The readings this week discuss the issues surrounding historical writing and data usage, and how to represent data from sources.  The second reading seems more technical and advanced, because I haven’t learned any of the coding language(s) yet.

Reading Highlights

Gibbs/Owens

This article points out that even though historians are using digitized and born-digital sources in their research, they are still writing in traditional forms.  They call for a “new level of methodological transparency in history writing” and say it may be time to de-emphasize “narrative in favor of illustrating the rich complexities between an argument and the data that supports it.”  I think the sentiment behind the last statement is controversial.  I am not sure I would be comfortable explaining my use of digital methods, as part of my historical writing.

At present, I wouldn’t write about my experience in the archive, or my failures at finding sources, or how I came up with an insight – in a scholarly article about a historical topic.   I am not sure what that kind of transparency has to do with a scholarly argument or why they should be woven together, necessarily.  I do believe it is essential to combine digital methodologies with traditional history writing methodologies to get a more complex and rich understanding of our sources. Yes, the argument is affected by this mixture of richness and complexity.  The historical argument isn’t about mechanics, it’s more about contextualization.  Anyway, this idea is a source of professional tension that I can relate to.

Now, if this point is more about teaching other historians by example, then I understand it. Blogging, workshops, conferences, classes like this one are definitely about digital methodology and are by nature transparent.   These are part of the individual historian’s experience and should be shared, as we are doing in this blog.

Spaeth

In the Lab readings we have been learning about the differences between source-oriented and data-oriented approaches to database design.  Spaeth seems to be advocating a source-oriented database approach that is more flexible because it addresses all the various kinds of information a textual source, such as an inventory list, contains.  In this discussion Spaeth tries to provide a solution to the ordered hierarchy of content overlaps that occur when you have “fragmented texts, implied and ambiguous data, and cross-references” that violate hierarchical assumptions. I have to admit that all of this is difficult for me to understand.  I realize he decides to ‘encode multiple hierarchies’ to  try to represent how items and rooms relate to each other,  in the inventory list.  I know XML is involved because it is more flexible and allows for consistent analysis (61).  Exactly how XML technically does that is what I still have to learn.

This week’s readings made me think about the historians relationship with the structure of knowledge and sources.  Our relationship is changing.  We can now digitally reformulate the structure of knowledge to find different kinds of information from our sources.  This is a little bit disconcerting, because I am also learning how to deal with traditional structures of knowledge, like archives.  In my case, I am actually learning how to digitally structure knowledge first, before I’ve had first-hand experience working in physical archives. Interesting.

Reading Highlights

Erickson

This was a good example of a historian who decided to use a relational database for information management.  Erickson learned that “how we organize and interact with information from sources can affect what we discover in them.”  Once she had her ‘digital note cards’ she was able to sort and sift, and get ‘granular’ with the information she had collected.  Full-text searchability was a key factor here, which allowed her to organize what she had noted, but also to recognize new patterns.   The database was relational because Erickson was able to see how some information related to other information in ways she had not previously recognized.  I was encouraged by this example.

Hitchcock

I appreciated this article because it helped me see how historical authority has been based on archival work.  Archival work can be emotional and visceral, because of a sense of direct connection to the past.  Digitization changes the historians access to sources, takes them out of context of the archival structure.  Furthermore, Hitchcock pinpoints keyword searching as a factor in melting the archival structure.  I am not sure I agree with the statement that a changing relationship with archives “undermines … our claim to social authority and authenticity as interpreters of the past” (89).  Then again, I haven’t yet found something in an archive and had the pleasure of authoritatively interpreting it.  The point is taken that if all sources are digital, and therefore, reproducible, the historians special understanding of a source (found in an archive) could become less authoritative.

It seems like the readings this week caused some discomfort in our group.  We read about the divide between professional and amateur historians, the academy and the public, memory and history.  The instigator of this discomfort appears to be the internet.  That is to say, digital tools, spaces, and practices in relation to history as they are used by professional historians and amateur historians are illuminating a divide.

While I am keen to earn professional credentials, I believe public interest in history should be cultivated.  We are all amateurs at something, we all have unique memories.  I believe the internet/digital age is and will continue to make history accessible, perhaps someday, transparent. Professional historians can now learn to participate in the process.

Reading Highlights

Madsen-Brooks 

The discussion about historical credibility, politicization, and professional intervention is necessary because of the nature of a polarized society.  I am not surprised by this.  I agree that professional historians are presented “with new opportunities and modes for expanding historical literacy” online.  I do not think wish to police public memory, fight conspiracy theories, etc.  I do like the role of educating others on how to be more critical of primary sources, and find ways for ‘citizen history’ projects to intersect with professional research.

Wolff

This discussion seemed to be about historians’ comfort level with open-access sources and processes of knowledge dissemination.  Of course historians benefit from databases and digitized sources and we use these more and more.  We may get access through professional subscriptions or our association with educational institutions.  However, the general public also has access to “vast swaths of historical information and analysis…on the open web.”  This is where we “share a space” with the public.  My intellectual heart skipped a beat when I read “the normative form of access to the past will be electronic.”  I agree and am excited about the possibilities.

Unsworth

I heard the old “publish or perish” mantra in my undergraduate history courses.  It’s a scary proposition to think I have to publish research to earn my credentials, but really, who is going to read it? Unsworth basically says we should find the audience, which is perhaps not entirely academic, or utterly specialized.   The problem is how to be effective or profitable as electronic publishers learn how to charge for their services appropriately.   Readership and communication between professionals about their field is still important, and digital publishing is another avenue to maintain these vital paths in our field.

We are in a time period when the paper and digital book struggle for the top spot, much the way scrolls and printed books competed for it during the print revolution. Our practice will truly change when the scale tips to reflect the desire of the majority of historians to engage and use digital technology.  I see no reason to disbelieve that a hundred years from now, books will be collectors items.  This will make digital research, books, writing, and interpretation completely normal in the history profession.

Obviously I have questions and concerns about the professional aspects of this change, because I hope to make a living in the history profession, quite soon.  I absolutely want to be proficient, and do history in the traditional sense because it is the way to become an expert and to be respected in my field, right now.  However, I have no intention of being left behind as the generations after me use digital tools in a native way to become historians.  So here I am, learning how to be a digital historian, too.  Wish me luck!

Reading Highlights

Tanaka: Our relationship with time has influenced our interpretation of history.  Our version of historical practice started in the 18th century.  Our sense of history is linear. Temporality is another way to interpret history.  Human society is temporal, technology is linear.  There is a tension here that makes some historians uncomfortable (?).  This tension underlies problems of historical interpretation.  Historical expertise is now so specialized that we become inflexible specialists, unable to interpret the bigger human experiences of history .

Dorn: Digital history is just another historiographical  development. Digital history is growing and maturing.  Primary sources and the “data objects” tied to them, publishing platforms,  and the first-mover advantage should give historians confidence in their academic use of digital tools.  We are starting to legitimize digital historical scholarship, annotation, professional recognition (tenureship).  Dorn lists several “tools” used in digital history right now.  They are tools for argumentation; teaching and learning; artifact and event presentation.  Dorn makes an excellent point: these tools match up well “to the traits of existing scholarly infrastructure for historians.”  It is up to us to evaluate the scholarly work in creating the tools and infrastructure. (italics mine).  Major issue:  collaboration vs lone scholar reviewed by small group of experts.  Digitization allows for transparency and collaboration.  How do we make that scholarly?

Hughes:  I consider this compilation of articles a deep dive into the state of digital history  in 2008.  There were many digital history/archaeology issues in this compilation which I had never encountered before.  The experts at this conference were in the thick of it, reporting on their projects and experiences.  I will just note the three ways Information and Communications Technology (ICT) “methods […] were being used to create new knowledge in history and archaeology” (193).  By 1) addressing research questions otherwise unable to be resolved. 2) Asking new research questions. 3) Facilitating and enhancing existing research.  I would like to know how things have progressed in the last seven years, and I think this course will help me figure that out.

I picked up a book, Teaching History in the Digital Age, by T. Mills Kelly (2013) not because I necessarily want to teach digital history.  However, I am interested in how education is dealing with digital history.  I think a view from both sides will be helpful to any historian who wants to put their work out on the web, institutionally or in general.  We should have an idea how our digital work will be looked at.  It isn’t impossible that our digital audience will include students.  So, I will report back on the insights that Kelly provides after I read it.

Read about this book here.

3/1/15

So far the most important thing I have learned from this book is how to teach college students to use digital sources properly.  We can’t just say be careful out there!  Kelly makes the point that just because students are native technology users, it doesn’t mean they automatically know what a trustworthy digital source is (46).  Even professional historians get duped.

Also, more applicable this term, if I understand how students use the internet for research, I may be able to design a digital history project to be more helpful and informative to people looking for that information; not just students, but everyone who is interested.  This point reminds me of my experience in the UNR inaugural class called Digitizing History (History 300a) in which we had to try to figure out how to condense historical information for a website.  It was a difficult thing to do.  Maybe this will help me in the future: (from page 23).

• What happened?
• When did it happen?
• Why did it happen?
• Who was responsible?

This seems very fundamental, but I promise, as a historian trying to translate a comprehensive, scholarly narrative to the web, these basics can get buried. I will keep these basics in mind for future digital projects.