TheLen

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?)

I promise. It wasn’t my fault!

I wonder what everyone else thinks about the issue of what I’m going to call “academic legitimacy.” Namely, the determination of whether or not a work (article, book, pamphlet, tract, website, essay, doodle) presenting itself as history is an acceptable source of information. The determination of the criteria of acceptability is problematic in and of itself, and certainly worth discussing. Should academic standards for “historical” websites apply to non-historians? How important are degrees and other professional qualifications in the digital presentation of history? The Digital History chapter touched on this issue, including:

1. George Welling’s struggle to get his colleagues to accept his website “From Revolution to Reconstruction” as an “academic venture”
2. the thorny question of whether online archives are “true” archives (see the JAH guidelines for clarification)
3. the explicit division of online history-providers into “professional historians” and “enthusiasts”

Who are the “gatekeepers” of this historical legitimacy? Can someone without an advanced degree (or even a BA) attain historical legitimacy? Do degrees and credentials even matter when so few people think critically about the material presented in websites — or books, for that matter?

Also, how would you teach students to critically evaluate websites? Would “historical legitimacy” be a factor you would encourage students to address? What other aspects of a site, beyond the content/form/audience/new media areas discussed in the JAH guidelines, would you ask your students to examine. Would you even direct students to the JAH guidelines? Or would you create your own rubric for “acceptable” and “legitimate” websites?

Lastly, how important is the intended audience when evaluating the legitimacy of a website? The JAH guidelines recognize that websites’ effectiveness depends on their accessability and that content must be tailored to the audience. Should a historical website attempt to link different communities, defined by Agre as “people who share a certain institutional location,” into one audience? Or, should each community have its own set of websites? Also, if a number of communities constitute an audience for a particular website, does that audience become a community itself?