Readings for January 31, 2006 — the blind leading the blind?
The readings and websites for this week highlight the contradictions of digital history. Online collecting and communication is increasingly important and necessary, but “historians usually have no training in such matters,” and instead must rely on outside programmers and general-use software for their research infrastructure. How problematic is this technical ignorance and subsequent dependence? Do you think more history programs will (or should) offer classes such as ours to ensure that new historians have the basic tools necessary for an increasingly digital world. How important is it “for historians to be able to create their own tools, rather than using the tools created by others?”
Additionally, the FAQ question, “How do I know this item is factual?” points to another (more pressing?) concern about online history. Whether or not new historians are trained to create their own collection systems is moot if information collecting via the internet is inaccurate and unreliable. The answer to the question concisely addresses a wide range of concerns without offering a concrete answer. The mutable response lends itself to the goals of the project, but how would you treat “erroneous, misleading, or dubious” information contributed to your own project? Would you vet donations before posting them to ensure that they fit within the parameters (ideological? methodological? factual?) of your project?
Interestingly, the readings and ideas for this week came together in a very concrete way for me while exploring The Video Store Project. The first thing I did when I went to the Video Store Project, was look for my favorite video store — Video Spectrum in Bowling Green, Ohio. I found two “stories” (for lack of a better word) about the store. They were accurate in a factual sense, but didn’t fully reflect the status of the store in Bowling Green. The customers were cultish, the employees every professor’s new best friend, and the selection was amazing. I’ve only seen one other video store organized by director (Cinema Americain in Takoma Park) and have yet to find a store that matches the selection of a video store staffed by popular culture and American culture studies majors. I wonder if the cold, almost clinical tone of the stories on the site resulted from the survey (instead of a free-form “talk about movies and the place you used to love to rent them”) format? (Or, maybe everyone who opted to contribute has very similar personality traits?)
On factuality of responses…
I do think on some level its contingent on historical ethics. If you do vet the material there has to be clear dilineations of what the material is being vetted for.. how individuals remember the past is often based on more than just accuracy of their response but also based on how their story changed and transformed the original experience. Also as part of those diliniations there also has to be a recognition of that you do not screw up the reliability of your data to fit a particular topic…
Comment by Priya — January 30, 2006 @ 12:39 pm
You raise a good point about programs needing to offer more digital history classes to arm scholars with ample knowledge about online tools. In Craft last semester we read Computers, Visualization and History which talked about some of these issues, especially the idea that most historians are not and probably will not be fluent enough in programming to create their own online scholarship (visual essays, etc.) Instead they would need to serve as a “director” to a graphics or programming consultant and advise them how to proceed. Although I understand the logic behind this, I personally don’t like the idea of someone else creating or shaping my scholarship.
Comment by Jodi Boyle — January 31, 2006 @ 10:53 am
I think it is very important for scholars to be able to do these technical things on their own, simply because with more skills, the historian can imagine more of what can be done, and would be more willing to experiment with the use of digital history.
Comment by Linda — January 31, 2006 @ 1:11 pm
It is important to create some sort of check and balance system to decipher what is factual and what is not. I am not sure how one person would be able to check each fact or piece of information, but it should be done somehow. I had a similar concern after posting on the 9/11 archive site. Who was going to check that my story was true? How could they? It’s how I remember it? Eventhough it is what happened to me that day how do they know that I am not the next James Frey? Sorry I couldn’t resist.
Comment by Santral — January 31, 2006 @ 3:34 pm