Rosenzweig discusses at length the very fixed viewpoints of three professional groups – computer scientists, archivists, and historians – on methods of preserving the digital past.  These fixed philosophies on preservation play out in two central conflicts throughout the article:  computer scientists v. archivists, and archivists v. historians.

The overwhelming point Rosenzweig makes is that each group has been so set in its ways for ages and finds it difficult to change its mode of operation, or to even consider the value in another profession’s views.

Computer scientists see the best digital preservation as developing sophisticated search engines that operate directly on the data we see (the web page), while archivists are more focused on metadata (cataloging info), precision and standardization.

Archivists recognize that not every document can be saved, while historians don’t understand this and push for everything to be saved.

It seems that archivists are in the midst of two difficult stand-offs that are keeping digital preservation efforts down.  Producing a compromise between these groups would be the best way to move forward and consider some pieces of all three viewpoints.  How could these groups work together and resolve these conflicts realistically?  How could their professional organizations (i.e. AHA and SAA) help in such efforts?  Can we imagine more computer scientists on-staff at archival facilities?

… and my delicious username is: ashleyshannon

Friedman’s section on the ‘Blogosphere’ in the Conclusion of Electric Dreams struck a chord for me.  Coming from a Public History perspective, I have to wonder what this rapidly growing activity means for our documentation of the past.  The blogosphere allows anyone with computer access to share their thoughts, passions, grievances, and accounts of various events they witness on a daily, hourly, even by-minute basis.  People have the ability to post details and photos of events almost instantly as they occur.  Blogs offer individuals a chance to define themselves, to make their mark on the world, and to leave something (relatively) tangible behind.

Change in historic scholarship during the postwar era was witnessed partly through the birth of the Public History intellectual movement, which emphasized the value of common people’s voices – the stories of average Americans.  This new scholarship widened the scope of historians’ studies and the types of people whose memories are deemed valuable by those who document the past.  In recent years, we have seen numerous books that focus on the “people’s history” and memories of everyday Americans.

Taking both of these developments into consideration, do you think that blog entries can be considered historical documents?  How would we even begin to process the mass of personal accounts resulting from the ascendancy of the blogosphere?  As public historians, we are interested in average people’s stories, but what do we do when there are so many of them?  How do we decide whose stories are most valuable and worthy of documenting?

Another issue in documenting blog entries and individual contributions to online communities is the wall between reality and cyberspace.  Since we can never truly verify who has created material, how can we vouch for a person’s identity and the truth of their story?  Are electronically published accounts not as reliable as talking to someone in person (i.e. – oral histories).  What other problems could the rise of the blogosphere create for historians?

Hello, everyone!  My name is Ashley Jones.  I’m about to begin my second year in the Archives & Public History program.  Through the past year’s coursework, I have felt most drawn to the Public History side of the curriculum and have developed an interest in museum work — particularly education and public programs.  I entered the program with a BA in American History, minor in Sociology, from the University of Delaware.  I also took some Education courses as an undergrad.   I’ve sustained my interest in education and seek to further investigate the potential uses of new technologies in teaching history.  

I have about the same level of tech expertise as the average 23-year-old liberal arts grad.  I’m familiar with the blogosphere and networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter.  I use some of them frequently in a personal, social capacity.  Yet when it comes to public history and my professional interests, there’s still a lot of ground I need to cover.  I think I may be the only one on the roster who took last semester’s History & New Media course, in which we primarily focused on digitizing documents to create online history exhibits and archives.  Our final project was to submit a grant proposal for a hypothetical digital history project that we had been researching all semester, though the projects never actually came to fruition on the web.

While the course had its strengths, I felt there was much that it did not allow for.  I look forward to actually creating a digital history project, rather than simply planning and researching for one.  I also want to look at networking opportunities and innovative ways of engaging the net public with history.  

See you all Wednesday!