When You Look Into a Digital Abyss, Does It Also Look Into You?: A Look at Historical Abundance on the Internet

It seems fitting that this blogging assignment on the abundance of materials available on the internet will be my last post of the semester. Assigned in September, it’s taken me nearly four months to get past more than a sketchy outline of what I wanted to discuss in this post. It’s not through lack of trying though – I’ve probably sat down at my computer to write it more than a half dozen times only to find myself quickly distracted by an errant thought or query which led me to an internet search for information which led me to a hyperlink for a related topic which led me to either another hyperlink or another question and so on and so on until the time that I’d set aside for writing that day had run out.

Over the course of the semester I have likened this process of traveling from hyperlink to hyperlink to that of Alice falling down the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland – you never know what weird and wonderful things you’ll see during your trip, nor do you end up quite where you expected to when all is said and done. I’m not complaining; I’ve come across hundreds of amazing websites, useful tools, interesting articles and countless pieces of fascinating information this way. In truth, I think that my education and knowledge base are probably significantly broader as a result.

But this “infinite archive,” [1] as the internet has been described in recent years, is something of a double-edged sword, especially for academic and public historians. In the words of Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig [2]:

The digital era seems likely to confront historians—who were more likely in the past to worry about the scarcity of surviving evidence from the past—with a new “problem” of abundance. A much deeper and denser historical record, especially one in digital form, seems like an incredible opportunity and gift. But its overwhelming size means that we will have to spend a lot of time looking at this particular gift horse in the mouth... (2005)

As Cohen and Rosenzweig point out, in the past historians had to build their craft on the sometimes tenuous threads of the surviving evidence, a harsh reality which certainly restricted historical research. I also think that the caveat “that they could get their hands on” needs to be added to the aforementioned quote. Historical records and artifacts did not rest in a single, central and easily accessible location. As a result, historical research was often regional, not necessarily in terms of topic but in terms of sources used to support the arguments of historians. It’s not unreasonable to think that historians in the past could become acquainted with all of the materials available to them on their subject in their area and still be missing that critical document or artifact that had the potential to either cement or refute their claims.

Thankfully, these constraints of time and distance have largely been removed by improvements in technology. With the growth of the internet and the sheer abundance of information that is now available online, academics in even the most remote regions of the world suddenly have access to primary and secondary sources they may have previously been unaware even existed. For instance, the internet and massive digitization efforts have made it possible for students of history, like our own Megan Arnott, to be able to research and write on the Medieval Era without ever having to leave her home in Canada. Further, through email, chat rooms, Twitter, Facebook, Google Wave and any other number of social networking tools, Megan (and historians, in general) are better equipped than ever to quickly and easily communicate and collaborate with colleagues around the world.

Unfortunately, this is where the “‘problem’ of abundance” that Cohen and Rosenzweig speak of comes in. Those same digitization efforts that seem amazing at the outset do have their drawbacks – even as early as 1996, the internet had become “a sprawling megalopolis that no one person could fully explore” [3]. With thousands, if not tens of thousands of new websites added to the internet each day, how does an historian keep up?

The short answer is, we can’t. Instead, we must do as Cohen and Rosenzweig suggest and work, as historians in concert with computer programmers, website designers, researchers, publishers, museum curators, librarians and archivists to create “sophisticated statistical and data mining tools to do some of the looking” for us [2]. And, while the internet currently acts as an amazing archive of human record, no singular database has yet been created in which all historical records within it are stored. Because of this, I believe that it is the job of public historians to support the creation and use of these data mining tools and smaller databases in order to help make as much of the digital record as possible both knowable and useful to academics and the public alike.

Another issue that must be considered in connection with the growing abundance of historical sources on the internet is that of authority within the study of humanities and social sciences. As we discussed in class earlier in the semester, while the constraints of time, distance and availability no doubt frustrated historians in the past, they also helped to make the professionalization of history what it is today. For instance, with the scarcity of information came a tight control on existing intellectual materials; museums, archives, and libraries, especially those housing extremely rare items, were often restricted to only the most respected historians in the field (and largely only those associated with a trusted institution). This resulted in the control of scholarship resting in the hands of the few. It likely also served to privilege certain interpretations of historical events.

But one of the more amazing “gifts” to come out of the abundance of materials on the internet is the growth of democratization of the historical process. As more items that were previously inaccessible to the general public are digitized and compiled in databases like the Internet Archive, more grassroots historians are popping up each day. They read, research and comment on what they see and learn, adding a unique perspective and voice to literature on a variety of historical topics. They now have not only the ability to share their interpretations of historical events, but now they also have the primary and secondary sources to support it.

Don’t get me wrong, even the internet hasn’t been able to overcome the entrenched intellectual hierarchy which privileges the contributions made to the field by professional scholars in universities and other elite institutions [3]. I’m not even arguing that it necessarily should. After all, academic historians have spent years training in proper research methodology and historiography. But neither should the amateur historian be dismissed out of hand. As someone who is untrained in this type of research, I believe that there is a lot that historians can learn from these amateurs about how those outside of the ivory tower interact with history, what they need and want from it, and perhaps where academic research needs to go in order to satisfy the interests of the wider public.

And that’s where I believe public historians come in. I think the task now falls to us to mediate between the two groups (the public and the academics) in order to ensure that the contributions of both sides are acknowledged, valued and made accessible to the other.

Sources:

[1] Turkel, William J. Digital History Hacks: Methodology for the Infinite Archive (2005-08). [Weblog.]

[2] Cohen, Daniel and Roy Rosenzweig, “Web of lies? Historical knowledge on the Internet,” First Monday, Volume 10, Number 12 - 5 December 2005, http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1299/1219.

[3] Cohen, Daniel and Roy Rosenzweig, “Exploring the History Web,” Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving and Presenting to Past on the Web, http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/exploring/1.php.

Tweet at Me, I Dare Ya...

Ok, I’m a nerd. I fully and freely admit this fact. I love school. I love history. And, as my time in Korea comes to a close (30 days and counting!), I find myself more and more excited for my next big adventure – the Public History MA program at the University of Western Ontario.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the requirements of the digital history course that I’ll be taking in September is that students keep a blog related to issues of public history. It should be pretty apparent by now that I’ve embraced that part of the course wholeheartedly. Most days I have no shortage of topics that I’d like to discuss or reflect upon. But, when I sat down at my computer today to make a long overdue post, my mind was suddenly blank; the few half-formed thoughts floating around in my brain refused to become fully formed. What to discuss?

Eventually I turned to the current crop of Public History students and their blogs, hoping for a little inspiration. Sadly, when I arrived at the Digital History page today I found that Dr. Turkel had updated it since my last visit and that the links to past blogs had been removed! I was stumped for a moment. But, as I read the updated schedule for September and all of the notes about different course components, I realized that the inspiration for today’s blog was part of the update – not only would we be required to maintain a blog this year, but we’d also be responsible for creating and utilizing a Twitter account as part of an effort to “experiment with new forms of interaction and learning.”

I have to be honest. My initial reaction went a little something like this: Twitter? Really?! Isn’t Twitter mainly home to celebrities who think you care about every waking minute of their lives and businesses trying to use “the next big thing” on the internet to promote their products and increase their bottom lines? How can it possibly be useful to me?

Twitter’s homepage claims that it is a social networking tool that acts as “a modern antidote to information overload,” but I see it as being the exact opposite. I really don’t need to know when my friends or peers are eating a bagel, watching Jon and Kate Plus 8 or contemplating the meaning of life (unless, of course, they find the answer).

It’s strange, but I never would have questioned it had Dr. Turkel suggested that the Public History students use a group page on Facebook to discuss issues that arise in class, scheduling for group projects or to arrange social gatherings. I’ve used Facebook in similar ways in the past and it has worked out amazingly well. But, I’m finding it hard to wrap my head around how a social networking tool that relies solely on 140 character status updates can be helpful to my learning process. At least with Facebook you can supplement your status updates with a slew of other practical (and some not-so-practical) features.

That said, perhaps I shouldn’t be so quick to write Twitter off completely. Maybe the importance of Twitter is not in how I will use it (as a student of public history), but in how others use will use it. If you think about it, Twitter, Facebook, and all the other social networking sites that have blossomed in the last two decades are constantly changing what we consider to be primary documents. Records of internet activity, be it Facebook posts, Tweets, emails or chat room histories have almost become to current generations what journals and letters were to past generations. Who knows, maybe the big news in the future will be about how Facebook or Twitter can make or break a career, or how a political debate on YouTube was more influential to voters than the televised one. Maybe in a few years historians will even be citing Tweets or Wall-to-Wall messages in the footnotes of their books about our next great public figure.

Until then, however, you can "follow" me on Twitter @ www.twitter.com/ccaughell.

Third Time's the Charm...?

I have been agonizing about the beginnings of this blog for weeks. Seriously. I’ve actually lost count of the number of times I loaded this webpage and eagerly clicked on “New Post” only to find myself staring at the white text box and a blinking cursor with no idea how I wanted to go about establishing myself in my own little corner of the World Wide Web.

I think my trepidation stems from the fact that this is not my first kick at the proverbial blogging can. In fact, this is not even my second attempt at a blog. I created my first blog as a procrastination technique during my first essay season of university more than six years ago. Unfortunately, what started merely as a traditional journal in digital form quickly devolved into a slam book of sorts (Baby-sitters Club reference, anyone? Anyone?). Let’s just say that the entries weren’t worth preserving. If memory serves, I deleted the blog long before my first set of exams.

My second foray into the blogosphere started in July 2008 when I decided to try to chronicle the ups and downs of living and working as an ESL teacher in South Korea. The blog, in conjunction with a trusty Flickr account, was my way to stay in touch with friends and family back home who had yet to jump on the Facebook bandwagon. Blogging went smoothly for a couple of months, but eventually it deteriorated into hastily scrawled notes on Post-Its that got “filed” in the junk drawer of my desk and never made it onto the web. After allowing my blog to languish for several months without updates, I finally gave up the ghost and took it down. (In hindsight, perhaps I should have left it up...?)

Which brings us to attempt #3...

Eventually this blog will become a course requirement for History 9808, Dr. William Turkel’s Digital History course, which focuses on representations of history on the web and interactive systems (whatever those are... Do blogs and wikis count?!?). It will act as a forum in which I, along with my peers in the Public History program at UWO, publicly engage in reflective practice. At that time, I suspect that the tone, style, format and content of this blog might change to reflect a significantly more academic bent. Until then, I’d like to use it to explore (rather informally) the concept of public history as I currently understand it.

As a recent graduate of Brock University’s Faculty of Education, I have to admit to cringing inwardly a little at the mention of reflective practice. Since its introduction in Donald Schön’s 1983 book, The Reflective Practitioner, the concept of reflective practice has become one of the cornerstones of teacher training programs in Ontario, including the one at Brock. As such, I’ve written countless reflections over the last five years on topics ranging from teaching techniques to current issues in education to my evolving philosophy of education; the list goes on and on. Although I think the process of reflective practice is generally a valuable one both personally and professionally, I had secretly hoped that I’d done enough reflecting in teacher’s college to last me a lifetime. :) In fairness to the Public History program at UWO, however, this is the first time that I’ll be applying the concept of reflective practice to the discipline of history and in a digital format, so I’m excited to see how this experiment works out.

With that said, I’ll end this entry the same way my 7th grade English teacher, Mr. Blight, ended all of his classes, “Questions? Comments? Statements of brilliance...?” If you’ve got them, feel free to leave them, but please be gentle. This is a learning process. :)