Chapter Seven: Owning the Past?

Did you copy this right?

What Rosenzweig and Cohen (seriously, I'm going to start calling them Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, my brain cannot wrap around their names!!) really seem to be telling is that it is almost impossible to know whether a work (since 1923) still has an existing copy right or not, and for them it really doesn't seem to matter. They don't exactly let historians off the hook in allowing for the "fair use" of copyrighted work, but they like others (( )) make strong arguments for historians to utilize the "fair use" argument or that it will disappear entirely. They also offhandedly say that the keepers of the copyright are not necessarily looking to come after lowly, poor historians working on the web, and that there are certainly exceptions being an educator and making educational resources available (although there certainly is a difference between working in a gated community for students only, and publishing a website for the wide world to see). 

There is certainly a tension between academics aggressively protecting their own works, and then on the turn around trying to use other works. Although, and I think Cohen and Rosenzweig point this out, that really historians and other academics are afraid of plagiarism and having their ideas stolen, not the accredited, cited use of their works. By aggressively defend their works, it flies in the face of the "educator's exceptionalism." It also devalues the idea that education IS and CAN ONLY BE from a collective and sharing community.

If we just think for a minute about what education is, we find that teachers and other educators are sharing their own ideas to students and learners who take that information and synthesize it in new and exciting ways, making it their own -- that they can then share.

The rules of "fair use" are (AND ALL MUST BE MET, NOT JUST ONE):

• “The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes” (nonprofit educational uses are more likely to be fair as are those involving criticism, commentary, and parody); 
• “The nature of the copyrighted work” (uses of creative and unpublished works are less likely to be fair; uses of factual, published, and out-of-print works are more likely to be fair); 
• “The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole” (the smaller and less “central” the portion used, the more likely it is to be fair); 
• “The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work” (using out-of-print works and works for which there is no permissions market is more likely to be fair). 

Some of the exceptions that educators can use are:

"As such, the TEACH Act offers what one legal scholar calls “the best legislative solution to the barriers that copyright law imposes on online education that educators can hope to achieve in the near future.” But on the other hand, the law subjects you to some significant and stringent limitations. For example, only accredited nonprofit institutions qualify, access must be limited to enrolled students in the context of “mediated instructional activities,” and institutions must take steps to “reasonably prevent” the unauthorized retention and dissemination of copyrighted works presented online."

The provide a number of quick and easy resource as starting places to see if a work is covered by copyright law.

http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm#Footnote_1
http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm

One of the things that I certainly noticed. which dated the text, was the discussion of audio podcasts. These are free to the internet, and are of particular importance I think for my project. What I'm thinking about doing is a website that is a "Scientific Revolution" online information and lecture resource. Something that I can use one week, in my Western Civ survey course, but that can be expanded.

We were talking last week about having a whole website designed around a course, with links, lectures, audio, video right there. And more specifically taking that and making an app out of it for a whole semester course, filled with units one would then work through. Certainly there are going to be copyright issues there. I was already thinking about composing emails to the podcasts I use most often and asking permission, but another thing that I got from this chapter was:

Better to beg for forgiveness, rather than ask for permission.

Chapter Four: Designing for the History Web

Rosenzweig and Cohen reference The Non-Designer’s Web Book by Robin Williams and John Tollett. The suggested FOUR elements of web design are:

1. contrast
2. proximity
3. alignment
4. repetition

These are also the same four suggested on the website MyInkBlog's article "4 Principle of Good Design for Websites."

Since I found overlap between two difference references, I am going to use AT LEAST these four elements when evaluating my HOS websites from this week as well.

Let's also look at an example from information designer Edward Tufte, included my Rosenzweig and Cohen because of its glowing approval from Tufte, its simplicity, and its presentation of historical knowledge.





"One of Tufte’s most celebrated examples of great design in historical texts is Charles Joseph Minard’s map showing the disastrous expedition by Napoleon’s army into Russia in 1812. As Tufte shows, the map (which he believes 'may well be the best statistical graphic ever drawn') accomplishes all that a well-designed historical work should." What does a well designed historical work need to accomplish? The graphic depicts a tremendous amount of knowledge, while also suggesting conclusions about that history. However it also has, "An unconventional yet unmistakable beauty arises from an elegant font, careful proportions, and judicious use of white space and contrast. Minard’s carte figurative is an ideal that one suspects can be emulated, although perhaps not matched, on the web."

I was immediately reminded on a favorite webcomic creator, Randall Munroe of xkcd. Rather than writing a brilliant comic, occasionally Munroe produces even more brilliant statistical graphics like this on movie narratives.






This is the one that I was thinking of, because of its similarity in style. But as I was rereading and looking at the statistical graphics I found one recently made on US History partisanship.

You should make sure to check out his other awesome creations on Online Communities 2007, Online Communities 2010, Lakes and Oceans, Gravity Wells, Height, and Money. They're all brilliant. AND I think couldn't be consumed or enjoyed with out the web. The format and style of these is so large, that one can zoom into read the text and look at the small bits, while also getting those larger conclusions that Tufte suggests as a key element in the well-designed historical work.

Chapter Two: Getting Started

I have lots of different posts for this week, so my thoughts on chapters two are going to be relatively consolidated.

Rosenzweig and Cohen's chapter "Getting Started" was just that. A look at the bare essentials in beginning to build an online historical project. They introduced some important language, tools, and ideas about creation a website or a web tool. But more importantly they introduced questions to ask before beginning your project, as well as some simple rules to follow.

What I found was an analysis of basic web principals overlapping with the basics of good history. They write,

"The simple but elegant idea behind HTML is thus to 'wrap' passages of text with text markers, or tags, that identify the passage’s contents, much like the front and back cover help to identify the contents of a book."

It is an interesting suggestion that the physical book itself is a code that limits the way we write and what our finished text looks like. A page dictates exactly how many words across the reader will find on the page. The design and format of the book is not an accident either. Either in this chapter or chapter four, there is the suggestion that our modern book is the product of an evolutionary inventive process in which humans figured out exactly what works best for them (for example, it's rare to find a book that takes two arms to use or carry, or lines of text so long that the reader loses one's place).

Another interesting point raised by Rosenzweig and Cohen, it the meta-textual quality of producing history on the web.

"Indeed, a significant feature of the web is that anyone who writes a web page also exposes to the world the code used to create it. Historians should find this nicely matches our discipline’s emphasis on the open dissemination of knowledge."

Writing history "exposes" the "facts" used to create that history, as well as the "between the line" elements in ANY writing process -- who is the author? what biases does she have? from what time or model is she writing?

Chapter One: Exploring the History Web

I just want to tell interesting vignettes about historical topics, but I do want my information to be taken serious. Cohen and Rosenzweig suggests at the end of their chapter on "Exploring the History Web" that

"Before you begin the more practical steps in the journey outlined in the next seven chapters you need to know why you are taking that journey, who you hope will join you, and where you hope to go."

Why am I traveling?

I like to write (and maybe a little of I like to hear myself talk), but this originally was an exercise in writing. History is a topic I love and that I love to talk about. This is a chance for me to practice a craft that I love (writing) on topics I love (history, science, history of science, craft). It also give me a chance to contribute to the "History Web," a space that as a historian I think I will inhabit and lurk around for some time to come.

The other problem is my own lack of self confidence in continue to be a "good" historian. I've been out of school for some time, and hope to never go back (maybe). I don't even know if "traditional history" is what I would do if I did go back. I often times feel like an amateur--and I am truly. I am a more of a nerdy history enthusiast than a history. Keeping up with the new scholarship is particularly hard when it's your fifth job.

"The amateurs may have leapt ahead of the professionals in using the web as a vehicle for original publication, but their interpretations often look backward rather than forward. The amateurs could learn some historiographic lessons from the professionals while in turn teaching those who practice history as a vocation to think beyond traditional forms of publication."

Where do I fit? And maybe that's why I am traveling. To find out.

Who's coming with me?

Well, my mother is obviously coming along. She's my biggest fan. I also hope that the rest of my family and my friends join me. I'd love to work up a little following, and I think that it will start with them. I have lots of history colleagues, who I used to meet for beers and wax philosophic on any number of topics. I miss that, and wonder if this is truly the way that we will do that in the future.  Electronic beers and digital history.

Where to?

I'd like to improve my crafts--both writing and history, but really where I think I'm going is a way to set up learning modules for the Western Civilization courses that I teach. I'd like to create pages on topics, that include my lecture notes, (video or audio of my lectures? that sounds "ew"), images, podcast, interesting articles, websites devoted entirely to the subject, primary sources, and on an on. I would like to use this as a place to begin my classes, as well as a place to find fun and hopefully funny historical commentary.

So it look like I am really looking at making teaching resources website, but it definitely already has the problem that much of the History Web has. 

"If categorizing sites is so difficult, why bother? One good reason is that it forces the incipient History Web creator to think about genres themselves, what Phil Agre calls the “expectable form that materials in a given medium might take.” Genres imply, in Agre’s words, “a particular sort of audience and a particular sort of activity” and are “the meeting-point between the process of producing media materials and the process of using them.” To pay attention to genres is to think about how what you are doing relates to the audience you are hoping to reach—something less necessary “in the old days, when media were few and their uses evolved slowly,” or when they evolved in an ad hoc, organic way."

Introduction: Boons and Banes of Being a Historian in the Digital Age

*static* Come in, Amanda. Can you hear us? Over. *static*

*static* Loud and clear. I'm here...again. Over and out. *static*

I know, I know. It's been a while since I've posted, but now! Now, I am earning a grade posting on this blog. My hope is that habits are formed; I become hooked. And as far as addictions can go, history blogging certainly is on the mild side.

I am currently taking a topics course: Digital History with Dr. Charles Evans at Northern Virginia Community College. Obviously since I have already tried to start a history blog, I was somewhat aware of what I needed to be doing to keep up with this growing part of the industry. One week in and Dr. Evans, the syllabus, and the readings have been a wealth of information. I feel like I have more information, links, articles, and projects at my finger tips than I can possibly get through in the remainder of the semester.

I just finished the "Introduction" from our course textbook, Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web, by Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig. The introduction is a smart assessment of both the boons and banes that the web offers to historians working in the digital age.

The Boons

"Quantitative Advantages"

• capacity - We carry around libraries in our pockets! Oooh boy!
• accessibility - Our audiences can grow from Mom and Dad and friend who listens to your ramblings to much, much larger and more diverse readership.
• flexibility - The past can reveal itself with all of its many masks. An oral historian can write analysis of traditional village stories, but also share the voices of the storyteller.
• diversity - More readers, but also more writers!

"Additive or Expressive Advantages"

• manipulability - How do I get to touch, move, shape, see, represent the past differently than reading/viewing it in a textbook?
• interactivity - A relationship between the author, a text, and the reader has always been at the heart of "reading a text," but now a more concrete (concrete and occasionally less physical) relationship between the author, text, and reader appears.
• hypertextuality (or nonlinearity) - The Wikipedia Wormhole, as I call it. You're there to look up hypertext and you end up reading the page on Nietzsche. (hypertext--> metafiction--> presentational theatre--> mimesis--> Theodor W. Adorno--> Nietzsche)

The Banes

• quality - Back in the day, when I was in school, and you had to walk uphill in the snow, barefoot to get there, Wikipedia was NOT a serious place to get information. We were told only to get information from .gov and .edu pages, and then to find and use their references.
• durability - Backup your backup? And then back it up again? When it's gone from the net, it's gone.
• readability - Do you read and comprehend as well on the web? A future post will be coming on that. But that also changes the game for the writer as well! How does a writer/historian present the past in the way best to one's end game? Will your readers understand you?
• passivity - Create or consume? Comprehend?
• inaccessibility - Inaccessibility has certainly been brought into the spotlight, with the recent news of the suicide of Aaron Swartz, a young man about to be tried to the hacking and distribution of JSTOR articles. Swartz and many with him, say the information should be free to the public, not controlled by a large conglomerate, charging the universities (and ultimately students, faculty, etc) for access to information that they created.

I often read science fiction stories, and my favorite examples are often apocalypse stories. I am particularly enchanted by the idea of the utopian dystopia (or the dystopian utopia, I suppose). Cohen and Rosenzweig create that same tension about the digital future, and history's place in the digital future. The disadvantages are often arguable and have their own silver linings, while every advantage can be taken advantage of.