Appropriate Technology for Historians

                Today’s digital world seems, to most, an unexplained phenomenon in which little is unobtainable.  However so many resources exist out there for historians to utilize when exploring means to present their work.  From visual representations, audio, interactive websites, it is hard to decide what will add to the significance of one’s work in ways that will help the public- either professional, general or even both- comprehend their work.  These resources though are a subject matter all their own.  Huge academic departments exist now in order to teach students how, when and why to implement each resource.  Information technology students spend years acquiring the skills necessary to create and maintain websites and understand networking.  Now, it is a key component to many professional careers for them to flourish, with or without the academic training, one of those being historians.

                When using websites to showcase your work, it is very important to make sure the website will do the project justice. Cohen and Rosenzweig explain that the technology used to produce a website should be appropriate for the website’s content and purpose.  If you are doing a feature on a family tree, it is very useful to have a family tree representation along with photos and even scanned records, e.g., birth, marriage and death certificates.  It would not be necessary to add large files to the content of the page that do not pertain to your subject matter.

                Cohen and Rosenzweig also support the disseminating of humanities to multiple audiences.  It is important that your website is clear on goals of your project and above all, be passionate about your topic even when you lack the resources you desire during your pilot projects!  They lay out three ground rules for embarking on such an endeavor as starting a website for your work: be careful in choosing who you get to host your website, as there are an array of options out there; assess what your needs are, this will help you organize more efficiently and budget more efficiently; and finally, plan your project out, try and think of the necessary ideas and functions of your project.

                I find it not at all surprising, though I do find it astonishing that the increase in the digitization of books which were once neglected and considered obscure, have increased in use dramatically.  Information out there has a place, if it was important enough to write down, then to someone that information can be an immensely valuable tool in their research projects.  From tax records to diary entries, they all have their place.  But is this cost effective?

                The digitization of information is overwhelming and financially burdensome.  Where does one start?  Who chooses what to digitize? And how do we go about digitizing that information?  With the economic downturn in American society, it is very faux pas to mention, let alone do it, outsourcing work to other countries.  However, there are very few professional companies that digitize information on the enormous scale historians need.  So, do the cost savings outweigh the economic and political anguish it causes American citizens?  That is an entirely new topic that can be debated for hours, which ultimately reside in each person’s own value system.  But, if an institution or company cannot pay to digitize work, then history will never be open and free to the public.  On a smaller scale, DIY website building and digitizing can be more satisfying to the professional, anyhow.

                In 2005, at the Center for History and New Media, Rosenzweig and Velez commented that there are five categories in which to work in: teaching and learning with digital resources, making the approach to history the central focus; collecting and preserving history online, which focuses on issues of digital preservation; digital tools and scholarship, where online databases and resources are developed; scholarship, asking oneself if it will change the matter of the argument, communication and publication; public outreach, making the information free and reaching out to non-academic audiences.  All of these points are keys in formulating a project for digitization.

                The Virginia Center for Digital History commented that Teaching America History, a United States Department of Education program that provides professional development training to history educators, will be voted against in Congress this year.  However, the Administration suggested a plan to consolidate many subjects, including history, into a training program called Effective Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education.  This program would fund grants to states, high-need local education agencies and nonprofit partners in hopes of emerging pioneering practices to progress teaching and learning of the arts, foreign languages, history, civics, economics and financial literacy, environmental education, physical education, health education, and other subjects.  If the funding remains the same, with some hesitation, I would fully support this bill.  Regardless of whether or not you agree, take a look at the National Humanities Alliance, it is our civic duty to participate politically with laws that will affect our personal and professional lives.  

                Many institutions are implementing their digitization techniques into projects they are working on.  The Maryland Institute of Technology in the Humanities is working on many projects, a few in which I tweeted about.  The University of Nebraska at Lincoln offers project reviews for graduate students, something I hope to be taking advantage of within the next couple of years. 

Led by Hayim Lapin, Ph.D., Robert H. Smith Professor of Jewish Studies and professor of History at the University of Maryland, the project will encode the text in TEI, in order to provide a research tool for the collation and comparison of text. Additionally, the database will include targeted searching, transcriptions, and an annotated translation for a wider audience (http://mith.umd.edu/research/project/digital-mishnah/).

 

                Rosenzweig, who envisioned representing perspectives of ordinary people over the wealthy and powerful as well as democratizing the study of the past to diverse audiences, was head of the Center for History and New Media.  Their current project, Gulag:Many Days, Many Lives, tells the experiences of prisoners through vast digitized sources.  Documentaries, audio feeds, documents, images and bibliographic resources-to encourage further study-were all utilized in their project.  This simplifies the idea that many sources are needed to truly represent your project and to do the lives of those prisoners any justice at all.  For many who want to learn, it takes a combination of learning styles to fully comprehend a topic.  Visual, audio and kinesthetic are all good styles to include in your project to make the general public more informed. 

                Booker’s analogy of history being like layers is very helpful in understanding the process of presenting history.  We need to peel them back to see the past so that we can understand the future.  Visualization tools help students do just that.  Booker’s Visualizing San Francisco Bay’s Forgotten Past, was very substantive in proving his point.  The visual representations were not only a nice break from gobs of text, but also easier to interpret than many author’s verbiage.

                Spiro’s articles will remain very useful in contending with the overwhelming idea of how to present my work in a digital age.  From formulating my goals to utilizing existing tools, the most important advice I took away from her blog was to remain active and participatory on the digital front.  I will explore training opportunities as well as continue to network and keep abreast of new technology.  Given the advice, it seems to make more sense for me to just start immersing myself in the digital realm NOW.  Though I may not even come close to holding a degree in any kind of technological field, I am going to embrace the training given to me to explore and discover new information on just how to present my work so that the general public will comprehend and appreciate it.