reaction to reading for 6 November 2013

We had only one reading that we were charged with this week and two websites to explore.  The theme of these sites and the article in question was commemoration, something that is incredibly hallowed in this world of ours.  The reading was an article from a history blog from the city of Chicago, Illinois entitled ''Commemoration and the Public Historian.''  The site's main theme was the portrayal of the historian as a moral pedagogue of sorts.  The historian, according to the blog, has a moral obligation to teach the public a version of history that is the truest and in a moral sense.  The example used was the occurrence of memorial services of Americans, in Chicago, by Czechs and memorial services, by Americans, of the remembrance of the destruction of the Czech city of Lidice.  Commemoration is an important part of history in itself and of the work of any historian, including a public historian.  To allow no one to forget about past wars, atrocities and more positive events allows history to live on in many forms.  The digital form is one of those shapes.  Digital commemorative sites, such as www.stockport1914-1918.co.uk, which is a First World War commemorative site for British soldiers who were killed in the First World War and were from Stockport, England, are numerous and represent many different groups.  The two sites we were charged with exploring were for the Kent State Massacre of 1970 and 9/11.  The first site showed the pictures of the four students killed by Ohio National Guardsmen and showed activities from a junior college commemorating the massacre.  This is one way to digitally commemorate an event; to put it in blog form.  The 9/11 site is another way; through photographs.  As we step into this modern age, photographs are much easier to take now than they were 20 years ago.  Photographs also speak volumes of historical and emotional words.  Historical photographs are valuable resource tools that anyone should have access to and this archive is a splendid way of giving that access to the people.  Digital archives help commemorate events of any historical significance and they help keep those who perished's memories alive.

reaction to reading 24/10/13 for 30 October 2013

The readings that I have been charged with to read this time were ''Public Media Meets Public History,'' an article from CMS Impact's website, a Dell Press Release about Clemson University creating a social media listening centre and a well written project proposal by Professor Burton.  Each of these readings deals with the usage of social media, that faithful yet unpredictable old friend of you and I, in historical studies.  

The first reading deals with different projects that used a form of social media.  The first was the Veterans' History Project, which I looked into, personally, and found it to be a site of storytelling.  The article calls it this and it did not fail to deliver, especially when I read about a Japanese-American soldier from Hawaii who witnessed the Pearl Harbour bombing.  This type of site uses social media to put a certain story or interpretation across, such as the history groups on Facebook which allow you to tell your own story.  I recently posted a couple of old photographs of my great-grandfather in the British Army during the First World War on a First World War Centenary page.  Others had stories to tell, and these sometimes included facts that were previously unknown to me.  The second example was the exceedingly interesting Water Conflict Map.  This was a Google Map which had bubbles that told of different battles and conflicts over water, all around the world and across history.  This is useful in that one could pinpoint a certain conflict in a certain region and could even use this technology to solve border wars or to at least fix them temporarily.  This article gave a beginner's insight into history and social media.

The next reading was an article about the social media listening centre at Clemson University.  The centre is an important event in the university's history in that it is the first of its kind.  The statement from Jason Thatcher, the associate professor in the centre's management department, sums up the main use and importance of the centre:  ''My students are learning to listen to the online conversations around private, non-profit, and public organizations. By learning how to listen and what to listen for, they can understand how to better engage in the civil discourse around different parts of our society.''  This statement from Professor Thatcher directly states the importance of the centre.  This centre shows, as well, that history and social media can be used to help humans understand each other and themselves, both past and present.

The final work was Professor Burton's project proposal.  Professor Burton wishes to use social media to ''further enhance'' history and its studies.  His first example was the causes of the Civil War, a conflict that is, sadly, inaccurately studied by many.  He states that the use of social media, such as Facebook, Flickr, Instagram and others would give us more knowledge on the Civil War by, through my reckoning, taking all of the stories told of this particular war and putting them together under one roof, digitally speaking.  Then one could study these stories and find the variations in them through certain subjects, such as Professor Burton's graph of Civil War Southern gender stereotypes.  This usage would be quite useful when trying to gather resources and ease some tensions between two parties.  This could also be done with the Spanish Civil War, only on a more careful scale as the tension between Nationalists and Republicans seethes and smolders even now.  This usage of social media in this way in history would take history to another level, a level that is more human and more personal than it is now.  The internet is the campfire and the users of this technology are the campers swapping stories.  This is how I see it.  

reaction to reading 21/10/13

The works that I was charged to read this week were three chapters from Roy Rosenzweig's book Digital History and from an article Shelia A. Brennan and T. Mills Kelly entitled ''Why Collecting History Online is Web 1.5.''  A third work was assigned, but it could not be found on the website and was left off.  The textbook's three chapters went into detail about how to build an audience for one's history website, tips and steps for collecting history online and posing the question of who owns said history.  Rosenzweig puts forth detailed steps and suggestions for each chapter, such as having a guestbook or contact us link on a website to help build an audience, a very helpful table of published and unpublished works in the United States and when their copyrights take effect and the use of listserv and email to collect data.  The table for copyrights is especially useful in that it has the ability to stop plagiarism before it starts and to stop lawsuits as well.  Even if one asks permission legally, there will always be someone who does not want their work or a timeless piece displayed on the world-wide Web.  Email is still useful because so many people still heavily rely on it and trust it.  The building of an audience is important.  With no one to lecture to, the lecture is quite useless, so building and keeping an audience is important.  The chapters in this book were helpful and detailed; they were detailed enough to prompt readers to look up certain terms that they do not understand.

The second work is about collecting history and building a website and the lessons learned by the author of the article.  The site was an archive containing blogs, stories and media from Hurricane Katrina.  The site did not attract the 10s of 1000s that the creators hoped for, though.  The main problem with the site that was created was that it was not user-friendly.  People had to upload photos one at a time when Flickr was available and one could upload many at once.  Also, bloggers sometimes gave permission to upload their blogs and the site would only allow one blog at a time.  This decreased the amount of people coming on the site.  This is true of any site; it must be user-friendly and use the same technology as the other sharing sites, something that is mentioned in the site's section ''Lessons Learned.''

Both of these works stress the importance of planning when creating a website for history and by doing so, one can avoid the pitfalls that the Katrina Archive faced.

Project blog, 13 october 2013

As was evident at our last class meeting, Jason Barrett and myself have chosen to undertake a new project, one put forth by Professor Shockley.  The reason for this was, as Jason stated, that the university wished to control our access to resources and to certain historical information, such as information on the slave cabins.  This would not do and this also adds a major headache for us since we now have to start completely over.  I have to write a new proposal, which is not easy considering that I have two term papers to write simultaneously and attend work at 6-10pm monday through friday night.  I will get it finished, though, and now Jason and myself have to confer with Professor Shockley about which tasks each of us could do on the project.  It is vexing in a substantial way and is another example of someone trying to whitewash history with a nice, rose-coloured coat.  We both should be able to do something on this project, I will probably be doing some research and writing what needs to be written and Jason will write some of the cards and re-organise the website itself to make it neater.  This is where we are on our project, a crossroads as to what to do on it.

reaction to reading october 10, 2013

This week's readings pertain to oral history.  Oral history is the oldest form of history, dating back to the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons through epic poems and songs.  Oral history is important in that it has to do with primary sources in the form of interviewees.  One cannot get closer to history than with a conversation with someone who took part in it.

The first reading was from the website ''History Controversy in the News'' which comes, ultimately, from Wikipedia.  The site itself was informative, yet the blog was superfluous since the information came from Wikipedia.  It gave examples of oral history, such as oral history in Britain, mentioning the transition from folklore studies to proper oral history.  It offers useful tidbits of information, such as the correct way to ask questions.  The example given is for interviewers to ask open-ended questions so that the interviewees will not answer the way the interviewer wishes them to answer.  This is useful in that you obtain truthful information from the informant.  The site is informative and gives the correct starting point for a good interview.

The second reading was from the website ''History Matters'' and from the article, ''Oral History Online.''  This site is basically a list of oral history websites, some of which I have explored.  Rutgers Oral History of the Second World War is a fairly decent site which is similar to the Texas Tech Archive for the Vietnam War in that it has letters and transcripts from previous interviews.  Archives such as this are useful in that they contain a decent cache of information but some, like the Rutgers Archive, are not very user-friendly and are not interactive.  For oral history in the secondary form to be useful and beneficial, it needs to be able to be used properly by anyone wishing to utilise the data contained within.

The third reading was a document about the changing face of oral history through time entitled ''Four Paradigm Transformations in Oral History'' by Alistair Thomson.  The document explains the four changes in oral history and its processes, mainly echoing the first reading and its information.  It details some examples, such as biographical methods and changes in objectivity of the oral history processes.  It also tells of the internationalisation of Oral history, with mentioning of the oral history society in Britain.  Nostalgia, being seen as a distorting factor in oral history, is seen in a negative light in this essay.  This is true in that nostalgia does taint memories and makes things seem more golden then they actually were.