  For the most part the government has increased copyright protections over time.  Most importantly though, is looking at how these laws influence historians.  And how copyright laws affect digital history.  While historians like everyone else, whether writing an article or creating a website, are responsible for following the law.  There are many ways in which historians can use materials without violating copyright laws.  In their chapter in Digital History, Cohen and Rosenzweig do an excellent job of explaining copyright laws and how the apply to historians.

I really liked Digital History’s discussion of fair use.  Cohen and Rosenzweig provide a number of thoughts on the issue of fair use, but at the end of the section they provide some excellent quotes on the importance of fair use.  I particularly liked the quote from the Chicago Manual of Style (last paragraph), “the right of fair use is valuable to scholarship, and it should not be allowed to decay because scholars fail to employ it boldly.”  I can definitely see their point about the importance of actually using fair use.  The more people exercise fair use, the more standardized it will become.  Thus, expanding the rights of users.  Therefore, it is important for all historians to take advantage of fair use, because doing so will aid future scholars and users.

Another interesting point that Cohen and Rosenzweig bring up is how copyright issues tend to be different for historians.  As historians, generally are not concerned with people stealing money from them, after all most academic historians are not dominating the New York Times bestseller list.  Rather they are concerned with others stealing their thoughts.  So after reading about authors and publishers being concerned about getting their fair share, we see a better side to copyrighting, the desire to just be recognized.  Which is why Cohen and Rosenzweig are rather carefree in their thoughts on copyrights and fair use.  Of course this brings up the issue of recognizing ideas as copyright and the debate between creativity being necessary to warrant copyright protection.

How much is protected under fair use?  While Cohen and Rosenzweig give numerous examples of what they see to be fair use, it is still interesting to think about, how much is too much?  I find it sort of comical.  Certainly there is a need for copyrighting.  At the same time, I do not have any problem with teachers providing copies of books, handouts, or even books on a website for students.  Which is why I think it’s great that Cohen and Rosenzweig followed through with their beliefs and placed their book online.  With the costs of higher education continuing to rise, the cost of text books just adds to list of financial burdens on students.  Yes, there are a lot of books that are fairly priced and of course you can find almost any book you need through the library.  However, course packs usually cost over fifty dollars and are just a collection of crudely copied articles or chapters.  How much does it cost to copy these materials?  Usually less than 10 dollars at your library copy machine, not that I would know.  Anyway, the point is while it is great to protect the rights of producers, the rights of users seems to be often forgotten.  While the materials in course packets should be copyright protected; that does not mean it is okay to exploit students.  Students must purchase course packets from the college bookstore, as they cannot be bought elsewhere.  This is just not fair.  If users must comply with fair use, shouldn’t publishers have to comply with fair price?

The website I chose was Wildcat Mountain in Pinkham Notch, NH.

What I liked about the design of the website.  It is very easy to move around and the main links panel is located on the top left of each page.  The Photo page has easy access to archived photos.  For the most part, if you selection one of the main links all the information is on one page.  So you just need to scroll down.

Some things I did not like about the website.  The bottom left of the main page is very congested, which makes it difficult to focus on.  After clicking on a link, half of the screen is filled with text and the other half (to the text’s right) is just filled by the background.  The merchandise page opens up a new window, which I personally do not usally like.  I had trouble finding the home link at first.  Usually I look at the bottom of the page, but it is located above the main links panel.  If it were in larger text it may be easy to spot.

For my semester project I still would like to build a website about the John Adams memorial.  I plan on building a website devoted to providing information about the memorial.  Therefore, my target audience will be the general public, but also those with interests in John Adams, Washington DC history, and national monuments.  I planned on doing some research for this project over break, unfortunately I was not able to do so.  So I need to do more research on the topic.  Of course the findings of my research will influence my argument.  However, I am thinking the overall argument of the website will be that there should be a monument to John Adams and to inform people of the status of the proposed monument.  So hopefully the website will help people become more aware of the proposed monument to the Adams family and possibly persuade them to support it.

The website will attempt to provide people with a variety of information on the topic.  I am thinking standard HTML would be the best way to build the site.  In terms of what the website might look like, I would probably divide it up into sections based on topic.  For example one section would be on the history of the proposed monument.  Also, I will probably have one page devoted to links to other websites about John Adams, as well as to websites with information on the proposed monument.  The rest of the website will be devoted to my research.   The government already has digitized Congressional records on the web.  Therefore, there is no need to digitize such information, but would I be able to put the actual records on my website or would I just need to provide access through hypertext?  I may include a section on the history of the Adams family and provide arguments as to why they are deserving of a memorial.  Finally, I will include a section on how people can help support the Adams Memorial.  Basically, how they can possibly get involved in making the monument a reality.

As I mentioned in my presentation last class, I have a personal interest in a monument to the Adams family.  Having grown up in Massachusetts and being exposed to so much of New England’s history, I believe there should be a monument to the Adams family in our nation’s capital.  It is hard not to have an interest in early American history when you grow up going to Boston’s historic sites and taking field trips to Lexington and Concord and Plymouth plantation.  I am not exactly certain what I want to do after graduate school, possibly work in an archive or maybe do something with education.  So I am not sure if this project fits in with any of my professional aspirations.  It is much more of a personal interest.

University and museum websites follow a clear set of professional standards. However, what about the “amateur” historian? Should they follow the same set of standards as professionals? Cohen and Rosenzweig discuss the standardization of the book and how the internet in its youth has not yet achieved universal standards. While they make many excellent points, such as the importance of site structure and to maximize the opportunities for people to find your site. I wonder if it is fair to compare the internet to print media. After all, while historians have embraced the book as their main medium, how responsible are they for the lay out of books? I would think publishers would be more responsible for the lay out of books than the historian? Although, I guess the most important thing is that historians have continued to use the book as their main way to communicate, thus endorsing the standardization of the book.

The other question I had was should we have standards for history on the internet? I would overwhelming say yes, but something also kept coming up in my mind as I read this chapter. The internet, its not a book, websites are supposed to be unique and unfettered. It seems that there is a very delicate balance between scholarly standards and the independence of websites.

Cohen and Rosenzweig made some really great points about accessability that I probably would not have thought of. The thing about the internet, is it is not face to face communication (well most of the time). For the most part all you see is the computer and whatever site you are looking at. I never would have thought about people with disabilities using computers, because that has never come across my mind while using a computer. In the real world accommodations for those with disabilities are highly visible (ie, handicap parking spaces). However, this is not the case on the internet. I thought that was great that they devoted a good part of this chapter to talking about how to make your website accessible for as many people as possible.

Does anyone have any suggestions why J-stor uses symbols and numbers for storing files rather than file names and directories that would make it much easier for the user to search through the site?

I was really impressed by Thomas Thurston’s use of frames his essay, Hearsay of the Sun.  The ability to click on a footnote and have the footnote appear to the right of the essay without moving to the bottom of the page is amazing.  Even better are the “anchor” tags, which pull up the actual transcribed source to the right of the essay, enabling the reader to look at the essay and the actual source at the same time.  I wonder why more historical websites do not use similar features?  Is special software required?  Is it time consuming?  I imagine including numerous “anchor” tags such as Thurston does can be very time consuming, as you have to create all the text you want to anchor.  Still, I would think framing and anchoring are so advantageous for historians they would be used more frequently.

Roy Rosenzweig in “Crashing the System?: Hypertext and Scholarship on American Culture”, brings up some good points about expectations and standards for online scholarly work.  It is well known that graduate students do not read every page of every book.  Yet Rosenzweig points to the “unwritten social contract” between readers and writers.  In regards to the discussion of graduate students knowing how to “read” books this is very similar to the William Turkel article we read earlier this semester.  Rosenzweig makes a great point when he asks how much do you need to read of online works to actually have “read” them?  As he points out in many online works the thesis can be difficult to locate.  He contends that as online scholarship progresses standards and expectations will decrease problems such as the social relationship between the writer and readers.  Will this mean a new “unwritten social contract” between readers and writers?  If so, will it follow the lines of the one already in place.  Or will it be unique to online works?

In thinking about this question, I thought back to my sociology classes in undergrad.  One of the great things about sociological essays is they provide an abstract.  As skimmed through the Journal of the Association for the History and Computing, I noticed some of the articles had abstracts and all the articles were divided into sections.  This organization made the articles easy to look through and get the main gist.  However, the way the articles are set up seems so regiment.  One of things I enjoy about online works do is get away from the regiment of standard scholarship.

Benjamin Hermalin in “Scholarly Journal Publishing in the 21st Century”makes some excellent arguments why online articles could and should surpass print as the main medium of the scholarly journal article.  Personally, most of the articles I read are online.  The main problem I have with this though is I do not like to read from the computer.  Starring at a computer screen reading journal articles  is not exactly the best thing for your eyes.  So I usually print out articles.  So is there any difference between printing an article online and going to the library pulling the journal from the stack and copying the article?  You are still left with a paper copy of the article, they may look a little different, but other than that they are the same.  Though I will concede printing them from a computer is much faster and you can do it from anywhere so long as you have access to the library’s online catalog.  My second issue is about computer use in general.  Computers for me at least tend to be very distracting and terrific for procrastinating.

I enjoyed the two articles on E-books and the future of print books.  I have never read an E-book so I do not have much to base my discussion on, other than some questions I had from the readings.  First, I want say that E-books sound like they are going to be a great tool for researchers.  David Bell though he worries about possible hyper-text searching over use in his article The Bookless Future: What the Internet is Doing to Scholarship, sees this as a great advantage for E-books.  The ability to type in a term or phrase and go to various corresponding pages would be an incredible advantage for researchers.  Bell also gives the excellent example of the history professor who soon left her position at the University of South Dakota, but left the school soon after due to a lack of library materials on her expertise.  However, he points out that with online books and resources of today and the future anyone around the world could have access to materials.  So it seems there are some great possibilities for the future of online books particularly for historians.

I do have a few concerns though.  What about libraries?  Clifford Lynch in , “The Battle to Define the Future of the Book in the Digital World”, discusses the future of E-books and libraries; however, I got the sense he was more concerned with university and research libraries, than public libraries. So what about public libraries and high school libraries?  What is their future?  If the feature is “bookless” as David Bell suggests, what does that mean for these libraries?  Many high school libraries lack necessary funding and are forced to work with what they have.  Perhaps online books will increase the amount of books, in particular newer books in high school libraries.  If libraries are able to purchase E-books cheaper than printed versions, then it would make sense that they would be able to purchase more books?  The only question would then will the school be able to provide enough computers.  Public town/city libraries; however, have a wide range of visitors; from young children to the elderly.  So they have to meet a number of different demands.  My main question though was about taking books out of the library.  Clifford Lynch discusses the use of E-book appliances as answer, but even this brings up many different issues.  I just do not see libraries getting away from the printed book.  If that is true can they afford to have a print copy and an online copy?

It seems that slowing down and thinking about what medium to use continues to be a major theme in the class.  Edward Tufte as well as Cohan and Rosenzweig emphasize a similar point: the importance of thinking about your projects audience and goals before you do anything.  Tufte argues that Power Point is not the best answer for professional projects, he believes professional handouts convey the entire picture much better.  While I think he makes some good points about the limits of Power Point, I think slide ware programs have the ability to add more to a presentation than Tufte gives them credit for.  With that said, I do agree with Tufte that bad Power Point presentations can ruin an otherwise good presentation.  However, a good Power Point or slide ware presentation can also greatly enhance a presentation.  For example, I thought the video on presentation Zen of Steve Jobs introducing the new Mac Mini was a great example of how to incorporate slide ware into a presentation.  The presentation includes Steve Jobs discussing the new product and has slides of the Mac Mini corresponding to where he is in his discussion.  Part way through, Jobs actually demonstrates some of the new features of the Mac Mini, such as Front Row.  Obviously, this presentation makes a great deal of sense given the subject. I wonder if part of the problem is that Power Point was created years ago and may just be obsolete? Computer technology has advance so much since Power Point was first created, but has Power Point evolved at the same rate?

Tufte tends to look at Power Point through a business perspective.  The same is true for many of the posting on the Tufte discussion thread, a lot of the discussion was based on businesses and also math and sciences.  However, what does Power Point do for historians?   What about students?

I think part of the issue is that every person learns in his/her own unique way.  Some people may actually benefit from receiving a handout before a lecture; others may not.  Personally, I like to take notes during class and do not like to be distracted by handouts.  Tufte makes a good point about distributing handouts before the lecture, as nothing is more distracting than handouts being passed around while someone is talking.  He wrote on his discussion thread on July 7, 2002, “…he best handouts are given out in advance of meeting. Why turn our students into stenographers recording our dictation? Instead let’s try something new in class: thinking.”  While I think this is an excellent idea, as I think some professors and teachers do too much reciting facts in class, especially in high school.  For example my freshman year high school Chemistry teacher put pre-written sheets on the overhead and just read off them all class.  Oh yes, it was 180 days of Chemistry bliss.  However, at the same time I wonder if Tufte’s statement fits in with history classes?

I do not think handouts are necessary or really work for history classes.  First, history students do plenty of reading outside the class and are expected to discuss in class.  Second, some people learn better by listening, processing, and then taking down their own notes.  While this process may lead to students misunderstanding concepts.  It can also increase students ability to comprehend the subject matter on their own terms and creates more than just one perspective.  What is the difference between regurgitating information on a piece of paper given to you and reciting information from a lecture you took notes on?  Also, this statement also greatly undervalues note taking as a skill.

Back to the article.  Perhaps it is a good idea to at least give the audience handouts when they walk in the room.  They can then choose to read the handouts or not.  I think it is important to keep the handouts simple and straight forward.  Sometimes handouts can be too difficult to follow along and when a lecturer refers to the handout one can get easily lost.  In regards to handouts before college classes, which was discussed on the Tufte discussion board.  While again I see the benefits of handing them out to every student, I personally would not benefit from say having a sheet of math proofs given to me.  In high school and undergrad I liked trying to figure out math and science problems on my own first.  I think giving students the solutions first takes away from the thought process.  Could you imagine if college history professors just gave out the key terms and concepts before every lecture?

As I wrote previously in my blog for my semester project I am interested in looking at why there is no national monument for John Adams. This web review was extremely helpful, as now I know what I would like to do for my semester project. The first thing I noticed when conducting my web review is the surprising lack of information about a memorial to John Adams. There is a good amount of information on the proposed memorial written between the summer of 2001 and the end of 2002. However, after 2002 there is virtually no information on the memorial. This makes it extremely difficult to tell what is going on with the memorial. So, part of my website will be dedicated to updating the current state of the Adams Family Memorial.

I have divided this web review into two sections. First, I will comment on some of the websites whose purpose is to provide historical information on John Adams. The second section will discuss websites containing information on the Adams Memorial and also websites on other planned memorials.

Being America’s first political dynasty there are many webpages devoted to the Adams family. The White House has online biographies of every American president. However, the White House’s website on John Adams does not have any information about a national memorial to him and his family. The White House’s biography of John Adams is also very brief and contains one portrait of Adams and no external links. The White House presidential biographies are anything but critical of their subjects. They also lack footnotes and references.

Wikipedia has information on the MLK Jr. Memorial and the Victims of Communism Memorial, yet it surprisingly it also does not have any information on an Adams Memorial. Despite this wikipedia provides an excellent model for creating a brief online biography of John Adams. Unlike the White House website, Wikipedia has a few images of Adams as well as links to sources and other sites.

The National Parks Service like the White House has very little information on John Adams. Of course the National Parks Service information on John Adams is mostly has a website for the Adams National Historic Park located in Quincy, Massachusetts. However, this site concentrates on visiting the Adams National Historic Park and gives very little history about the Adams family. I was able to find a pdf page of a brochure to the Adams National Historic Park, which contained a lot of information about the historic site. Since it was in pdf format it was difficult to maneuver through.

C-SPAN’s The American Presidents: Life Portraits website provides numerous video links on John Adams. The website contains video links to historians such as Joseph Ellis and David McCullough discussing John Adams. The website also has a list of facts about John Adams. It also has links to his inaugural address and a bibliography. However, the “Key Events in Administration” link is very disappointing only containing sentence for both the XYZ affair and Adams’ appointment of midnight judges.

Yale University’s Avalon Project has numerous documents written by John Adams during his presidency. The website divides the papers by: inaugural address, annual messages, messages to Congress, and proclamations. The website does not; however, have any of Adams’ papers or letters outside of his presidency and does not contain any letters between John and Abigail. Though there are letters from Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson to John Adams.

The Massachusetts Historical Society has an excellent webpage on the Adams family. The focus of the webpage is on the Adams family manuscript collection; however, it contains much more than that. It has a detailed family timeline with scattered images from 1735 to 1889. On of the things I really liked about this timeline is that it scrolls down the webpage and the comments are rather brief for each date. So you do not need to open a new window or a pdf file to view the timeline. The website also provides rather short biographies of eight members of the Adams family. One of the best features of the website is its selected manuscripts link, which contains six original digitized documents. One example is Abigail Adams’ famous letter to John Adams reminding him to “remember the ladies”. The webpage provides a transcription of the letter and also the digitized original letter, which you can click to enlarge for reading. Of course the purpose of the website is the Adams family manuscript collection. So the website has extremely informative links on using the microfilm manuscript collection. Finally, this website has a helpful page devoted to links to other professional websites on the Adams family.

In terms of the websites devoted to provide historical information on John Adams many audiences are represented. Wikipedia, the White House website, and the National Parks Service provide information specifically targeted for the public. These websites are designed to provide basic information on the president. The National Parks Service’s websites is intended to aid visitors and teachers by providing information on the Adams National Historic sites. C-SPAN’s website targets the public, but also buffs or historians, who might want to watch the fifty-eight minute video of Joseph Ellis discussing Adams. The Massachusetts Historical Society’s webpage is for the public as well, but also is tailored for historians interested in conducting research on the Adams family. Yale University’s Avalon Project is also designed to aid historians. The Mass Historical Society and the Avalon Project are specifically intended to increase access to primary documents.

Through the web review I discovered that the House of Representatives and the Senate both passed legislation allowing the Adams Memorial Foundation to raise private funds for construction of a monument to the Adams family in Washington, DC. The bill was then signed by President Bush in October 2001. Hoever, this is where the web trail ends. Is the Memorial still in planning and fund raising? If so, what is happening? Or did the plan fall through? Last semester I was searching through Google for information on the Adams Memorial and found the Adams Memorial Foundation’s website. In conducting this web review I spent about an hour on Google trying to find the webpage again, yet I was unable to find it. From my previous visit to the webpage, I remember the links did not work and all you were able to do was view the main page. I will continue to try and find the webpage again.

Right now two major memorials being planned for Washington, DC are the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial and the Victims of Communism Memorial. Both have websites devoted to promoting awareness about the memorials and their subjects and also for fundraising. The MLK Memorial foundation website is easy to use while at the same time it is very comprehensive. It provides a history of Martin Luther King, Jr. and also a history of the proposed memorial. It also has information and links for making donations, numerous news links, and the foundation (there are numerous other links as well). The Victims of Communism Memorial has similar features to the MLK Jr. Memorial: history of communism page, news, contribution page, and an overview of the memorial. Both memorials need more private funding to reach their goals, thus fundraising is a major objective. Therefore, the websites are very much devoted to getting people to donate. They are both highly professional in design and appearance, and contain a great deal of information. Obviously these websites are run by their respective organizations and a tremendous amount of effort continually goes into keeping them running. However, they are great examples of how to model a website about a proposed memorial by.

It is clear that people are opposed to the Adams memorial for two main reasons. Either they oppose to the memorial on historical and or political grounds. Or they believe the National Mall should be preserved and so there should be limited construction if any on the National Mall. Save the Mall is an organization for the preservation of the National Mall in its current state. Their mission statement states they are against any encroachment towards “the Mall’s historical and cultural integrity”. The website provides news to its members and concerned parties. The organization is not just critical of construction on the Mall, but also security measures and commercial events on the Mall. The website only mentions the Adams monument in a few places, as possibly being considered for a spot on the National Mall. However, it too lacks detail on the Adams Memorial.

Most of the online sources about the Adams Memorial are from news organizations, such as CNN (pro-Adams memorial by Bill Press) and newspapers. An interesting webpage on the proposed Adams Memorial is on Common-Place.org. On this webpage Jeffery Palsey is highly critical of the Federalists in general and John Adams for his use of the Alien and Sedition Acts. The webpage has a great link to the actual Adams Memorial Legislation in pdf format. Palsey is outraged that liberals, such as Ted Kennedy, would support a monument to John Adams. He sarcastically compares our conservatively controlled nation to that of the conservative rule of the Federalists to conclude that it makes sense that now is the time to honor someone such as Adams. However, those against the Adams monument focus only on the negative aspects of his political career, such as the Alien and Sedition Acts. They overlook everything else Adams accomplished.

So there is not much web material on the Adams Family Memorial. The websites that are out there have very limited information on the memorial. Those online sources that do have information on the Adams Family Memorial tend to be news articles. The professional websites for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and the Victims of Communism Memorial provide excellent examples of how to design a website dedicated to fundraising for and providing information about a proposed national memorial. However, they do provide some great ideas about what to include on a possible website, such as history of the subject, history of the memorial, external links, and references to name a few.

The main method I used in conducting the web review was to search in Google. I started off with general searches for John Adams and then John Adams Memorial. I tried numerous search terms to try and find the webpage for the Adams Memorial Foundation and looked through the first 100 hits in Google for each, but to no avail. In an attempt to find individual websites about memorials I searched for recently completed memorials and ones in planning. There are not as many websites devoted to planned memorials than websites about current memorials. I would skim through each website and if it seemed relevant or interesting I would spend more time searching through it. I found links to other websites to be tremendously helpful. As well as finding different search terms to look for, especially when trying to find information on the Adams Memorial Foundation.