Of the millions of websites available to us, there are tens of thousands that deal with history, a fact Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig point out in the introduction to Digital History. What exactly does that mean for aspiring historians, writers, and consumers of historical information? For that matter, what is a website’s purpose anyway and how do academic web authors balance the needs and expectations of so many disparate groups?
Navigating the Technology
Matthew Kirschenbaum argues that digital history, or more broadly, digital humanities involves a “methodological outlook” in which information is presented, interpreted, and processed in some electronic format. With the Internet and further developments like Twitter and blogs, people have found shared “affinities” that have broadened intellectual communities. Cathy Davidson points out that these technologies have led to collaborative learning, research, and production of digital history/information.
An important point Cohen emphasizes in Digital History and in another article, ”Interchange: The Promise of Digital History,” is that though technology is (clearly) central to developing digital content, it should not be the focus. We need to know a bit about the technology, of course, but Cohen tells us to be “architects” rather than “plumbers” – to focus on the structure and presentation of our content rather than the technical implementation.
What do we do with it all?
Technological advancements and ease of access to web-editing software and other platforms like blogs and social media have caused massive growth in both the methodology and field of digital history. The expectations of the very large Internet audience are diverse, but one constant is the notion that information can, should, and will be available. With these changes and new expectations come many of the issues that Cohen and Rosenzweig, among others, discuss – issues of authority, legitimacy, and even an overabundance of information.
So, what do we do? Tools like the Internet Archive are making an effort of at least preserving the endless amount of content making its way to the web. Other databases provide smaller aggregate resources for research. RSS feeds, Twitter, and blogs provide another venue of information, and one that can be selectively followed. We must be careful both as consumers of this information and as potential producers.
I’m interested in what people might have to say about those duel responsibilities. What expectations do you have when you search out digital information? How do you sort out what’s useful and what’s not and what tools have you found most useful in either finding content or creating it?
Given the cacophony of information out there (up there?)I sometimes think that aggregation is the future. If so, another way to ask your question, and I think it’s an excellent one, is who we trust to aggregate or collate or edit information for us. And it seems to me that it has always been thus. We read newspapers that printed the news we thought important, we went to movies on historic topics whose writers and directors we trusted, we listened to radio shows that reflected our own points of view. So, do we trust Google to distill the day’s news or the AHA to highlight the most important developments in historiography?
Mike– This is kinda random, but from an aesthetic standpoint I really like how you broke down your blog post into sections. Helpful to read. From a digital history standpoint I agree that the profession needs to find a way to aggregate and authenticate the mass historical data that is out there in the black whole that we call the Internet. I think Johanna is right to point out that we need more sites like the AHA, OHA, NCPH to legitimize developments in historiography.
I wouldn’t trust Google to be any sort of aggregator of historical sites since it is bound by profit motives and engages in censorship.
Professional historical associations, local historical societies and universities definitely need to be the ones who go about certifying and legitimizing digital humanities. We may disagree on the findings or theories of any humanities site, but hopefully we can rest assured that scholarship was the goal not money.
I agree about your point on Google. What I wonder about the second point is how feasible that certifying process is in terms of the volume of information on the web. It sounds very much like an extension of the peer review process that already occurs for academic journals and monographs. How much can digital information be policed, so to speak, and what do we do with massive volume of information that already exists, is growing, and hasn’t undergone any sort of review?
I do agree with the spirit of your point and on some level it definitely can and would work. It just seems that the general “overabundance” point (see Cohen and Rosenzweig) complicates the process.
The issue of overabundance of information came up several times in this week’s readings. It goes hand in hand with the issues of authority and legitimacy. Perhaps it all comes back to the point that historians need a greater presence on the web in order to be one of those legitimizing forces, though as you point out in your response to Curtis’s comment, we are still left with the question of what can be monitored and the best ways to achieve that.