I couldn’t help but think about our own projects while reading and listening to his ideas. I’m sure we are all proud of our research and our work and are eager to demonstrate what we know to the public. Before the internet (or, really, before web-designing software made it easy for beginners to make their own sites) how many of us could have published what we’re currently working on? Would a book publisher have risked money and reputation printing the work of a student with few credentials and no previous publishing experience? And yet, here we are about to make our work public with no risk or financial loss.

It is this notion that binds this week’s readings together. If more risk were involved with this type of production, Nina Simon’s belief in museum interactivity (with guidelines as she proposes) would be nearly impossible to carry out. It would just be too financially risky an endeavor to offer museum visitors the chance to shape the exhibits themselves, rather than remaining passive visitors but ones who pose no potential loss to the museum. The same is true for Wikipedia. If the cost of digital production was not so low and the notion of “publish, then filter” did not exist for things created digitally, then a digital encyclopedia relying on contributions from amateurs and non-scholars would be too great a risk to attempt (although as Roy Rosenzweig points out, Wikipedia critics might argue that the risk involved in Wikipedia’s case is not as much financial as it is a loss in true education and knowledge).

One of the things that struck me in this week’s readings was the notion of scanning versus full-text reading. Writing for the Web’s authors emphasized the tendency of computer users to scan webpages and Web-based writing rather than read the text in full. I agree that most of us likely scan a page before investing time reading it, but I am shocked to discover that only 16% of Web users read the entire text. Then again, I believe this number reflects a study done on only two websites, both affiliated with the Sun Science office which may not require a full-text read.

I agree with the authors’ suggestions on improved navigation and site search by including keywords, headers, lists, image captions, and embedded meta-tags. However, I fear that their emphasis on text reduction contradicts much of what Rosenzweig and Cohen write in Collecting History Online and may even prevent potential Web contributors from sharing their own stories digitally. A potential contributor to a website may be disillusioned by the notion of Web 2.0 if asked to limit their text because studies show that people generally read less online than in print. Such contributors may decide that to abridge their story loses its value and may opt not to contribute at all.

I argue that different types of sites attract audiences more willing to read word-for-word. I think it is important to keep the suggestions offered by Writing for the Web in mind, but not to lose sight of the mission of each individual website. Often that mission cannot be achieved without lengthy contributions from site visitors and serves little purpose if not read in full by its audience.

On a related note, something that really struck me was the reality that proprietary software is governed with such a sense of security that it makes it nearly impossible to guarantee its preservation in the long run. Keeping the source code private prevents the dissemination of enough documentation to allow for emulation later on. I think an agreement, somewhat like a will, whereby the proprietors agree to transfer the source code to another party if the company folds, terminates their product, etc. is a clever way of preventing a situation where software and items using such software are no longer accessible once the proprietors are no longer exercising control over their product. Is this happening regularly? I wonder how often software is left to rot with no ability to preserve the items which rely on it.

http://rachelbayla.com/project/

I am hoping to model my online archive after the Seeking Michigan site, and, more specifically, their Civil War Manuscript collection online. In a Tags field for each item, Seeking Michigan provides numerous variations in spelling/format of the same name. I imagine some of the names might have been pulled from the official Library of Congress Name Authorities and others are informal tags. Does it make sense to include variant spellings and formats of the same name? And would we include these as tags or under the Dublin Core Subject field?

Is there a controlled vocabulary for the Source field or is it up to us to write it as we think most appropriately fits? The Dublin Core description does not specify an official way of formatting the Source note.

For the Relation field, it seems like there are numerous qualifiers. How do I represent these in the Relation field provided by Omeka? It doesn’t seem like Omeka offers an option for the Qualified Dublin Core. If I am archiving letters written to and from Civil War soldiers all found within the same collection and no where else, is the Relation field even necessary? I’m at a loss as to what I would include in this field.

And for the Format field, the Dublin Core description mentions including physical size. Would it have made sense for me to have measured the actual size of the paper on which each letter was written?

Using the Seeking Michigan site as a model, in the Format field they use the term “Document” and in the Type field they use the term “Correspondence.” I think I am still confused as to exactly how to differentiate the two and how to describe each.  According to the DCMI Type Vocabulary list, correspondence is a form of “text” but not its own element term. Perhaps I’m getting too bogged down on the details.

Also, in the Item Type metadata list, what is the Text box traditionally used for? Is this where we add a transcription, if we choose to do so? If not, where would a transcription go?

I too am having trouble uploading my images. They are rather large TIFF files (I’m assuming this is why they won’t upload). However, I thought when Omeka receives a TIFF file it creates additional JPEG versions of the same image (so I wanted to give this a try). I don’t think I want to provide TIFF files on the site anyways, so I am going to try uploading JPEG versions instead.

In their discussions of digitizing texts, all four authors of this week’s readings agree that for displaying images of scanned textual items, a dpi of 300 or above is generally the best practice. Cohen and Rosenzweig suggest that for displaying images a scan should be set at 24-bit color (but for OCR only 1-bit is necessary). Will this provide a true archival scan of the letters? If no, what will? Cohen and Rosenzweig claim that even inexpensive scanners can scan at these settings. I went to a tutorial for archival scanning in the preservation department and remember a color calibration taking place though I don’t remember the details. Is this necessary for creating a digital archival master? Or can this step be bypassed if the scanner does not have the capability?

On another note, is the Do History site (http://dohistory.org/diary/index.html) which uses Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s book, A Midwife’s Tale as a case study an example of rekeying the text of the scanned image and attaching that text to the digital facsimile? The site provides images of the diary pages but also allows for a keyword/date search through the entire text. I am assuming that OCR would not work for such a document because both articles/chapters we read for this week stress that OCR does not work with handwritten documents.

Cohen and Rosenzweig, on the other hand, reject this notion of text reduction. Unlike those in the usability camp, they champion the use of longer passages of text, especially in academic/historical websites whose content might lose some of its potency and value if condensed.

Reading these contrasting viewpoints made me wonder whether, in time, those like Krug might reconsider the necessity of reduced text, of eliminating introductory passages and instructional content (Krug’s examples). As more and more people become familiar with and even begin to rely on digital reading (Kindle, online newspaper subscriptions…) perhaps the fear of losing an audience to extended text might wane?

On a completely different and more technical note, in describing the award-winning Mesoamerican Ballgame website, Cohen and Rosenzweig mention formatting the contents of a website according to percentages rather than pixels. Does Omeka give us this choice? And which is recommended for maintaining a consistent appearance regardless of browser?

Might it be that many historians and scholars are less willing to accept this new form of publishing because of the way in which it will transform the traditional processes of research and writing? Could it be that they are worried about what Thomas describes as the “fluidity of the medium,” the ability to continually refine, rewrite, and republish an already published piece of work? How, if at all, will this change the historical profession? Should we be worried it will?

I work as the archivist at a production company here in New York City, locating archival footage for producers.  Because of the exorbitant prices charged per second by stock footage vendors, I spend much of my time searching for public domain footage. More often than not, though, it is not the quality or appropriateness of the footage that determines its inclusion in a documentary, but rather the price. The same scenario was mentioned in Owning the Past with reference to David Kirsch whose request to publish an image by an unidentified copyright holder was denied and “had to settle for a much less revealing photograph.” Like Vaidhyanathan argues in Copyrights and Copywrongs, today more than ever, copyright law allows those controlling it to limit the use of their products, thereby stifling creativity and potentially deteriorating the quality of future works produced by others.

That said, I do believe it is crucial for copyright to preserve the interests of the creators, else for many, there will be little incentive to publish or create again if they feel they are being cheated out of potential gains. I recently read a book on J. Robert Oppenheimer, a collaborative effort by two scholars who spent 25 years researching and writing. Were copyright regulations still reflective of the original 1783 bill passed in Connecticut, the time these authors spent working on the book comes close to the length of time for which it would have been covered by copyright. Such numbers seem arbitrary and unfair to the authors. I agree with Mark Twain; copyright should remain in effect through the creator’s life and for a limited time beyond it (though 70 years is excessive).

I do not agree with the notion that books, websites, songs, screenplays, and other published/unpublished materials are created for eventual modification by others. Just because a song is out there does not mean it can or should be sampled, regardless of how changed it might be in its newer form. Just because Bond enthusiasts might want to add their own story to the list of 007 tales does not mean they have a right to contribute to Ian Fleming’s literary creation without permission.

Perhaps I’m coming across very copyright-right because I’m still a bit confused. If, according to Cohen and Rosenzweig, copyright “does nothing to protect ideas, only their formal and fixed expression” why are we so worried about books, for example, not in the public domain? Can the information not still be used for future scholarship as long as the exact modes of expression have changed? Is all that we are losing by copyright the ability to take the actual words (or song lyrics, etc.) and use them in our own creation? I think our own creativity will make up for this loss.

I agree with each of this week’s authors that two heads are (sometimes) better than one and that collaboration can and often does lead to more thorough end-products, but have academic historians not already set this in motion? I am troubled with Rosenzweig’s and Spiro’s use of the number of authors credited to any one particular work as a method of judging collaboration (or the lack thereof) giving little regard to those  researchers and contributors to whom the publication of scholarly histories is often indebted. Though such contributors are often not credited as co-authors, their work (I would argue a form of collaboration) is made evident in the acknowledgments, something all, if not most, manuscripts include. I disagree with the differentiation between collaboration and cooperation, and wonder how one can draw a finite distinction between the two.  It seems like Spiro bases the distinction on the quantity of work completed and the means used to communicate with each other. Is this fair to do?

I agree with the notion that historians should be willing to venture beyond their own research and look towards others, both within and outside of their fields. However, the comparison between the humanities and the more traditional hard sciences irked me. Perhaps I was being too sensitive, but the feeling of being preached the benefits of more open collaborative research like those in the hard sciences made me consider those scientists whose collaborative methods were being praised. Agreed, such scientists often work in larger groups or teams and often cooperate with researchers at other institutions. But let us not think that all sceintists are as open with their research as it seems Spiro is proposing historians be with theirs, broadcasting research on the web for anyone to access and contribute. They, too, are looking for individual credit.

I do not think the key is to require history and humanities students to work collaboratively with each other if this means forcing them to work in groups. An unsuccessful group project might only lead students to resent collaborative work in the future. Perhaps instead of group work, educators must emphasize the fact that almost no published work is a work produced in isolation. Despite the number of authors, a published work is often the product of many voices. If students are taught to recognize this (with or without engaging in their own group work), there should be little fear they will refuse collaborative work in the future.

Within the past year, the Stamford Historical Society has acquired a significant number of additional letters (well over 100) to be accessioned with the existing collection. Though eager to leave the letters with the historical society, the donor, Mary’s great granddaughter, is concerned that her relative’s correspondence will sit, without any sort of web presence, unknown to researchers and consequently unused. Combining images of the letters themselves with additional archival research (images of Stamford, of activities Mary participated in, and the places she visited, for example) I hope not only to recreate Mary’s life and the environment in which she lived, but to bring attention to the collection itself.

Wright acknowledges the democratization of the current social landscape with the introduction of today’s burgeoning “computing environment” (Friedman, 218), an idea Friedman also emphasized in Electric Dreams. With the proliferation of the personal computer and the internet, new networks of unexpected users and contributors are constantly being established while existing and, until now, potentially uncontested hierarchies are scrutinized and redefined. Nevertheless, Wright does not dismiss the necessity or the inherency of hierarchies. As he writes on page 28, “Just as all human beings are born with a disposition toward spoken language, so we are also born with a tendency toward hierarchical categories.” In his first chapter and throughout the entire text, Wright makes his vision clear: networks and hierarchies work in tandem. “In other words,” Wright states, “networks and hierarchies not only coexist, but they are continually giving rise to each other” (Wright, 8).

Though I understand their distaste for hierarchical structuring and top-down governing, I am still having trouble with George Landow’s and Ted Nelson’s concept of removing all hierarchical structures underpinning the Internet as we know it today.  Perhaps it’s my lack of computer programming knowledge that is preventing me from understanding this better.  I can only wonder then how Nelson and Landow would react to the idea of the archive itself – an institution where documents and items are often preserved within a fixed hierarchical structure, from a collection to a sub-collection, a specific box, a folder, and then the item itself.  Would they seek to revise and restructure this as well?

Regardless of the location, however, computers, and, more specifically, the internet, provide all users the ability to access the same sites (with some exceptions), to contribute to the same blogs, and to share their information in much the same manner. Boundaries are blurred when it comes to personal credentials. Those without the finances, the accreditation, or the know-how to publish in a scholarly or commercial forum, can do so easily through the click of a mouse. It is this democratization that Friedman believes is one of the essential contributors to the “utopian sphere of cyberculture” (220).

Though personal computing provides such advantages, in the conclusion to Electric Dreams, Friedman zeros in on unnecessary surveillance as one of the dystopian fears of the personal computer and what he now terms the “Invisible Computer.” With computing functions on something as small and unnoticeable as a cell phone, the “end of privacy” becomes a legitimate fear. He counters such fears with the utopian ideal of individual empowerment. Just as a phone connected to the internet can be used inappropriately in a locker room (as per his example), so too can it be used to garner information hidden from individuals by government authorities.

My question then stems from research I conducted for another class recently. With so many forums for public speech and presentation on the web, how can we control what is made available and accessible? Is this even possible? Friedman champions the internet as a forum for promoting creativity and democratic principles, a venue for the release of government secrets and necessary truths. Yet, this feeling of individual empowerment is not always in our best interests and may often jeopardize individuals in the process.

For my internship seminar, I created an online exhibit for the NYU Archives highlighting New York University and its students during wartime years, from the Civil War through World War II (website will hopefully be up soon!). To build the exhibit, I downloaded a free trial of Dreamweaver, and spent the thirty days until the trial expired learning the program and structuring my site. The internship provided a much-needed introduction to the world of computer programming, though I’m still rather hesitant when it comes to such things. I’m excited to build on this knowledge with the material we’ll learn in the course! As for social networking sites, I have a facebook account (am proud to say I think I was one of the first 1,000 or so members, haha), but am rather unfamiliar with much else out there. There’s a lot to learn, and I’m confident we’ll do so this semester!

Looking forward to class this afternoon!