Creating Digital History

Week 14: Open House

Amanda French — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:17:18 +0000

Here’s the schedule for tonight’s open house. Please plan to bring your laptop, log in to your site so that everyone can see any private items, and prepare to answer questions about your project.

Again, remember that everyone in a particular time slot will be presenting at the same time — the rest of us will be circulating. I’ll have comment sheets for you, and I’d like everyone to fill out at least 3 comment sheets on other projects.

5pm – 5:30pm

Ann Christiansen
Nicole Milano
Kait Medley
Brigid Harmon

5:40pm – 6:10pm

Samantha Gibson
Meredith Davidson
John Bence
Paula Wagner

6:15pm – 6:45pm

Rachel Moskowitz
Ashley Jones
Tracie Logan
Amita Manghnani

6:50pm – 7:20pm

LEJ Rachell
Nicole DeRise
Sarah Hodge
Amanda Timolat
Julianna Monjeau

HTML redirects, plus a doppelganger course

Amanda French — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:12:28 +0000

Here’s a link to a page that explains how to write an HTML page you can put in your root directory (which, on Dreamhost, is the folder that has the same name as your domain name, e.g., amandafrench.net) to redirect visitors to your “project” folder: http://www.instant-web-site-tools.com/html-redirect.html

Also, here’s a link to a really great site that a Digital Libraries course at Simmons built with Omeka: http://alanis.simmons.edu/daisie/ They worked as a group, in committees, rather than individually, as explained on their “About this project” page: http://alanis.simmons.edu/daisie/exhibits/show/about/site — I’d actually be interested to know whether you think that’d be a good model for this course, though the pedagogical goals for this course are perhaps somewhat different than they are for that course.

Discussion Quest?on

John Bence — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:58:23 +0000

I was most interested in Shirkey’s amatuerization of professions. And particularly interested in how this relates to history and Wikipedia. It seems the main issue we are facing here is the democratization of everything, which is precisely what has been touted as the benefit of the internet. I wonder if by creating standards and forums through which people can contribute to more scholarly websites, as talked about in Museum 2.0 article, we are creating a stratified virtual space that undemocratic in nature. I guess my main point is that for the institutions to effectively interact on the web, the process of democratization must be hindered in order to preserve an institution’s agency. Make sense? at all? I’m not sure it does, I just wonder if the structures we create online for access and participation are really smoke and mirrors assuming the main purpose of using the internet in the humanities is too connect with the public. Where people might have criticized museums and other cultural institutions in the late nineteenth century as forms of social control, what about the internet is remarkably different. I guess this is some attempt at a Marxist interpretation which I have no background in, so forgive me.

Discussion Question 12/9

Tracie Logan — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:49:44 +0000

This week’s readings all discuss the concept of a website having/being a community for users and a way for them to dialogue. While I agree that this is an important feature for websites I wondered about the practical application for museums, archives, and public history sites. The examples Shirky gave in his book were hit-or-miss in their success and all were started from the ground up. But what about a site that already exists and wants to incorporate a user community within its organizational framework? History sites are attached to institutions, and as of right now there isn’t any getting around that, so how do they compensate for it? And once they do find a way to create a community, how do they attract an audience and sustain them? Shirky says that there is no magical one tool that can be applied to every situation, but are there any successful examples of history websites that can be used as an example for other sites?

discussion 12.09.09

bharmon — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:00:50 +0000

Shirky says “It is even true of the weblog world in general- dozens of webblogs have an audience of a million or more and millions have an audience of a dozen or less’ It’s easy to see this as a kind of failure. Who would want to be a publisher with only a dozen reader?” This quote struck me as interesting. Though on a slightly larger scale, perhaps 100 to 300 readers, academic press run books do not touch or influence a large number of readers, yet they are not considered a failure of publishing. And most readers of these academic run books are people who don’t seek them out on their own but are forced (perhaps required is a better word) to do so in a university situation. But of course print publishing (while small in scale in this case) comes with other advantages such as future citations in other scholarly works and peer review in scholarly journals. If a blog of small scale can create dense connections as Shirky writes because of its smallness, is it not creating a community of knowledge where people can interact and further discussion and thought about a particular topic, and isn’t this community more productive and beneficial than the communities created by readers of the same monograph?

Question — 12/9

AshleyJones — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:53:56 +0000

I’m considering the negative effects of freedom that have been made possible through easier modes of forming groups online. I was disheartened by Shirky’s story of the pro-ana group of teenagers on the YM forums and the other groups he mentions, who label themselves as “self-help” but are in truth quite the opposite. Shirky uses their story to illustrate one of the three losses that result from increased group formation — the ability to police groups (the first two losses being “amateurization” and social bargains). There are many groups that can now form which would be considered harmful, if not very dangerous. Shirky also briefly mentions crime networks and local terrorist organizations within this category. I also think of several school shootings, before which the shooter(s) have discussed his/their ideas in online communities.

In response to this third loss, which he believes is the most troubling, Shirky states that “the problem now becomes actively deciding which groups to support and which groups to oppose” (pp. 209-211). This seems to intimate that there will have to be some type of organized body given the specific task to police (or watch) these groups. Is there any plausible solution to that problem? Should the host website that’s providing this platform have the right to censor/shut down these communities? How can they define what is “harmful”? It’s an interesting moral dilemma…

(Ah! Sorry Meredith, just realized we posted similar Qs within a short time of each other…)

Discussion Question 12/9

samanthagibson — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:52:51 +0000

In a broad response to the readings and Anderson’s Smithsonian webcast, I’m wondering how much of the community, organizing, learning that’s taking place online and via digital tools is new and how much is just a different ways of doing things that people have always done. How much has Facebook, for example, fundamentally changed the social experience? Or, to what extent is Facebook just a reflection of the fact that people have always had a small group of close friends and a lot more not-so-close friends that we sort-of keep track of?

I felt similarly about Rosenzweig’s article and his evaluation of Wikipedia– yes, Wikipedia is completely unlike any source of information that has ever existed before but, on the other hand, it’s still an encyclopedia, sometimes a shotty encyclopedia at that, and no encyclopedia should be cited in a term paper. That part really isn’t new and the pressure is still on us – the individual, the scholar, whoever – to evaluate the things we read, hear, and see.

How much of the digital age is about a fundamental change in society? How much of it is about the speed and degree to which old relationships and communities are taking place via new media? Does the latter create the former?

Discussion 12/9

KaitMedley — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:33:16 +0000

In Clay Shirky’s keynote address at Smithsonian 2.0 he makes the point that we, as an online audience, rely on each other to dictate what is good or worth looking at. So what does this mean for online history sources who might not have the presence that juggernauts like wikipedia and youtube have? This also goes back to the case studies of public history websites that we looked at. What makes a history site reliable? How do you make a good site look good, without as we noticed publishing a book, journal article, etc.?

discussion question

meredith505dav — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:28:59 +0000

When Shirky discusses the “Pro-ana” websites and their “self help” characteristics he notes that these types of sites are a product of the ability to gather easily on the internet in the first place. He states, “The gathering of pro-ana girls isn’t a side effect of our social tools; it’s an effect of those tools.” 207

He ends this same chapter by noting that self help groups are founded on the criteria of affirmation and support of group members (which is what he suggests is exactly what pro-anorexic sites do).

Using this example, what kinds of social responsibility do people have to combat groups like this? If groups which are unhealthy simply move to another site, (i.e. Seventeen taking down their comment board once pro-anorexic young women began using it as a meet up point) what other actions can and should we do as communities whose daughters/sisters/friends might be participating in these communities?

Secondly, I’m really interested in Shirky’s point that the internet opens the opportunity to be creative because the “cost of failure” is so low. I’m wondering what people think about this point in conjunction with our own projects. Since we jumped right into using free software and were given a very open ended opportunity to “Build an online archive and exhibit of primary sources” what are some of the advantages and disadvantages we have faced with the “try it and then if it doesn’t work try something else” approach to digital projects? Although I like Shirky’s idea on pg 249 that “In a world were anyone can try anything, even risky stuff can be tried eventually. If a large enough population of users is trying things, then the happy accidents have a much higher chance of being discovered,” I have to wonder… What about planning? What about proposals? What about thinking things through before jumping in head first?

discussion, 12/9

Sarah Hodge — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:24:53 +0000

Clay Shirky discussed the amateurization of professions such as journalists, photographers, and publishers that were previously defined by the community, the work, and also the scarcity of professionals in that field. Now that everyone can essentially write, photograph, and publish their materials online – breaking down the idea of who constitutes a professional. Is this something that is or will happen to historians?

discussion

LEJ Rachell — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:23:39 +0000

One of my goals with my website was to create an easier way for me to communicate with people I wished to interview or have involved in my research. In a sense, I was working towards creating a community for my research involving scholars, amateur historians and actual participants in the civil rights/ Black Power movements. I think I naturally assumed that everyone I would be dealing with would have a basic computer literacy in terms of knowing how to find a website, email, open an attachment, but I’m finding this is not always the case.

I have to agree that it is mush easier to do the research I want to do with the current technology. I think it may be unrealistic of me, however, to think that I can build this group I had envisioned when so many of those involved (especially the senior citizens, age 65+) are not as computer literate as I would have expected. In some cases, I think there may even be instances of technophobia where the internet can be seen as something negative, invasive and at the least, to be suspicious of.

I like Shirkey’s book because it speaks to me. I wonder if there is an assumption on his part, like mine, that ‘everybody is doing it’ when that would only mean people below the age of 65, who have means, a certain level of education, etc..

Discussion Question

NJMilano — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:20:04 +0000

While Chris Anderson’s discussion of the “long tail” in the context of the Smithsonian had some interesting and relevant points (for example that only 1% of museum artifacts are on display at any one time), his lack of expertise in the museum world also seemed very apparent. While there may not be enough curators to perfectly identify each object, his “good enough” solution is not the way to go, especially when you’re dealing with an institution that often deals with and employs select “authorities” in various fields. Should we really hire curators (per his suggestion) that claim to be the expert in a certain area, trust them around priceless artifacts, take away time from someone’s schedule to monitor their progress, and then trust the information they produce? It seems that he is taking a “quantity” approach (which adds to the information abundance of our period) rather than a “quality” approach. Is this diminished authority in favor of object abundance really the best solution for the Smithsonian?

Discussion Question

nderise — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:40:40 +0000

Last semester for Local and Community History we read “Here Comes Everybody” and discussed the ways in which the internet and web sites either foster or actually create community. I am curious to see in this class, especially after creating our own web sites, whether or not we see our sites as community or as facilitating in community. Not to regurgitate what we discussed last semester, but I still feel the same way, Shirky’s book is to me what my experience is every time I go to the ITP floor at Tisch: you walk in and you are amazed and you think to yourself “this is sooo cool!” You see a wooden mirror that “reflects” when you walk in front of it and a projected image of a sleeping guy that is meant to be a “virtual boyfriend.” But, as you continue to wander around you realize that the majority of this stuff is completely worthless and not at all democratized. Just as not everybody can get into or afford ITP, not everybody has access to the internet and to computers. Having access to technology gives you an ability that others, most often of a lower socieo-economic strata, don’t have, as we saw in the case of the stolen cell phone.

Discussion Question – 12/9

AManghnani — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:57:41 +0000

1. In thinking about the readings this week and our discussion a few weeks ago about born digital objects we hope are preserved, how do we resolve the collaboration, empowerment, and interactivity promised by new media with its corporate backing? And what do we make of the surveillance made possible by Web 2.0 technologies? As our Facebook profiles are used for market research and our gmail accounts searched to determine ad placements, to what degree are we really empowered through the use of these technologies?

2. While Clay Shirky predicts the end of publishing as an industry and profession, he has nonetheless chosen to publish a book, of which he is the single author to convey his message. I just wanted to point out the lack of collaboration in his own work and its existence as a print artifact. Perhaps Shirky found working with editors through multiple review passes and Penguin’s established distribution network helpful? Perhaps the book publishing industry has something even more valuable to offer in a world of instant publishing, commentary, and gratification?

Rachel’s comment-12/9

Rachel Moskowitz — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:14:17 +0000

One of the concepts I found most compelling in this week’s readings is the idea, expressed by Clay Shirky in both his book “Here Comes Everybody” and his Smithsonian webcast, that failure now comes at a lower price than ever before. With the rise of the Internet and, more recently, the proliferation of user-friendly programs and software which non-computer-programmers can handle and even master with ease, publishing one’s work in a digital environment becomes a matter of “publish, then filter” rather than the traditional reverse.

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).

Tech Help!

Ann Christiansen — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:14:50 +0000

How do you unzip a file again? I have completely forgot.

Discussion Question 12/9/2009

Ann Christiansen — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:44:43 +0000

I am not that social with technologies. Just the other day I was talk to my co-workers and some of my friends and found out that myspace is no longer popular. Myspace is use for sharing of music only now by my friends. Everyone is using facebook. I am on facebook, but not on myspace. Just last year I was told your only on facebook, you need to be on myspace. Turns out everyone has which to facebook. I find it interesting at how fast things come into favor and leave with social networks. As an organization I think it is important to remember that social networks come and go. So don’t put all organization eggs in one basket and be prepared to which. Agree, disagree?

More on Google Analytics

Amanda French — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:18:48 +0000

Wanted to give you a bit more information about Google Analytics (plus the link). To implement Google Analytics for your site, you’ll sign up for the service: when you’ve finished signing up, Google will give you some code to paste into your website, as described on the page “How do I add tracking code to my website?” (The process is similar to the process for embedding videos and Google Maps.)

For your particular Omeka sites, you’ll want to add the tracking code into the footer. In your FTP program, navigate to the “themes” folder. Within the theme you’re using, navigate to the folder “common” and download the file “footer.php”. Open that file with a text editor and paste the tracking code that Google Analytics gave you just above the tag. Be sure the Google Analytics code includes your Google Analytics account number, which was given to you during the signup process. Save the file and upload it to the server, overwriting the previous file. Naturally you’ll need to wait a day or so to start seeing any statistics; you’ll visit your Google Analytics account on the web to see the statistics. You can set your Analytics account to e-mail you a stats report regularly, if you like — that’s what we do for http://aphdigital.org. Here’s a sample report in PDF form: Analytics_aphdigital.org_20091009-20091108

See also the Omeka screencasts at http://omeka.org/codex/Screencasts — the two on Modifiying Themes: Navigation and Header and Basic PHP will help (modifying the footer is pretty much the same as modifying the header).

Accessing cultural heritage websites by mobile phone

Amanda French — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:45:09 +0000

Just wanted to follow up on something we touched on in class — Michael Lascarides of the New York Public Library recently tweeted that “NYPL.org visits from mobile phones are skyrocketing! Up 7x in last 18 months.” It’s definitely a trend to watch; more and more people have smart phones that let them browse the web. Designing websites for mobile phones is a whole art in itself, and it takes time and labor to make a site mobile-friendly (sigh). Personally, I think that while people will definitely want to access basic information such as hours of operation from their phones, they won’t necessarily want or need to do real research or visit online exhibits on their phone — but that’s just a theory. I think we can wait awhile to worry about making special mobile-phone-friendly online finding aids, for instance!

Maps and forms

Paula Wagner — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:16:37 +0000

Is there anyway to show location(s) on a map on the site after it has been loaded? Second question, can we add forms for feedback or contributions (not money) on Omeka?

Question 12/2

samanthagibson — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:44:25 +0000

In response to the readings on the audience and thinking about our projects and the rest of the class so far, I’m wondering if the emphasis on promotion and marketing is necessary, especially for smaller sites like ours. Given the Long Tail logic (or maybe not even so remote for many of us), is it enough to just make our sites efficiently search-able and trust that people who need to use it or want to see it will find it? How active of a project does targeting your audience have to be, particularly for projects like ours?

Week 12: The Audience

Amanda French — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:40:18 +0000

Web Statistics Exercise:

Break up into pairs and look through these web statistics for Fales Library & Special Collections’s finding aids: http://dlibdev.nyu.edu/awstats/awstats.pl?config=fales-findingaids. Answer these two questions:

1) What is the most interesting statistic for you, and why?
2) Based on these statistics, can you come up with an idea that Fales might adopt to better serve its audience? (This can be a change to their site, to their finding aids, or to their in-person service, or anything you like.)

One useful tool is the Whois.net IP Lookup tool at http://tools.whois.net/whoisbyip/ .

Note too that Fales’s statistics increased fourfold after Kelsi Evans added links to Fales finding aids in relevant Wikipedia articles. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Beetstra/Archivists and http://lib.byu.edu/sites/interactivearchivist/case-studies/wikipedia-at-uw/ for some discussion of this practice.

discussion 12/2

meredith505dav — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:28:42 +0000

Brigid actually answered my question which was a reiteration of the question how do we get people to our site first instead of navigating through the index page… so I’ll skip that question.

I agree with Julianna that after the readings I am worrying about the “fun” level of my project. Most of my documents are lengthy written works (a deposition/ 2 summaries from trials / typed letters and news clippings) I have a few photos that I’m still confirming copyright with and I have an oral history snippet, but especially after reading Nielsen et. al piece I’m reevaluating how to write about these documents so that visitors are able to “scan pages; [and] not read word-by-word.” What do people suggest, from their experience so far with their own projects, about how to balance explanation and documents? I’m finding that the 2 object pages with more text seems more comfortable to me as the author of the exhibits but worry that these pages are too “boring” for scanning visitors.

Finally, in response to Ashley’s questions, could we talk about how we could start using our sites to “build communities” or at least foster opportunities for communities to form? (John mentioned he has figured out the 2.0 plugins that let visitors post our sites to Twitter/facebook… This reminded me of the interactivity in the Brooklyn Museum’s Graffitti exhibit reading. What community building opportunites could we create?

Discussion Question 12/2

AManghnani — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:19:36 +0000

Bernstein and Caruth’s timeline documenting the Brooklyn Museum’s creation of an online community demonstrates the museum’s genuine investment in improving visitor experience and responding to visitor feedback. Rather than incorporating technology for technology’s sake, the Brooklyn Museum employed Web 2.0 tools, such as cell phones, podcast series, social networking, and interactive features on their website, to successfully “extend the Museum visit” and serve its current audience more fully, while also mananging to reach out to new ones. I found the idea of blurring the distinction between off and online experiences and communities really interesting — the web brings people together, but it doesn’t do so outside of the physical world and it was the museum’s ability to collapse off and online visits that made their use of technology so intriguing. While our projects are much smaller in scale than the exhibits at the Brooklyn Museum, I wonder how they can move offline and foster community or use already established communities to foster discussion online.

Help with HTML, CSS, and Omeka

Amanda French — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:17:09 +0000

Many of you are working laudably hard to customize your websites, and I wanted to post some links that will help.

The Omeka project has just posted two helpful screencasts on editing your themes: check out “Modifying Themes: Navigation and Header” and “Modifying Themes: Basic PHP” at http://omeka.org/codex/Screencasts .
If you do start changing code, you’ll probably want to download a better text editor than the default ones that come on your computer. As usual, be sure to look for free ones (but consider donating some money to the developer!) at http://download.com. I like NoteTab Light for Windows and BBEdit for Mac. NoteTab is free, but BBEdit isn’t.
Because a lot of your customization will involve editing existing code (not writing new code), it’s almost indispensable to have a tool that will tell you what the heck code in that CSS file controls the thing on the screen you’re looking at. I use the Firefox add-on Web Developer Toolbar, but lots of people recommend Firebug as well — I should try it. See also this list of the Top 15 free and open source web development tools: http://www.andrewsellick.com/34/top-15-free-and-open-source-web-developer-tools-updated
Here are some programs for capturing screenshots: http://www.andrewsellick.com/34/top-15-free-and-open-source-web-developer-tools-updated — remember, though, that pressing “Print Screen” on a Windows machine copies your screen into your clipboard, so that you can open a photo editing program and paste it in to a new image. On a Mac, press Command-Shift-3 to take a picture. See also this post for more help: http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2006/01/01/mac-os-x-screenshot-secrets.html
Hotlinking / Deeplinking images — Wikipedia has a good, brief discussion of the pros and cons of displaying an image on your site by using the URL instead of the file: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inline_linking Basically, if you put a URL instead of a file location in your tag, you avoid triggering copyright law, but risk angering the owner of another website. If the image is small, though, it’s no big deal, so I say go ahead. See the W3 Schools for more on images: http://w3schools.com/html/html_images.asp

Tech Question

John Bence — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:54:45 +0000

Has anyone tried to use OCR software in the Digital Studio yet? I have color images of my book pages and I wanted to know how to convert them to black and white and make them a more simple PDF and not huge JPEGs.

I am also wondering what other people are doing in terms of the background history to their specific topics. Should I include a general overview of the US and Mexico up until the war? Maybe I should talk about the war’s legacy. How much effort should I put in to expand the information on the site in order to attract people to engage my site.

Rachel’s comment-12/2

Rachel Moskowitz — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:39:25 +0000

Some thoughts, rather than a tech question this week…

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.

discussion question 2 december

bharmon — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:29:23 +0000

In reading this week’s articles, I have begun to wonder what I will do with this site. In some ways I guess I thought originally that it would only be viewed by fellow classmates and maybe some friends (if I maybe posted the link to fb) but now that it is all coming together and the exhibits are being written and the design is being tweaked something I like, I wonder what should be next? After I am happy with the intellectual content, would it be presumptuous of me to see if the cemetery wanted to link to it on their own page? are there other institutions or organizations where I can find an audience?

In regard to the “Search engine optimization guide” when they are speaking about clear and useful URLs, omeka is allowing us to do that already right? like in the exhibits with the slugs?

If I want to change the URL of the main page to something more descriptive (in the hopes that it is more easily searched for) like brigidharmon.com/lutheran_cemetery, do I just rename the file ‘project’ to ‘lutheran_cemetery’ on the server side of filezilla?

Discussion question 12/3

atimolat — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:15:31 +0000

The Rosenzweig and Cohen chapter discusses the utilization of history “gateways” to direct an audience as well as looking at similar websites and communities. They advise contacting webmasters and asking for advice and reciprocal links. This seems very logical, and I am wondering if there is competition for audience in the web environment. Are similar sites likely to want to share their audience?

Technical Question

NJMilano — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:41:16 +0000

I have a question relating to an html/javascript document (with mouseover features) that works on another page on my website outside of Omeka (http://njmilano.com/pictures/chemist2.html) but won’t work when I plug the same code into the html box on a page in my Omeka exhibit. It allowed me to include the link, but then the link on the page (http://njmilano.com/daguerreotypes/exhibits/show/exhibit/birth/making) doesn’t work . However, when I copy and paste that same link into another browser outside of Omeka, it works. Do I need to upload this code to a Simple Page within my website, and then it will allow me to link to my image? Is it not working on Omeka because it has javascript as well as html code?

discussion question

LEJ Rachell — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:30:34 +0000

I’m interested in the Cohen and Rosenzweig chapter on mass marketing and the role Google plays in ranking on its search engine. I especially was interested in their discussion of a site’s ‘reputation’. I have to wonder how much of that decision making is based on critical analysis, how much Google will receive in advertising for ranking certain sites and how much of that is just personal taste. What I’m taking away from the chapter is that much of it seems to be arbitrary and that it is up to the website’s producer to get traffic for the site. The quality may not always be attraction that builds a reputation that invites traffic.

12/2

jmonjeau — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:02:53 +0000

I know that John was wondering about this as well, but is there any way to set up a “home page” for our domain name? For example, when I type in somonjeau.net, can I make it s my Omeka site begins there, rather than at somonjeau.net/project?

The readings this week made me a tad nervous about my own project, since nearly all of it would require the audience to read articles relating to the kosher meat riots. I’m trying my best to find supplemental photos to depict street life in the Lower East Side, but so far I’ve been unsuccessful. I think the fact that my project is so wordy is forcing me to find ways to make my website seem more “fun.” If I can get the Google map application to work, it might make my project more interactive.

question, 12/2

Sarah Hodge — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:51:32 +0000

If I add a document to my archive and do not make it viewable to the public, because I only want it viewable in an exhibit. I want to add the finding aid from the collection my scanned files are from, but I was thinking of making each page of the finding aid an item and create an exhibit for it but rename it to Finding Aid — instead of uploading a pdf and having a link. But I probably just need to play around with this.

Discussion Question 12/2

Tracie Logan — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:12:42 +0000

My question is similar to Ashley’s; I am curious about how small websites track and adapt for their users. I imagine most projects are larger than ours, but I imagine a small staff and budget could interfere with a group’s ability to update and refine a website. Are there any viable options for a small group or organization to do so?

I was also wondering if it would be useful for us to download the “Simple Contact Form” plug-in? It would at least provide a starting point for communication with our audience, especially if this is a project any of us plan on perusing further.

Discussion Question — 12/2

AshleyJones — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:50:34 +0000

In their chapter on Building an Audience, Cohen & Rosenzweig present two principles to ensure that a digital history website is not only useful, but used. They urge webmasters to:

a) think about creating a community, rather than just simple page hits, and

b) recognize the types of visitors you’re getting and adapt to their needs

I’m wondering what capacity we have to incorporate either of these two principles into our own sites. What add-ons might Omeka offer that could help foster a community and track site visitors?

I notice that there are Social Bookmarking (http://omeka.org/add-ons/plugins/#socialbookmarking) and Contributions (http://omeka.org/add-ons/plugins/#contribution) add-ons… would these be appropriate/useful to include on the sites for this class, or do you think they’d be better for a more substantial project?

Search Engines as Political Tool

KaitMedley — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:19:28 +0000

CNN had an article today that I thought was interesting and relevant to our readings this week. It discusses the recent upset over the racist picture of Michelle Obama and search engines’ (mainly Google’s) role in it. I suppose it’s kind of an alternate perspective to the readings this week that offer guidance on how to be a top search result. Search engines have not only become an economic but also a political tool. What do you do when being a popular search result is working against you? What responsibilities do search engines have or should have in these situations?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/02/google.search.obama/index.html

Discussion Question

nderise — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:26:50 +0000

In reading Cohen and Rosenzweig’s chapter on audience I have some questions about how we as graduate students can best peer-review each others work. The chapter discusses how the Journal of American History reviews websites, but I highly doubt they are going to review a grad student’s site…so I am wondering how we can do this. It would be good if we could set forth criteria of what is needed in the archive/exhibits that we are creating as well.

Also can we go over how to embed a google map and/or a youtube video? I have been trying and have had NO luck – is this something anybody else is doing?

Also also, since a lot of my documents are private on my archive, if anybody wants to see them let me know and I will give you “researcher” status which allows you access.

Also also also, I changed my url: http://www.nicolederise.com/tawanabrawleyarchive/

Discussion Question 12/3

Ann Christiansen — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:14:16 +0000

If you do not want to make you websites view by the public because of copyright could you use robots.txt?

Discussion Question 12/2

KaitMedley — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:57:18 +0000

The readings this week seem to put a fair amount of weight on adding meta tags to your site. As a frequent google user I do see how valuable it can be, if you are so lucky as to be indexed by google. How does one go about using meta tags and do they serve a function outside of search engines?

What’s worth preserving?

Amanda French — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:31:44 +0000

Gawker http://www.gawker.com
http://jezebel.com
Gmail — all e-mails (leave it up to individuals) / Public figures’ e-mails
The Huffington Post
The New York Times website http://nytimes.com
Gawker — both what’s posted & the comments
Flickr — all of Flickr? Snapshots of Flickr?
Institutional blogs
NYPL digital collections (also, just throw s**t out!)
Google search keywords & rankings
YouTube Videos++
The Wired Magazine website
Obama’s text messages
Gchats
Wikipedia
NPR’s website & blogs
NY Times comments
Digital photographs — but how would you archive all of Flickr?
Writer’s manuscripts
A sampling of personal and professional blogs
Presidential e-mails with heads of state
Personal e-mails — AOL will delete e-mails for you without asking, defaults to deleting+++
Picasa
Shutterfly
Getty Images
ArtSTOR
Corbis
Does Google “own” its e-mails?
Scam spam!
Forwarded e-mails — “memes”
Save all links
Local newspapers — Rocky Mountain News
Link shorteners
CNN
Digg.com
FMyLife
Postsecret.com
Yelp.com
Facebook — both personal and institutional accounts
Napster files, music files
iTunes
Craigslist — missed connections!
Proquest Historical Newspapers
Funny or Die
eBay — random snapshots
Reddit
Dating websites — Match.com
Livejournal, personal diaries
AIM, chatroom, MySpace, AOL chatrooms & communities
Friendster
Pandora playlists
Licensing agreements

discussion 11/18

meredith505dav — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:46:10 +0000

Schreibman makes a pretty interesting assertion when she states, “We will not be able in the future to rely on traditional assessments of value for determining what deserves preservation. In the digital realm, there will be no uniqueness, no scarcity, no category of “rare.”” I’m wondering what other people think about this statement.

Personally I keep thinking that this statement assumes that “everything” will make it onto a collective digital form; but as we have clearly seen this semester, what gets digitized, how it gets digitized, and where the digital formats are located once they do exist, are all obstacles to this utopian “non-scarcity through accessibility.” What do people make of this statement? In the future what will be “the unique” or the “rare object”?

Week 11: Digital Preservation

Amanda French — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:29:51 +0000

How to back up / restore your class project

Make copies of the “files” folder and the “themes” folder (or just the theme within that folder that you’re using) and save them to a hard drive, CD, DVD, or USB stick. Or all of the above.
Go to http://panel.dreamhost.com and click on “MySQL databases.” Note that there’s a link on the side that says “Restore DB.”
Discuss migration — how would you recreate this web site for someone who doesn’t have access to a Linux server with MySQL and PHP installed on it?

Digital Preservation Exercise

Take five minutes and list some websites or other “born-digital” resources that you personally would like to make sure exist in a hundred years. What are the most important ones, do you think? Why? Who, if anyone, is taking steps to preserve these now?

Digital Preservation Projects

The NDIIPP project, aka http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/ — A project of the Library of Congress, the “National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Project.” Note as emphasis on Personal Archiving, as well as more specialized projects such as the North Carolina Geospatial Data Archiving Project.
HATHItrust — An attempt to make sure that digital copies of books will remain available: “HathiTrust’s aspirations, at the very least, are to bring together all of the digitized books and journals held by libraries, to provide secure, long-term storage and (where possible) access, and to aid in larger preservation efforts for printed materials.”
The Tamiment Library Web Archive — A collection of archived web sites focusing on leftist and labor political organizations.
The Internet Archive — Note especially the BookServer project; the distinction between preservation and access is extremely thin with digital objects.
Brand-new: The Memento Web project — Experimental “competitor” to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

Exhibit Creation Exercise

Take 20-30 minutes and begin to create an exhibit with one or more items in your archive. Publish the exhibit. Then break up into groups of three and comment on each others’ work — we’ll then get back together and discuss.

Note: no class next week. See you in a fortnight!

Discussion question 11/18

atimolat — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:28:39 +0000

My question this week is regarding one my items. I have a technical report that I am scanning and transcribing. It has graphic in it and some mathematical formulas, diagrams and charts. I think that these will be lost in the pages of the item. I am not sure of the best way to present this report in digital form.

Preservation

Paula Wagner — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:05:49 +0000

Amanda- Which practices of digital preservation to you suggest for our projects using Omeka? Which ones do you regularly use for your projects?

Discussion Question 11/18

Tracie Logan — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:59:22 +0000

I am curious as to why saving hardware and software is not a bigger movement. I realize that it would be cumbersome and nearly impossible for every archive to have a collection of all hardware and software, but would it not be beneficial for somewhere to collect old or outdated hardware and software that could be used by other institutions? I’m not sure on the practicalities, and there would be many obstacles, but I think it would serve as at least a temporary solution.

The Smithsonian has a Computer Collection (http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/) but I am fairly certain they never turn on the machines. Though I doubt it, I wonder if they would ever consider allowing other professionals to use outdated hardware or software if they have more than one example.

(This isn’t the most scholarly of questions, I know, but I kept coming back to it while doing the readings)

11/18 Discussion

John Bence — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:53:25 +0000

I was most baffled by the issues of preserving not only different formats of materials but also the technology needed to access these materials. Does it make sense to copy out-dated materials in the same format and somehow maintain outdated technologies? Would this somehow get around issues of reformatting that “take away” from the experience?

11/18 Discussion

jmonjeau — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:21:00 +0000

More than anything, the readings this week got me thinking about the lack of cooperation between the developers of electronic media. Not only do competing companies put out hardware/software that are in no way compatible with the products of other companies, but some media (even produced by the same company) cannot be used in different parts of the world (i.e. EU and US CDs and DVDs). Perhaps, given the overwhelming rate at which our culture is being represented digitally, it would be worthwhile for some sort of international standard by which ALL makers of digital media must adhere. Of course, given the way copyright laws are these days and the stigma against users making copies of digital media they’ve purchased, this seems impossible for the forseeable future. It’s a bit discouraging when one realizes that an archive may have to make the choice to preserve every reincarnation of hardware/software in order to display digital media for the short time span between upgrades or simply forgo digital media alltogether.

Rachel’s weekly questions/comments

Rachel Moskowitz — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:59:56 +0000

In her chapter on Preservation, Abby Smith discusses the idea of emulation as a form of preservation. She mentions that while it is possible to emulate “retrospectively” as has been done with computer games designed years ago for now obsolete systems, it has not yet been possible to emulate “prospectively.” I’m very confused about this concept. How would one possibly design a method to emulate software/programs on machines that have yet to be created? Is this something that is actually in the works?

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.

discussion question

LEJ Rachell — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:58:27 +0000

After doing the readings, my question is would it be worthwhile for one to just buy their own server as opposed to having to count on companies like Dreamhost to publish one’s website. My biggest obstacle to keeping my site up over time won’t be so much the maintenance as it will be the fees my hosting company will charge me. For one doing this kind of work, would it be more efficient in the long run in terms if preservation to invest in one’s own server?

Reading/Technical Questions

NJMilano — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:53:46 +0000

Technical Question:

I changed the font on my website (in the css document in my screen folder), and it worked on Mozilla on my computer at home, but didn’t work when I opened Mozilla on my work computer. I also changed the color codes, which worked on both computers. Why is the color change but not the font working?

Reading Question:

Is Omeka automatically set to the standards mentioned in the Preservation chapter in “Digital History” regarding website preservation, or is this something we have to do on our own?

Also- how can archives support website preservation and maintenance with limited funds, especially considering projects that were shut down after several years due to a lack of funding?

11/18

Ann Christiansen — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:19:09 +0000

I do not have a tech question this week instead I have food for thought about this week readings. My food for thought on the readings is that technology is taking over our lives. I would not be surprised if the next generation will grow up without ever having to touch a pen or paper. My feeling is that paper will be come precious as stone tablets are today, rare and beautiful piece of history. The art of writing is disappearing. Penmanship is no longer taught at school, but typing is more and more necessary and replacing writing. I am not so worried about lost of digital history, because there are so many people invested and working on preserving digital history that we will figure it out. I am more worried about lost of how we write and communicate though paper and pen. I having a feeling that in 100 years there will no longer be pen and paper.

question, 11/18

Sarah Hodge — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:27:00 +0000

I’m transcribing all of my items – which are handwritten original court documents from 1717 – to include on my site. I’m unsure if I should stick to the spelling used in the documents or if I should modernize it. I’m mostly asking this because the modernized spelling would help when visitors try to search the site or should I simply input the words exactly how they are to give a more accurate depiction of the sentence configuration and spelling of the early 18th century.

Also, due to damage to the documents over the years there are missing edges, sections, and corners. This has led to a loss of words and even entire paragraphs. How would I represent these missing sections? Is there a best practice or standard for transcription?

discussion question 11/18

bharmon — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:44:20 +0000

Though I can recognize the recent ubiquity of electronic records and communication, I guess I was still a little amazed at some of the statistics discussed in the preservation chapter of Digital History. They say, “ink-on-paper content represented an incredibly miniscule 0.01 percent of the world’s information produced in 2003, with digital resources taking up over 90 percent of the nonprinted majority.” They use this statistic as a foible to the NYT creating an analogue feature of the millennium capsule. But this statistic got me thinking too, not of the needs for digital preservation, but of the effects on analogue. In the archives class we had been discussing the symbolic importance of items in an archives, and someone suggested that in the recent electronic age, items that are hand written may take on new symbolic meaning (because face it, actually writing a christmas card, or birthday card does seem to mean more than posting ‘happy birthday’ on someone’s facebook wall). I wonder if the small amount of records actually produced pen on paper will take on a new symbolic significance, and perhaps be preserved with more fervor because of its scarcity?

Also in regard to our own archives, what steps should we be taking, in these weeks of creation, to try and ensure any small amount of preservation for the future?

Discussion Question

nderise — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:41:24 +0000

I am wondering if there is a way when using Omeka to allow only certain people access to the archive? Because I was not able to gain permission for many of my documents I cannot make them public, is there away to give people access but not have documents public?

Also, regarding content of the archive, I am wondering what is applicable and what isn’t? I have done interviews in the past with community members and their experience with the Tawana Brawley case, would these interview be appropriate to add to an archive?

Animating Archives: Making New Media Matter

AManghnani — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:15:14 +0000

I’m heading to the “Animating Archives: Making New Media Matter” conference at Brown University on December 3-5, and thought other students would be interested as well! More details here.

“The paradox of modern media is that it is everywhere and nowhere at once. New media accentuates the “frenzy of the visible” ushered in by film and photography so that we now live in a world saturated with screens, images and objects—from gigantic public screens to cell phones—all demanding that we look at them.

At the same time, however, they also work invisibly, turning every day events into fodder for surveillance, adding an invisible layer of code—and a formerly inconceivable amount of data—onto the world. The uptake of these digital telecommunications technologies is thus generating new questions, methods and approaches, the more pressing of which are focused on the archive and archival practice.

How does the new vernacular archive—the flood of YouTube videos, cell phone novels and Facebook entries, as well as “bottom up” archiving sites such as del.icio.us—challenge the traditional function of “public records,” their place and their authority? How do changing archiving formats change history (both in terms of historical events and narratives)? What new global and globalizing memories and fevers are infecting our archives?”

Student Projects #

atimolat — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:42:01 +0000

The link to my project is http://www.timolatdressage.net/omeka

Week 10: Standards and Description

Amanda French — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:35:40 +0000

First, a disclaimer: I have no professional training in description or cataloging. I’m terrified of the archivists and librarians I’ve invited to our last class session, because I know that they’ll critique the way I’ve “taught” (or rather, have not taught) you to properly describe your items. If you’re on the Archives track in the program, you’ll take the Advanced Archival Description course, where you’ll learn some proper ways of doing things. When you get a position at a museum, they’ll teach you (if necessary) their local ways of describing their collections.

These are my beliefs about description:

A lot of description is better than a little description.
Standard description is better than nonstandard description.
However, #1 and # 2 have caused a lot of trouble, because most people require too much description and set overly rigorous standards, which results in no description at all (see also hidden collections). Therefore it’s important to keep in mind that —
A little description is better than no description.
Nonstandard description is better than no description.

It’s also the case that in the digital realm, users assume that if there’s metadata and description, it’ll be attached to an item, not a collection, and that the item itself will be digitally available. For organizations that have crates of analog stuff sitting around, that’s a very difficult expectation to live up to.

Meanwhile, here are some resources to explore:

Digital Object Description Standards

Dublin Core — The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
Standards at the Library of Congress
METS — Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard
MODS — Metadata Object Description Schema

Controlled Vocabularies

Library of Congress Authorities and Vocabularies — great for names and subjects

ISO 8601 — the standard way of expressing dates and times

MIME types — “MIME” stands, archaically, for “Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions”; basically it just means “file type” or “file format” (image/png, for instance)

IANA Language Subtag Registry — Language codes to describe what language the resource is in (”English” or “en”)

discussion

atimolat — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:31:27 +0000

The Elings and Waibel article briefly mention folksonomies as a potential “user friendly and affordable metadata generation option particularly within the museum world. This grassroots approach to tagging appears to be most commonly associated with social sites such as flickr and delicious where there are no apparent descriptive standards or controlled vocabulary. I wonder if it would be possible attempt the institution of reliable standards and controlled vocabularies for folksonomies.

Rachel’s project

Rachel Moskowitz — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:20:36 +0000

Below is the link to my online archive. I’m having some trouble changing my theme so it is currently still in the default theme. My goal is to digitize as much of the collection of personal papers of Mary Ann Dickinson Smith as is possible given the time. Mary, the wife of Senator Truman Smith of Connecticut, was a copious letter writer. In addition to writing daily, she saved what seems like most, if not all of her correspondence. Remarkably, much of the correspondence she wrote herself, especially those letters sent to her husband and her sons, was also saved and is included in the collection as well. Mary’s letters illustrate the intimacies of daily life in the mid 19th century, while allowing a contemporary reader a window into a world long since gone.

http://rachelbayla.com/project/

publisher vs. creator and descriptions

meredith505dav — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:56:36 +0000

For public documents (my example is the scoring breakdown of the 1977 physical portion of the New York City Fire Department Entrance Examination), should the publisher be the archive from which I pulled the document, or the governmental agency which created it? (i.e. do I say City of New York/ New York City Fire Department / or Robert F Wagner Labor Archives)

Also, I too am curious about how much information we should provide in the description area. Should we reserve interpretation of the documents for the exhibit pages or should we be putting in contextual explanations in this “description” area?

here is the link to my cite (I am making the documents public for the duration of the class period but then need to make them private again for now as I have not confirmed which documents Brenda is comfortable with me putting up publicly.)

http://www.digitalmeredith.com/digitalhistoryproject

Student Project

AshleyJones — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:37:44 +0000

www.ashleyshannon.net/project

My digital archive is intended to eventually serve as an online resource for the New York University Archives, based on one of its most frequently researched topics — student activism of the 1960s. It will supplement a current University Archives online exhibit on 60s activism, which is relatively outdated and very broad in scope. The project will document what is arguably the most substantial student demonstration in NYU’s history: the National Student Strike of May 1970. This protest included the forceful occupation of three university buildings, one in which a $3.5M military computer was held hostage to threat of explosion (and nearly did meet destruction before being saved by the NYPD). I plan to digitize a variety of archival materials, ranging from correspondence to memoranda, and photographs to flyers, leaflets, and other forms of ephemera.

Student Project

jmonjeau — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:55:34 +0000

http://www.somonjeau.net/project

My project is a group of images, mostly newspaper articles with a few supplementary photographs to establish geographical/social background, documenting the 1902 kosher meat boycott by Jewish housewives on the Lower East Side.

Between May 15th-June 5th, 1902, following the failed attempt of kosher butchers to combat the raise in price of meat from 12 to 18 cents/lb., thousands of Jewish women, most of them housewives, took to the streets of the Lower East Side of New York and violently boycotted kosher butcher shops. The boycott quickly spread to Brooklyn and other northeastern cities and received considerable attention both within the Jewish community and in larger urban society. Given that these Jewish women were not a unionized group, very little documentation of the event remains outside of descriptions of the event published in local newspapers.

Discussion 11/11

KaitMedley — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:51:40 +0000

Based on the readings for class today and after describing more items, I’m still a little confused about using DCMI Type Vocabulary. I was able to identify, after visiting the website, which “type” to use for my item, but “Text” seems to undescriptive. I guess I’m used to using the Art and Architecture Thesaurus; is it acceptable to also include these terms, such as “correspondence”, in my dublin core description?

Student Project

NJMilano — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:41:15 +0000

http://njmilano.com/civilwar

My project is a group of items highlighting the P.K. Yonge Florida History Collection in Gainesville, FL. The focus of my website is aspects of the Civil War(such as women on the home front, or camp life) in Florida, which was the least-populated state in the Union preceding the war. This online archive will include mainly print/textual material (such as letters), although photographs and newspaper engravings will be used as well.

Tech. Question

jmonjeau — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:17:22 +0000

This is more of a suggestion for other students, but I recently installed the geolocation plug-in, which allows you to input locations on an interactive google map which you can use to show important locations associated with your particular document. Aside form a weird formatting error (the fields for inputting more than on address seem to be hidden behind the map…but this may just be a problem with my computer/browser), this seems like a plug-in which may be of a use to a few peoples projects.

I’ve been trying to change the background color on the Default (Thanks, Roy) theme, but I’m not quite sure which field I should be replacing for the background. So far I’ve change nearly every other color. Any suggestions on where it might be or what it might be labeled as?

project

bharmon — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:14:17 +0000

http://brigidharmon.com/project/

This archive documents items related to the Lutheran Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens. The photos, articles, etc focus on the history and presentation of the cemetery as a part of the rural cemetery movement of the mid 19th century as well as its place in the history of the General Slocum Steamboat disaster of 1904

Project

Paula Wagner — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:09:57 +0000

My project focuses on the photo album of a little know ethnographer from Sag Harbor, NY, William Wallace Tooker. He lived on the East End of Long Island at the end of the 19th C. and first part of the 20th C. The album are photos he took in the environs of Sag Harbor.

Rachel’s Dublin Core Questions

Rachel Moskowitz — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:07:57 +0000

After reading through the explanations of the Dublin Core elements, I’m left with a few questions. If we are to rely on the Library of Congress Subject headings and a controlled vocabulary for the Subject field, should we do the same for the Creator field? If the creator of our item is listed in the Library of Congress Subject Headings/Name Authorities, is the protocol to list the creator of the item as it is recorded by the Library of Congress, or does it make more sense to write out the name in a more informal “first name last name” format without the extra elements added in the Name Authorities. The Dublin Core elements page does not specify this.

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.

Student Project

AManghnani — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:05:44 +0000

My project focuses on “Yellow Pearl,” a mimeograph created in 1972 by Basement Workshop, one of New York City’s first Asian American activist and arts organizations. “Yellow Pearl” contains sheet music, artwork, and poetry. In addition to the pages of the mimeograph, I plan to include MP3s of the songs, which were recorded by A Grain of Sand, the band attributed with providing the soundtrack for the Asian American Movement in the 1970s and early 1980s. I’ll also include materials from the recent Basement Workshop reunion.

http://amitamanghnani.net/project/

Student Project

samanthagibson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:56:52 +0000

http://www.samanthagibson.net/Project/

My project is an overview of the free African American community in Philadelphia during the early nineteenth century. I’ll be using documents such as sermons, speeches, newspapers, and organizational records from within this community primarily.

Question for 11/11

samanthagibson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:48:50 +0000

My first question is if I decide not to use some of the Dublin Core categories for my items, is it better to keep the set of data information for each item in my archive consistent? Or is it okay to modify exactly how much information I provide based on what’s most important for the particular document/item, etc?

Also, is there a way to navigate the items in the archive by having the meta data serve as links (i.e. click on this author and get the list of things he/she wrote) or would viewers have to work through tags or the search function? If the search function is the best navigate items, is there any way to make the search terms highlighted in the results?

Student Project

Tracie Logan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:37:02 +0000

http://tracielogan.net/Project/

This site is a collection of items, mostly images, relating to the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club in New Orleans, Louisiana. Zulu is one of the krewes which have a parade at Mardi Gras. Zulu is the only primarily African American krewe and has an interesting and complex history which is reflected in their current practices.

Technical/Discussion Questions

NJMilano — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:36:41 +0000

I have a few questions:
1- The first is similar to Tracie’s question. Our readings said not to be too broad with subject categories, but when I checked the subject categories listed under documents that I was using, they were very broad (i.e. North America for a letter from Jacksonville, Florida.) Should we be more specific?

2- I’m still a little confused about the difference between Contributor vs. Creator- aren’t these similar entities? (The readings didn’t give an example for Contributor)

3- Is there a plug-in that allows for greater zoomability? I didn’t see one, but I thought maybe there were some not listed on the Omeka site. I have letters that would be easier to read if the user could zoom further.

4- Finally, on my “home page” for my Omeka project site, it says ”

Oops!

Sorry, this page doesn’t exist.”

Yet, it still allows the user to browse my items, although my “Featured Item” isn’t showing up. Is this something I need to fix on Omeka or my FTP server?

Tech/Discussion Question -11/11

AManghnani — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:32:55 +0000

I am having some trouble uploading multiple files at one time using the Dropbox plug-in. I find that I have to select each file individually in order for images to load successfully. Also, because my files are pretty large, I’ve been doing all of my uploading through Dropbox and I’m wondering if it possible to have multiple files for one item using the plug-in? I haven’t been able to figure out how to do this.

This week’s reading made me consider what sort of the information, beyond metadata, I’d like to present alongside the items in my archive to create a compelling and useful exhibit. While including metadata is essential, I think providing text on historical context, links to other sites that explore similar themes, and excerpts from pertinent articles would make my site much more useful and accessible to visitors, who may or may not have any knowledge of Yellow Pearl. I’m wondering how much text/information other students are planning on including on their sites.

Project

John Bence — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:08:49 +0000

http://johndbence.org/kendall/

This site is created from the book The War between the United States and Mexico, Illustrated by George Wilkins Kendall, a journalist for the New Orleans Picayune. His book not only included descriptions of each battle but also included a dozen large, high quality lithographs by Carl Nebel. It was published in 1851.

Tech Question.

John Bence — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:59:49 +0000

I just tried to move all of my “project” files from johndbence.org/kendall into the parent directory so that it would just be johndbence.org. However, since I already added files and insalled omeka, it made all the links reference the previous hierarchy and didn’t change when i moved it. Is there a way to do this without having to change the code?

Discussion Question 11/11

Tracie Logan — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:58:28 +0000

This week’s readings made me wonder what happens when a system needs to be upgraded or transferred to a new system. Are the systems compatible with one another? If a small organization had an outdated system of information, would they be able to easily switch to the latest and greatest, or would they have to start from scratch?

For my tech question, how specific should we be when filling out the “subject” section of Dublin Core? For example, I have labeled my images with both Carnival and Mardi Gras, but for the purpose of my archive they are the same thing. I am following what other institutions have done, but their collections are vastly more broad than what I am doing.

discussion question/ response

LEJ Rachell — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:30:48 +0000

Tech question - is it possible to make the exhibit page with thumbnails of all the items in the archive
the first one seen (index page) when a user goes to the digital archive section of my site?

Response to collections post - I had the exact same questions when I started with omeka. I guess
 I'm leaning towards theme/subject over format, but I do have one collection that is all photos but of the chairmen of the
of the organization I'm researching. Most of my collections will be named after the types of documents in that collection.

Student Project

Sarah Hodge — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:18:41 +0000

http://sarahhodge.net/project/

My project focuses on a 1717 piracy case of the Vice Admiralty Court of the Province of New York concerning the pirate Richard Caverley. The collection consists of depositions from witnesses, accomplices, and pirates.

Discussion Question

nderise — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:17:26 +0000

Thanks to Amanda, I actually do not have too many technical questions! (thanks again Amanda!)

The one quick question I do have is how to change the URL name of our Omeka site? Currently my site is: http://www.nicolederise.com/omeka-1.1/ which is not the best name…Do I just change my folder name from Omeka -1.1 to what I want it to be?

I do have a comment/opinion/question to share regarding this week’s reading, specifically related to the article by Elings and Waibel and partly to a discussion that came up in a previous class. I am finding as I read more and more about how to use and propagate the digital humanities the focus is constantly on making everything more “efficient,” “economic,” and “centralized.” Why is it so important to integrate and aggregate? What I see from this article is almost a corporatization (if that is a word) of information (which we discussed briefly). It reminds me of when I worked for a corporate company and hours upon hours and meetings upon meetings were dedicated to “streamlining” and “efficiency evaluations” of processes. What is so wrong with having a de-centralized framework of information, one in which items must be searched for? And by centralizing, how does that impact how people do research and could it possibly be harmful?

question, 11/11

Sarah Hodge — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:11:19 +0000

I had some difficulty in distinguishing the Dublin Core elements “source” and “relation”. Both elements were described in Omeka as a related resource. Is source the physical collection the digitized item is a part of?

Student Project

Ann Christiansen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:58:57 +0000

http://annchristiansen.com/project/project/ My project is on constellation maps/atlas. My site will be a collection of constellation maps/atlas.

Discussion Question 11/11

Ann Christiansen — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:52:17 +0000

What should we use stuff that we might not have information about the original form because we got it off of the internet? I have stuff that I am using but meta data has links that no longer works. What should I do?

question 11.11

bharmon — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:31:58 +0000

As the semester goes on and we all start uploading items to Omeka in earnest I am beginning to wonder about the other features on the site we have yet to encounter, namely Collections. I believe this is merely a away to group certain items together, since as we discussed in class last week unless items are carefully uploaded so they follow a chronological order, they are generally upload in a more haphazard ordering (not like any physical “archive” I know of, but certainly how my archive is progressing) So what should be the criteria for the collection groupings? By time period- 19th century and 20th century? By geography- items dealing with a specific place linked to each other? By theme/subject- items having to do with, say the General Slocum disaster, together in a collection? By format- all historic photos in one, all newspaper articles in another. Since items can be in more than one collection, the possibilities seem endless, I was just wondering how other people were planning on using the Collection feature.

jump on the bandwagon or retreat for the hills?

meredith505dav — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:27:06 +0000

This isn’t actually my discussion question for this week, but I stumbled across this article from the Chronicle of Higher Ed which was posted yesterday and it seems to completely 100% contradict the enthusiasm for social networking tools and technology that many of our readings have expressed.

If people have time I would love to hear what you think of this article… it feels like he is completely denouncing courses like our current Digital History class… I just want to throw it out there because it seemed sooo contradictory to everything we have been reading / discussing.

http://chronicle.com/article/dfs/49078/

Thanks!

Open Archives Initiative Miscellany

Amanda French — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:37:27 +0000

Hey all, first wanted to let you know that I did manage to get the OAI-PMH plugin working, and I quickly and succesfully imported (or “ingested,” as we like to say) all 480 metadata records for the Library of Congress’s American Memory collection, “African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exhibition.” You can browse through the metadata (though not see the pictures, unfortunately — they sound fascinating) here: http://aphdigital.org/omeka/collections/show/2

Should you wish to try this out yourself (though you probably won’t need to), the trick is to go to the Plugins page, click “configure” for the plugin, and put in this: /usr/local/php5/bin/php (I forgot that I didn’t change that when I upgraded our installation to 1.1).

As for the OAIster database, I sure planned exactly the wrong day to demonstrate it! Even last week it was still available. They have indeed smushed it into WorldCat.org, and they report in the news release that “OCLC plans to release a freely accessible, discrete view of the OAIster records in January 2010 through a URL specific to OAIster.” Sorry, guys.

I did find the item in WorldCat related to Tracie’s project that I remembered finding in OAIster, however: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/284348205 She has doubtless already found that particular item via the Lousiana State Museum, of course. All or most of this digital archival stuff is already online, so if you’ve done a reasonable amount of web searching, you’re likely to have discovered it already — but it’s worth running another few searches in WorldCat: try limiting to “Internet Resource” and “Computer File” and see what you get. “OAIster” doesn’t work as a keyword. If you do find material whose metadata you’re interested in harvesting, you’ll need to go to the list at http://www.openarchives.org/Register/BrowseSites to get the “base URL” to put into the Omeka plugin.

Just to reiterate: this is *probably* not useful to you for this project, but I did want to teach you about this initiative to make archival metadata shareable and interoperable.

Week 9: Data and Metadata

Amanda French — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:35:47 +0000

First question: What was it like trying to describe your object?

Second question: What one thing did you take away from the David Weinberger book?

Main lesson for today: It is important to be able to share data and metadata, whether it’s first-level, second-level, or third-level (according to Weinberger’s typology).

Examples of XML (used for text, both data and metadata):

An iTunes library XML document — look on the hard drive of any computer with iTunes installed
An RSS feed — http://aphdigital.org/feed/
An Encoded Archival Description (EAD) — William Fonds Provenance: An Inventory of His Papers at the Cupcake Corners Historical Society (from the EAD Cookbook on the Society for American Archivists website
A Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) document: — compare to the web version

Examples of databases:

The database(s) that manages our course website and Omeka installation

Data and metadata sharing:

HousingMaps.com is a “mashup” of Google Maps and Craigslist.
The Open Archives Initiative sets standards for sharing archives data.
OAIster is a database that allows you to find digital archival collections that share their metadata. (now available through WorldCat!)
The Omeka plugin OAI-PMH Harvester allows you to automatically import lots of metadata records at a time.

Note that someday, because your bibliographies are in shareable data form, someone might be able to reuse them.

Discussion and Technical Question

meredith505dav — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:32:09 +0000

After watching Wesch’s youtube video I clicked onto the “a vision of today’s students” video next to it. Both videos stress is a kind of crowd sourcing mentality and the variety of sources available to students (i.e. students aren’t looking solely in textbooks for information). I was really struck by one student who’s page said “I will read 8 books this year, 2300 webpages and 1281 facebook profiles.” all of that reading, and presumable commenting on pages, creates a huge source of new user-created information.

My question this week is how are we going to incorperate this “we will edit the web” group-power mentality? I think someone else mentioned this question early and I’m also wondering about the ability to allow people to create their own tags. Is this an option in Omeka? (I couldn’t find it when I was looking early today)

Also, as a side question, does anyone know if Omeka has a timeline plugin? (I’m trying to figure out a way to link objects in a chronological way)

Metadata Discussion

atimolat — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:21:46 +0000

In his chapter “What Nothing Says”, Weinberger discusses tagging. His discussion covers how people tag items particularly in reference to tagging of items on the web by non-professionals. He questions if people tag for themselves to refind pages or to help others find pages. I wonder if most people realize that they are “tagging” items, particularly visual media. Very often items are titled, thereby creating tags. Were there to be some formal understanding of tagging and metadata amongst flickr users (for example) I wonder if their tagging and titling and use of metadata would change.

One more comment

Rachel Moskowitz — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:18:52 +0000

Some of the tagging comments posted for today made me realize I had another question, this time related to tagging. Both Everything is Miscellaneous and the YouTube video emphasize the importance of tagging to help facilitate finding what we need in a digital environment where we can’t rely on a traditional chronological, alphabetic, or a similarly structured hierarchy. Weinberger describes, for example, various efforts undertaken to record every known name for every species (All Species Foundation project, UBio project, and others), including both scientific and common names, and variations of those names based on geography. With this in mind, should we be focusing less on Library of Congress subject headings and more on our own social tagging of our items, or should it be roughly equal for both? I wonder whether our items will be more accessible with the non-standard tags we create than with the official Library of Congress subject headings.

Technical Question

KaitMedley — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:35:22 +0000

Every time I try to connect to the server through Filezilla on my computer it takes a long time of retrying over and over again. All the information I enter is correct and eventually it connects but often after a long time. Is this a common problem, or am I doing something incorrectly?

Technical/Discussion Qs — 11/4

AshleyJones — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:28:40 +0000

I am also considering the possibility of adding tagging capabilities to my digital archive — both self-created and user-created. What issues might arise from this? Is this possible to do with Omeka? I wonder how much upkeep this would require on the part of the creator (as in deleting inaccurate or offensive tags).

Additionally — more of an ethical question with the materials I’ll be digitizing. My archive will focus on NYU student activism during the late 1960s, so you can imagine I have run into examples of profanity and obscene images. The most common examples of obscenity are the messages that students left on the walls and windows of the buildings they occupied. How do we feel about offensive phrases or words appearing in a public digital archive? As a student of history, I would not think to exclude these images, for they help to capture the heightened emotion of the events. But as for being useful to teachers and students, some caution might be appreciated. Since it will be open to the public, should I include a disclaimer? Where should it appear — on the main page, or as a message before one views each potentially offensive image? Have you seen examples of this in other digital archives that deal with sensitive subject matter?

Discussion and Tech Question – 11/4

AManghnani — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:01:06 +0000

I found David Weinberger’s assertion that “In the miscellaneous order, the only distinction between metadata and data is that metadata is what you already know and data is what you’re trying to find out” really compelling, though I’m not quite sure that I fully understand what he is implying. (104) Does this mean that in the miscellaneous order all data is metadata? Is the “miscellaneous order” inherently digital? Would this make second and third orders of order mutually exclusive? How can professional cataloging systems be used in conjunction with user-generated folksonomies?

On a technical note, I hadn’t been to my project site since Saturday and am now getting an error message when I visit my website. Is anyone else having this problem? I’m now trying to reinstall Omeka again.

Tech Question.

John Bence — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:48:46 +0000

Has anyone tried the Dropbox plugin? It says it was designed for Omeka 1.0 and it does in fact seem a little off to me, it automatically creates an item with the file name as opposed to a name I give it. Just wondering if this is just me or if anyone has tried to batch-add and run into problems.

The Geolocation plugin on Omeka is working fine for me, but isn’t there a more complicated way of doing this? GIS I believe it’s called. How do we do that? Also, excited to see that some new plugins became available for Omeka. 1.1, like the CoolIris extension.

question, 11/4

Sarah Hodge — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:46:52 +0000

Are we just describing the digital version of our resources or should we include metadata for the physical object as well? Dublin Core has “type” and “format” elements – for type I put “text” and for format I put “image”, but noticed in the examples that you could also enter “physical object” for format. If we do describe the physical as well, how will that read to an audience, as the physical object’s metadata is not separated form the digital version’s metadata?

Also, is there a way to change the layout of the metadata pages? I have four pages for one item and it stacks the thumbnails on top of each other with the metadata below. It just looks a little strange.

Technical Question for 11/4

NJMilano — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:24:14 +0000

I have a technical question related to John’s question from class last week. I’ll be posting some Civil War letters to my archive, and if I can type transcripts of these letters in Microsoft Word can I also enable a keyword search similar to the one on EEBO or JSTOR where you can search the Microsoft Word documents, but the image the viewer is able to see will actually be the scanned letter? I know we talked about this a bit during the scanning demonstration, but I’m confused about how to accomplish this on my website.

Tech Question November 4

Ann Christiansen — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:15:47 +0000

I am downloading pictures from the internet onto my computer to upload on my web page. Should I do that or should I just link pictures to my website?

11/4 Tech. question

jmonjeau — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:31:47 +0000

Is there any way for me to designate what is shown in the thumbnail version of my image? I’m using newspaper articles and the uploaded image only shows the blurred lines of text. I think it would be helpful if I could somehow have the headline appear as the image thumbnail.

I’ve also had trouble formatting the image in Paint.net so that it will be large enough to read. Might it be a better strategy to print out the articles from their PDF form and re-scan them myself?

Discussion Question 11/4

Tracie Logan — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:24:08 +0000

Both the Weinberger book and the youtube video advocate the users ability to tag. Should we make our sites available for users to add their own tags to our images? Is that even possible? In general with tagging, is there a way to monitor or control the tags, to prevent things like repeated tags or tags containing offensive material?

Also, I tried to change my Omeka theme, but failed to do so. I downloaded the theme I want (winter), unzipped the file, and then pushed it to my website, but it didn’t change anything. So I tried moving the file from my website’s folder to my Project folder, but that didn’t do anything either. Is there a step I am missing or have I placed it in the wrong folder? Should I delete the theme and try again? Unfortunately, I didn’t write down how it was done in class last week.

Discussion question

LEJ Rachell — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:56:56 +0000

My main problem right know may be trying to figure out if there is a size limit to files (.jpg, .pdf) that can be uploaded. I tried to upload two .pdf files the other day, 16mb and 18mb. It took a while but still wouldn’t upload. If I have this problem now, what will happen when I try and upload a (small) video file?

I am also having trouble with loading files onto my exhibit. It would help if I had more examples to work with, but I am having a hard time with the exhibit.

-EJ