Constructing a Digital History Website

Of the 44 plug-ins available at omeka.org , at least (or as many as) seven could prove very useful for the design of my group's website project.  Each of the seven are listed below, arranged top-to-bottom according to how important I think it will be for our project.   I include under each a brief explanation of why it would be beneficial for our project.  (My group includes Jessica Injejikian, Samantha Machalik, Jay Requard, and myself.  Our project is on "the covers of Playboy as a reflection on American society's views on sexuality, politics, music, etc.")

1) Image Annotation: "allows users to annotate images"

    - this plug-in is practically imperative for our project, given that it revolves around analysis and commentary regarding the various topics addressed by Playboy during its first 16 years

2) Image Re-size: "gives administrators the ability to re-size image derivatives"

    - enlarging or shrinking images of covers on pages could help us juxtapose, arrange, and categorize particular issues according to time-period, literary content, etc.

3) Zoom It:  "embeds a zoom.it image viewer into item show pages"

    - useful for inserting a larger number of cover-images onto a single web-page or into a single area on a page: users could scroll over the covers to view magnified images thereby enabling easy perusal of the cover content, whether of photographs or articles mentioned

4) Neatline Time: "create timelines in Omeka"

    - it might be neat (no pun intended) to place the magazine covers along one side of a timeline, and having the other side show relevant socio-political events of the same period, may provide insight into how progressive and liberal Playboy was (or was not) at particular points in U.S. cultural time; or to show how cover-art and articles cited evolved during certain periods of Playboy's early history

5) Social Bookmarking: "inserts a customizable list of social bookmarking sites below each item in your Omeka database"

    - a nearly requisite plug-in for any site-builder who wants visitors to be able to rapidly and easily make referrals to friends, family, or associates they think might also be intrigued (or offended by) the site

6) Simple Contact Form: "adds a simple contact form for users to contact the administrator"

    - another must have for site-builders interested in hearing feedback about how the site is perceived by visitors

7) Contribution: "allows collecting items from visitors"

    - might be neat to have if visitors have other media they'd like to digitalize in order to provide further comparisons or contrasts on or insight into the material addressed on or the commentary in our site

(All quoted and underscored text are from omeka.org/add-ons/plugins/ )

On the Public History of Original Military Records

 This blog discusses fold3.com, an expansive and interactive online collection of original American military records including: photos, military and associated government documents, and media correspondences. 

How does the site execute its main idea?

The site's main idea seems to be three-fold: to provide public education on America's most prominent wars, to engage public discourse thereon, and to provide a public history memorial online.

In doing so, fold3.com adopts a simplistic, intuitive design whose nicest feature is probably the various search options readily provided on the homepage.  This includes a conspicuous and centrally located search box, various topically categorized search links, and the visible sub-menu search links that pop up when the more general link is clicked. 

   The variety of specific search options makes the site's advertised 97 million-plus digitized images and documents seem less imposing and easier to navigate and explore according to one's particular, specific - or, as in my case, undiscovered - interests.  With one click on any of the wars, visitors receive a good general idea of the breadth of content contained within the site.  It does, however, say little about the emotional depth and carnal power of much of the content, in particular the occasional gut-wrenching photographs of certain wounded soldiers. 

    Lastly, the site tempts one to linger by clearly highlighting a "Featured Spotlight" historical document on the homepage, which thereby instantly provides site visitors with an example of one of the many types of content the site contains.

How are the collections used?  To what effect?

 The collections are used in two primary ways.  

    First, as an educational and scholarly resource insofar as it provides a treasure trove of public, military, government, and media content documenting America's most widely publicized military excursions.     

  Second, the site functions as a memorial and museum for the preservation and display of said media memory regarding major U.S. military excursions.  "Members may create Memorial Pages and, using [fold3's] tools, annotate historical documents, provide commentary, and post their own historical documents for others to view" (from the site's User Agreement).  It is quite remarkable that members may post comments on or even annotate such important historical documents such as the de-classified "Report of the Office of the Secretary of defense Vietnam Task Force" from the "Pentagon Papers."              

    Unfortunately, the site - whether inadvertently or not - perpetuates minimizing beliefs about the vast extent of our country's military involvement.  This results in part because the site appears so thoroughly credible; that is, because of the breadth of and the thoroughness with which it addresses such serious subject matter, the site's less educated or more naïve visitors may be strengthened in the erroneous belief that the seven wars covered constitute the entirety of our nation's military history.

Ferociously addictive is the best way I can describe this site.  I've had no hesitations about advertising it to everyone I think might be even remotely interested in military history and the governmental and political associations with it.

More on the World of Blogs

Expanding Horizons

Education is (at least) a two-step process: becoming aware of how little or what we don’t know, and then incorporating the new content into our own lives either through memorization of that content or the incorporation/utilization of specified techniques.

More Than Meets the Eye

Guilty as charged: when I initially committed myself to becoming acquainted with the world of blogs, I apparently did not commit to surveying a sufficient number of them.  Having surveyed several others, and one exceptional blog in particular, I realize I initially conceived of blogs merely as personal diaries (professionally-related or otherwise).

After encountering and reviewing “Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement” (at https://lcrm.lib.unc.edu/blog/index.php/2012/06/) I realized that blogs aren’t just individual diaries, but that they can serve as social or national diaries as well.

“Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement” (“PTLCRM”) constitutes, as it were, an American social diary covering up to 150 years of American civil rights related activity.  The blogs themselves provide quick introductions to a variety of civil and human rights issues (such as women’s suffrage, organized protests, riots, labor disputes, lynchings – and not just black people’s rights) and the abundance of links contained within nearly every blog aid readers in pursuing a deeper and broader understanding of the subject matter.

PTLCRM provides, both in its blogs and along its borders and margins, a veritable smorgasbord of links to historical archives, secondary scholarly content, and other conversation boards.  The blog, which is set up and laid out much like a typical webpage, simultaneously serves as a scholarly resource, an online discussion board, and an online memorial to the heroes and victims of America’s civil rights legacy.

An Icon's Evolution on the Web

National Geographic has enthralled and amazed readers since 1888 with its incredible, awe-inspiring photography. It fascinatingly documents the growth, persistence, and abundance of life on earth.

Has the online version of National Geographic (“NatGeo” for short) lived up to the standard set by its print version?  Has it transitioned well onto the internet?  Well ...

Method of Evaluation

This blog provides a cursory review and analysis of the evolution of "NatGeo" online by quickly reviewing the website's homepage at three different time points over the last seven years.  Utilized is an internet time-portal called the Wayback Machine, available at http://archive.org/web/web.php.

Adopted here are three standards of judgment, paraphrased, from Stephen Krugs' Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability.  Good webpage design involves three inter-related factors: elegance and ease of design, approachability and intuitiveness of use, and simplicity and straightforwardness of concept layout.

 Evaluation

Utilizing the standards above, a clear and steady progression of improved web design on the NatGeo website can be seen by comparing its appearance on August 10, 2005; May 16, 2008; and August 28, 2012.

The most striking difference from ’05 to ’12 version initially is the vastly improved aesthetic.  In ’05 the website had more words than photos and the photos were small.  In ’08 the photos were slightly larger and more abundant but there’s still less imagery than print.  By ’12 the website has become – like the print publication itself – a veritable feast for the eyes.  There are numerous large photos accompanied by terse captions, either of which may be clicked to see or learn more – a note which leads to consideration of approachability and intuitiveness of design.

In '05 the website's homepage was cluttered and cramped; much of the font was the same size and it is rendered even more difficult to read because almost everything is underscored.  Improvements marked the ’08 version wherein the categories are more clearly delineated and various size fonts (which aren’t all underscored) make it a little easier to scan and sift through the abundance of text.  The ’12 version is wonderfully streamlined with well-demarcated sections containing a variety of font sizes and colors, which helps the minimal amount of text to really pop on the screen.  Likewise, with each successive version of the website the search box became more prominent and was rendered more conspicuous, thereby contributing to the simplistic ease of browsing the ‘12 version.

Summary

In ’05 the site was cluttered with a haphazard layout.  By '08 it had been given a sleeker presentation and been improved by a friendlier, more intuitive feel.  By August of 2012 the site is sleek, elegant, and wonderfully streamlined; it’s so simply arranged and neatly organized that navigating through its content is gleefully intuitive.

National Geographic's legendary photography, to those who’ve encountered its magazines, illumines and enlarges our understanding of the earth we inhabit.  Its improved appearance on the web will assist in continuing that noble endeavor.

The World of Blogs

Herein lay collected thoughts and reactions based upon my recent introduction to the world of blogs, as read from Cleopatria’s Blogroll (http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/9665/html).

1st Lesson Learned

As with books and covers, apparently one also cannot judge a blog by its title.  I learned this by inspecting several blogs, two of which are discussed below. 

The blog-title “Between Athens and Jerusalem” (in the category "Ideas and Beliefs") is catchy, creative, and thought provoking, and therefore I couldn’t resist inspecting it.   However, had I not already been familiar with the name "Taylor Branch" – he penned a magisterial trilogy on the modern Civil Rights Movement sub-titled “America In the King Years” – I likely may have never inspected a blog by that name (in the category "United States History").

Comments on Content, Truth, and Method

In “Between Athens and Jerusalem” I appreciated and was intellectually stimulated by the somewhat Hegelian dialectical approach he frequently invokes, as when he says, “the Christian life is a juxtaposition of humility and confidence,” or when he states that "the joy of incarnation and the sorrow of the Cross must always inform one another" in the minds and hearts of the faithful.

“Between” displays an articulate, intelligent literary style.  His facility with Christian theological expression is pleasant to read initially, but after a while such expressions are – for me – rendered immaterial and ethereal insofar as they fail to be incarnated in a genuine body of concern for specific modes of earthly welfare (in the course of the blog – less than thirty entries –only  a handful of specific concerns are mentioned).  Nevertheless, his prayers are a pleasure to read, as they are both elegant and edifying.

While the florid language can be intriguing and the content is thought-provoking, the resultant length of the blogs in “Between” is slightly over-bearing, especially since they are presented as reflections and musings.  The emphasis is the heart of individuals, and this is most evident in his entry on “Weslyan Distinctives,” where a properly conditioned heart is presented and espoused as a prerequisite for productive social dialogue.  Nevertheless, the primary agenda in “Between” is finding an appropriate theologically rooted language for understanding, addressing, and ameliorating issues of contemporary social concern.  The blogs are, mostly, musings in that direction.

The utilization of symbolic truth, with its inherent vagaries, is his primary tool.

Contrarily, the "Taylor Branch" blog does not engage in musing.  His blogs’ content directly parallels the subject matter of his major published works (e.g. the modern Civil Rights Movement and democratic equality).  Even if one was unfamiliar with this author, a brief perusal of his entries' titles quickly and clearly reveals their theme. This blog is like a living addendum to the author's books or an active commentary between author and readers.  His language, albeit articulate, is plain and direct.  Branch’s blogroll displays an assiduous mind and a passionate heart eager to assist in calls for a more just and equitable American democracy. 

Branch wields the sword of empirical, rather than symbolic, truth (critiques against the soundness of his logic or the veracity of his evidence, notwithstanding).

Of course, there is certainly room for and value in each approach within the sphere of civic- and nationally-oriented social discourse …

Yet, the value is not in the approach, per se, but in the audience that each mode of discourse can reach out to and connect with.

"What is Digital History?"

The history of digital history:

Digital history began in the latter half of the twentieth century with the storage of content on laserdiscs and CD-Roms.  Digital history as it's most widely known today first began to blossom on the internet during the mid 1990’s, and it burgeoned and ballooned rapidly during the ensuing decade.  Digital history online may generally be sub-divided between commercial or pay-for-access sites and non-commercial or open-access sites.  

What is it?

Digital History refers to massive storehouses online of various types of data.  Daniel J. Cohen, in the first chapter of his book Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web, sub-divides all that content into 5 general categories, namely: archives, numerous secondary materials, pedagogically-related materials, discussion boards, and organizational content. 

Evaluation of digital history:

      Digital, online history is both a boon and a burden to the dissemination of valuable and accurate historical knowledge.  It is a boon, primarily, because it radically increases both the rate and ease of accessibility to not only a broader but also a deeper wealth of coveted historical content (and commentary upon it) than was heretofore available to even the most well-connected scholar or researcher.  Perhaps the greatest aspect of this boon, is referred to as “hypertextuality,” a function of internet usage that enables users to follow more closely – and without the tendentious labor of poring through unnecessary or irrelevant content – the specific trails of information they intended to follow as well as to pursue felicitous tangents of piqued curiosity, via hyperlinked keywords and search engines.  There are a few critics of hypertextuality, however, but they utilize the same reasoning [and almost certainly the same online resources] as do its hundreds of millions of proponents (namely, that since web-users can single out and isolate specific themes or points of data within larger documents, they are not required to understand or hardly even encounter the context within which the original author presented the theme or data).

      Digital, online history adds a burden to the dissemination of valuable and accurate historical knowledge because of misleading, dubious, inflammatory or even false “informational content” that is so easily posted and propagated on the web.  Its “published” presence therein provides such content with a veneer of legitimacy, thereby potentially mis-informing many people.  However, there is a silver lining to this dark cloud and it’s due primarily to the presence of online discussion boards and to the ease of uploading content; the former, because they allow public perceptions of historical phenomena to be easily recorded and shared online, and the latter because historical enthusiasts may take original and previously unpublished archival data they’ve had in private possession and present it online for public access. 

The future of digital history:

Digital history in the future faces two primary problems that are much easier to describe than they will be to deal with.   The first problem relates to the copious quantities of content being constantly uploaded onto the internet, and the issues related to sifting through it.  The second problem relates to legal concerns like access and privacy; the various issues that arise due to such concerns in other areas of human interactivity have already and will continue to be legal issues in regard to digital history.   On the bright side, we may fairly and rightly suspect, however, that the future of digital history has much good yet in store to both offer us and be used by us.

One guarantee among all this: history has taught us that we never really know for sure what exactly the future holds.