ClioWeb

Dialects

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 05 Nov 2012 00:00:00 EST

The first, as an author, don’t be afraid to stray from any given dialect, even if it means more work for you. But do so only insofar as you want to shelter your project from engineers unwilling to invest in core modes of thinking that you deem necessary to grasp in contributing to the ideas of your project.

The second, as a potential contributor, it’s perfectly ok to be opposed to the ideas of a project, but don’t allow yourself to write something off at the level of dialect.

fat Chomsky Can’t Be Bothered to Learn C

Fat's observations about Chomsky's dismissal of postmodernism are great points to consider for any academic, but I'd say expecially important for any academic in the Digital Humanities, given the wealth of problems related to which theories to employ, which programming languages to learn, which tools to use, and so on. Choices we make about all these things invariably shelter our work from others unfamiliar with those dialects, and/or unwilling to engage them. Every citation increases the workload for others reading our work, as does every library included in code. Making something open source or open access doesn't, in and of itself, help here. It simply helps people more quickly see what they have to know to participate. We shouldn't be afraid of these things, apologize for them, or stop doing them necessarily. Choices have implications. We should be aware of these implications when we create and share our work.

I should be more aware of this as an author. I find the balance between streamlining my workflows and enabling/encouraging the shared use of and contribution to my projects quite difficult. For example, I've started using Sass, Compass, and Susy for most of my CSS development. They're terrific tools, and I think using them is worthwhile, because they makes so many things easier (for me) for progressively-enhanced, cross-browser development. But it also sets the bar higher for others who wish to contribute to that work. It is by no means insurmountable, but it does require a willingness from others to learn that dialect. It also requires a willingness on my part, the part of the author, to make more clear why I've added those tools to my dialect, and help others understand it if I value their contributions.

I should also do more as a contributor to not so easily dismiss work simply because I am not familiar with its dialect. More importantly, I shouldn't simply scoff at the presence of an unfamiliar dialect. I should be willing to invest in learning any dialect when I think the ideas are worth engaging. That's good academic citizenship.

Joining Scholars' Lab

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 25 Mar 2011 12:30:17 EDT

I'm going to keep this fairly brief, because I've been trying to write this post for two weeks: Starting shortly after THATCamp, I'll be leaving the Center for History and New Media to be the Humanities Design Architect at Scholars' Lab.

The mix of emotions I've had making this decision was almost overwhelming. I've been at CHNM since the Fall of 2003, and since that time have done more things as a graduate student than I could have ever imagined. George Mason University was the only school I applied to, and I was ridiculously lucky enough to not only get in, but also get an assistantship at CHNM. Once I got here, each year was better than the ~~next~~ last! I honestly didn't quite know or appreciate how much attending Mason and working at CHNM has changed my life until I decided to leave for someplace else. I'm incredibly sad to leave CHNM, the place where I practically learned everything I know about digital humanities. But, one great thing about this move is that I'll get to keep doing the work I love, with people I'm fortunate enough to call friends and colleagues. I'll still contribute to Omeka, thanks to the partnership CHNM and Scholars' Lab already have thanks to a Library of Congress initiative. And, I'll still try to help out with THATCamp as much as possible.

But, if there is one other place in the world I'd like to work other than CHNM, it would be Scholars' Lab. I've been a fanboy of theirs for a while now, and have had some great opportunities to collaborate with them over the past few years. Their approaches to research, teaching, and service are exactly in tune with how I want to spend my career. Plus, being a country boy at heart, the lure of the Shenandoah is too strong to resist. I am very excited and honored to join Scholars' Lab, and am looking forward to all the challenges and opportunities this move will bring!

Cognition of Comments

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 12 Oct 2010 14:24:10 EDT

The folks at Happy Cog recently rolled out a new (and quite stunning) company blog called Cognition. Founder and Executive Creative Director Jeffrey Zeldman published the first post explaining not only the rationale for the company blog in general, but their experiment with commenting on the blog, done either through a commenter's Twitter account or the commenter's own blog:

Speaking of experiments, there’s our comments section. Everybody knows inline blog comments are going the way of the BBS and Gopher sites of yore. We’re not ready to say “comments are dead” (we’ll leave that for Wired Magazine’s next cover story) but we have noticed the smell, and we’re doing something about it.

Kids today are more likely to respond to a blog post on Twitter than in the article’s comments section; so we’ve collocated our comments on Twitter. Share a tweet-length response here, and, with your permission, it will go there. If you are moved to respond with more than 140 characters, post the response on your website, and it will show up here. Clever, these Americans.

So, comments are done either via Twitter or through your own blog. Want to comment through Twitter? Compose your tweet on the Cognition post's page and submit. Want to submit one of your own blog posts as a comment? Go write and publish that post, then come back to the Cognition post's page and submit your post's URL.

I have to say, I really like the idea of putting a textarea on the post page so readers can tweet a message. After reading the article, I can tweet a comment immediately, and send it to my Twitter feed, without having to go to Twitter.com, or open TweetDeck, or copy/paste the URL. But looking at the very first post on Cognition, there are over 350 responses, and a cursory glance over all of them indicates they're all from Twitter. It is a first post, and a pretty big announcement, so this is probably expected. But I agree a lot with Jeff Croft, who in a comment on Airbag argued that this approach possibly adds unnecessary noise to Twitter (already pretty noisy). Croft suggests (and I agree) the tweeted comment should be an @reply (to @happycog perhaps, since @cognition is taken by someone else!) so only your followers who are following that Twitter account see the post. There's a question of audience here: By posting comments through Twitter, my comment is sent to all my followers. Which raises a question about who I should write the comment for, Cognition's post author, or my twitter followers?

I also like the idea of providing a spot to input a specific URL to a blog posts I've written as a response. It's a little more deliberate than relying on a linkback system. There only seem to be a handful of these kinds of comments on Cognition's first post, however, and those do get lost in all the other Twitter comments. I would value these comments much more, since they supposedly took a bit more time and effort to compose, and this is where I think good, meaningful, productive conversation and feedback would take place.

Of course, it seems both of these solutions have been, or can be, implemented on your blog now. There are several plugins for WordPress, for example, to collect "tweetbacks" to your blog posts. And much more established is the concept of linkbacks from one blog post to another. It seems the major difference between these solutions and the implementation on Cognition is that the reader explicitly has to write her/his tweet or add his/her post link through Cognition's site.

One major problem I see with comments on Congnition, in either tweet or blog form, is the complete lack of a permalink back to the original tweet or blog post. Links to a comment author's website have become pretty standard in commenting systems. Plus, comments have served to build community and readership. There is almost a gift culture with blog commenting, where regularly commenting on a blog encourages the blog author and other blog readers to check out your own site, and comment on your posts as well. Having no permalinks back to tweets or comment posts effectively negates this culture. Not sure if this is a feature or a bug, but I'm curious to know!

My comments are a sloppy mess, and I am inspired by Cognition's approach to rethink commenting here, and to reconsider how I comment elsewhere. I'm definitely curious to see how their experiment evolves, and I hope it does evolve, because I think there are plenty of opportunities to improve. The folks at Happy Cog have been very receptive to praise and criticism of their commenting solution, so it'll be fun to watch.

Scholar-in-Residence

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 17 Aug 2010 17:40:24 EDT

I'm afraid someone may come along and pinch me, to wake me up from this awesome dream.

As Bethany Nowviskie has already announced, I'm going be a visiting scholar for Scholars' Lab at the University of Virginia for the Fall semester. To say that I'm honored would be an understatement. The work that comes out of Scholars' Lab is incredible, and having opportunity to work along side the folks here is really a privilege. What's great is that I'll be working on a project that utilizes tools that both Scholars' Lab and the Center for History and New Media have been working on the past several years. I'll be using Omeka and Neatline to create a digital archive and scholarly exhibit on residential segregation in Richmond, Virginia in the early 20th century, and along the way explore some issues in doing scholarship in the digital humanities.

A little background: From about 1910 to 1929, both the city of Richmond and the state of Virginia passed and amended several ordinances that established racially-segregated residential areas. These ordinances basically determined whether a street was a "white" or "colored" street, and hence restricted residence based on those designations.

My interest in this topic was sparked by a controversy I stumbled upon while doing research for my Master's thesis. In July 1914, the congregation of Emanuel Baptist Church in Richmond sought to sell its church property to a black congregation from Leigh Street Methodist Church. Emanuel Baptist sat on the northeast corner of 5th St. and Leigh St (a corner that no longer exists, thanks to the convention center in Richmond). According to Richmond's 1910 residential segregation ordinance, the block of Leigh Street where Emanuel Church stood was a white block, while the block of 5th Street was black. Because the address and front door of Emanuel Church was on Leigh Street, the parties involved decided that, to circumvent the segregation ordinance, they would move the front door and address to 5th Street, and thus still adhere to spirit of the ordinance.

Of course, this "solution" didn't fly too well with city government, or with a hundred or so white residents near the church who created and signed two petitions asking the city to halt the sale of the church. So, the city passed a new ordinance in October 1914 that contained language to redefine the section of 5th Street on which Emanuel Baptist Church sat as a white street. Even though the 1914 ordinance was passed specifically to prevent the sale of Emanuel Baptist Church, its definition also applied to the rest of the city, thus potentially changing the racial designation of other streets in Richmond. Residential segregation ordinances across the US were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1929, but their effects certainly continued beyond that.

I'll use Omeka to create an archive of primary sources related to Emanuel Baptist Church, and Richmond's residential segregation laws in general. I'll also use Omeka's ExhibitBuilder plugin to create the essay. I'll use Neatline to display GIS data collected for this project. I'm particularly interested in how the residential designations of the city changed with each ordinance. So I plan to map how the drawing of segregated streets changed over time with each new ordinance. I also hope to create several other maps, including a map of the addresses for each person who petitioned the city to prevent the sale of Emanuel Church, and a map for each case brought before city courts that violated residential segregation ordinances.

In addition to the specific historical research, I'll also be exploring some issues in digital history/humanities:

Potential uses for HTML5 for digital humanities projects. I've been eagerly reading about developments on HTML5 for some time now, and am interested to see how it can be used for digital humanities work. I plan to use HTML5 for my project's site, and explore as much of the spec and its features as I can. I've got a post series outline just for this, and plan for my work at Scholars' Lab to contribute to those posts. I'll also develop an Omeka theme that uses HTML5, and release that to the public sometime this Fall.
Potential uses for Omeka and plugins as platforms for digital scholarship. This is a topic we discuss occasionally among the Omeka team. Even though Omeka is designed as an archiving and exhibiting platform, and marketed mainly to institutions instead of individuals, I think it has lots of potential as a platform for publishing scholarship. So I hope my work on this project will help to flesh out that potential.
Design approaches for digital scholarship. I'm keenly interested in how we can better use design in humanities scholarship, digital or other wise. I think it's important for the DH community to discuss this more, and hope I can contribute something to this while I'm at Scholars' Lab. For folks following recent conversations on Twitter and blog posts about user testing in DH, I'll be making plans for user testing, but also thinking/writing about how digital scholars can and should integrate user testing into their scholarly work. I've had a post still in draft with thoughts on this from last week that I hope to publish soon.

I'm incredibly grateful to Bethany and the rest of the folks at Scholars' Lab for giving me this opportunity. I'm also grateful to Tom Scheinfeldt and CHNM for letting me spend some time in Charlottesville. I just arrived at Scholars' Lab yesterday, and will be in Charlottesville for the next two weeks. Then I'll spend some more time here this Fall. At the end of this, in December, I'll give a presentation about my research and the final product. All the work I do on this project will, I hope, contribute in positive ways back to Omeka and Neatline. And of course any code I create will be open source.

When Brian Croxall asked about advice to give to new grad students, I tweeted "Do everything you can to do work you enjoy, and enjoy the work you do. Otherwise, it truly is not worth it." I've been doing work I enjoy, and enjoying the work I do, for so long now I forget that I'm a grad student. This, what I am doing right now, with Scholars' Lab and with CHNM every day, is truly worth it.

Participating in the Bazaar: Sharing Code in the Digital Humanities

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 10 Jun 2010 18:57:00 EDT

In The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric Raymond argues that open source software development works more like a bazaar than a cathedral, where openness and community are prized over hierarchy and secrecy. I'd like to talk about how developing open source code has made me a better practitioner of digital humanities, and why more digital humanities (DH) scholars and projects should be participating on the open-source bazaar. I would argue that, right now, the digital humanities is getting really good at shopping/browsing at the bazaar, but not actually sharing. We seem to have no problem using open source tools and applications, but very rarely are we actually giving back, or making the development and sharing of open source code a central part of our work.

My target audience for this probably doesn't include programmers; Most of the programmers and developers I know and have worked with have already drank the open source Kool-Aid. Perhaps this has skewed my opinion on the role open-source development should play in DH, but I'm OK with that. Really, my audience for this post are two groups: Lone, individual scholars who either never considered sharing their code or who may think the code they're writing isn't worth sharing, and digital humanities centers or groups who are building significant projects but are afraid/uncertain/indifferent to the idea of sharing the code for their projects. I want to address these groups by discussing a bit of my own experience sharing code.

My Experience Sharing Code

When I began working at CHNM in 2003, I barely knew HTML, and honestly didn't know much of anything else. (It may be a miracle I was even selected a GRA.) The first year I was there, I spent a lot of time just browsing the files on the CHNM server, opening up files I never knew existed on projects, and seeing how the code helped generate the content I saw in the browser. It was eye-opening to say the least, a bit nerve-wracking, but also empowering to see all the code that made these sites go. Of course, what I was looking at wasn't publicly available, but my point here is that just looking at the code, tinkering with it, copying/pasting into my own projects was an incredible learning experience. Making code like that more open makes it possible for anyone to learn from it.

I've started sharing more of my code on my GitHub account. Some of my projects include phpZotero (a PHP class for working with Zotero), clioweb-theme (the WordPress theme I use on my personal site), and cw-authorbase (WordPress plugin to let you change the base for author URLs). But I've also developed open-source code elsewhere. ScholarPress Courseware is a plugin to do simple course management on a WordPress blog. I started it with Josh Greenberg initially to scratch an itch I had about how to set up my own course website when I started teaching. We wrote it mainly to satisfy my needs at the time, but I shared it with others, who then suggested features, and found bugs that I (and others!) could fix. Dave Lester added BibTeX import. Zac Gordon updated the admin interface to work with a later version of WordPress. Now, Stas Sushcov is using Courseware as part of a Google Summer of Code project. After looking over phpZotero, Wayne Graham wrote a Ruby wrapper for the Zotero API, and we did a bit of Zotero hacking at THATCamp in May based on that work. If I hadn't developed any of this as open source, and instead had hidden away the code, these kinds of collaborations and branches likely wouldn't have happened. There are plenty of other digital humanities folks on GitHub, all doing more or less the same thing. Following these people, and having them give me comments back on my code, has been so helpful.

At CHNM, we've started to do this with more of our projects. Right now, both Zotero and Omeka are open source. Their code is freely available to download, either via handy zip file or through a Subversion repository. (For example, here is Omeka's SVN repository, and ticketing/bug system.) Anyone can view the source and the tickets, and can request an account to submit tickets or patches if interested. Similarly, Omeka's addons repository uses SVN and has a ticketing system. Anyone who wants to develop and Omeka plugin or theme can either request access to the addons repository, or set up their own.

This week, I started a GitHub account for CHNM, and started sharing some source code I've written for some of our projects, namely the WordPress themes for Hacking the Academy and One Week | One Tool. We're planning to share more code from our individual projects, like any Omeka or WordPress themes, plugins, just about anything we develop that we can share. (Expect THATCamp-in-a-Box to be up there in some form sometime this summer!) So if anyone wants to use the Hacking the Academy or One Week themes as the basis for their own themes, they can just check out our code. If they find a bug in there and want to tell us about it, we'd be very grateful! I'm not sure how much we'll put up there that we've already written for past projects. But we want to give code back whenever possible, so anyone can learn from and use our code, and so we might get feedback and improvements from the others, too.

The "how" part for sharing code is fairly straight-forward, and there are any number of ways to do it: Sign up for a GitHub, Google Code, or some other project hosting service, and commit code there. Or install your own Git, Subversion, or other repository system on your own server. You may have to learn some kind of versioning system; There's a great piece by Julie Meloni that provides a gentle introduction to version control. Or you could just make a zip file of your code available on your project site. Add links to these on your project website and on your personal or institution website. Add a colophon or technical explanation of your site. Basically, whether you're a lone digital humanist coding stuff just for you, or a larger center or institution building grant-funded projects, get your code out there so others can see it! As an individual graduate student and digital humanities scholar, and as a project manager at CHNM, I've had nothing but positive experiences with sharing code, and I hope others do, too.

Why Share Code?

Encourage more thorough evaluation, and replication our work.

Most reviews of digital humanities projects are only of the "surface" of the project, and rarely ever deal with the code underneath. I don't think digital work can be thoroughly and critically evaluated if the evaluators have neither the technical knowledge nor the access to the source code for the digital work. And they both seem to go hand-in-hand. We should start asking projects that wish to be evaluated in any kind of review process to make their code open for the same kind of review. We could go even further and demand that projects include a technical statement or colophon explaining design and development decisions on the project. But baby steps first...

As for replication, think of it this way: We ask for footnotes in articles and monographs to prove we've done the research, and that the reader can, at any time, replicate that research if so desired. Likewise, our digital humanities projects should be more replicable than they are. It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to be able to build new digital humanities projects based on work already done and available from a previous project. Can you image how differently we would build DH projects if we knew the source code would be part of the evaluation, or that it could be possible to replicate some or all of the results of a DH project using the same source code? I know I would write better code!

Increase status and/or credit for code writing in DH.

The potential for more thorough evaluation and replication of work could certainly lead to an improvement in how we allocate reputation and credit for writing code. As it stands now, much of the work that goes into DH projects is hidden. Sharing code in the digital humanities would make the craft of creating that code much more important and prized in DH work, and would go a long way toward making that work could for things like tenure and promotion. But think of all the opportunities for collaboration on projects, and gaining reputation or credit for contributing bug fixes or features to projects. There is, of course, a whole different conversation to be had about how design and development of DH projects should count toward promotion or play into academic reputation and credit.

Encourages sustainability.

I occasionally hear questions about sustainability with regards to digital humanities projects. Writing code with the intent of sharing it makes knowledge transfer much easier, which helps make sustainability even more possible. Eric Raymond points out that, with open source projects, there is an unwritten rule that if the developer of a project feels unable to continue for whatever reason, she/he should find a suitable replacement to keep the project going, and should relinquish control over the project once someone steps up to take on that role. I'm not sure how many orphaned DH projects are out there, but I know there are a lot. I don't know if there is anyone out there who could take over some of those projects, but I would hope there are a few. Regardless, we'll never know until we begin build projects as open-source, share them, and see if there are others able and willing to contribute to their sustainability. This is especially important if, as a recent issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly addressed, work on DH projects is rarely ever done.

Knowledge exchange.

As I already mentioned, I learned more from looking at the source code for CHNM projects than I ever have from reading a programming book. I've learn more from talking to developers directly about their code, about specific projects they're working, than from working with a book discussing abstract programming terms. Given how many conversations I've seen among folks in DH lamenting the lack of training opportunities or examples for developing DH projects, I'm amazed we don't share more code to help remedy these issues. Having more DH projects with open code can help make others in digital humanities much more aware of, and literate in, using that code. Imagine how much we could learn from having the code for Valley of the Shadow or every project published by the Vectors journal. More to the point, imagine if our projects were written with the idea that we are contributing knowledge through our code, and that others would be looking at the code to gain some insight into our projects. Just like with peer review and evaluation, we might write better code, and think more about how we would explain it to others.

There are, I know, plenty of unanswered questions. What would support models for shared code be like? What license should you release code under? Plenty of others. These are legitimate questions, and should be dealt with on institutional, personal, and/or per-project bases. But we should have serious discussions about how to share code on digital humanities projects, and about how that sharing should come into play in our broader professional work. Talk to your institution or employers about it. But I think we should encourage others to reuse our work and build off of it. I'm concerned about digital humanities work becoming lost and/or irrelevant, especially since we increasingly seem to be living in a era of black boxes. We should fear our projects atrophying because their code is hidden. We should fear being irrelevant in broader discussions regarding technology and standards. We should fear not learning from all the wonderful projects we're all creating, because we're afraid of sharing our code for whatever reason.

I don't think digital humanities cannot afford to leave the programming and developing to non-humanists. I totally agree with the fine folks at NiCHE that it leaves us at the mercy of the people who do code. We should start actively write code with the intent to share it, and share as much as possible, so we might become better developers together. We should write code with an audience in mind, like digital humanities community, who may want to reuse our code. We should share our code so others can learn from us, and so we can learn from others. More than anything, though, we should share code because it's academic work, and I think academic work should be shared openly, critiqued, and improved.

Update, 7:10PM: One thing I totally forgot to mention, and am terribly embarrassed for not doing so, was that phpZotero is based a lot on Jim Safley's work on a Zend client for using the Zotero API, which is used in an upcoming Zotero Import plugin for Omeka.

Hacking our Conferences

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 28 May 2010 16:57:28 EDT

Coming off another successful THATCamp, I keep thinking there is so much more we can do with the unconference model in academia. The ideas generated from THATCamp, the collegiality and openess lends itself to an intellectual playfulness and exchange that is almost wholly lacking in traditional academic conferences. It's time we start hacking our conferences.

So, let's do it already.

Where should we start? Let's try this first: If you're going to an annual conference, try to organize an unconference yourself, either with support of the organization, or on your own off-site. Just do it. Tweet it. Blog it. Find a spot that has some rooms, whiteboards, and wifi. Check the local library or university and see if you can reserve some space. Or find a bar or restaurant with wifi that can reserve some space. Add your unconference to the Barcamp site, or make your own site, and post about the event on Twitter. Unconferences don't have to be expensive; In fact, they should be as cheap as possible. The most important thing is providing space for attendees to collaborate, discuss ideas, and turn those ideas into future projects. (Wifi would be nice, too!) If you can do that, you're most of the way there. If this isn't a conference hack, I don't know what is. Get the word out, see if there are interested people, and give it a try! If you can get support from conference organizers, even better! It doesn't have to be associated with the conference itself (which may preclude you from using the conference venue as space), but it can involve folks attending the conference.

In fact, I'll go so far as to say this: If it is within my power, I will make sure to host or help with some kind of unconference event at every academic conference I attend. I don't know how often I'll be successful, but I'm going to try it. The worst that can happen, it seems to me, is that the event doesn't occur. The best that can happen is that we get an opportunity to share and discuss our work in ways ill-afforded by the reading-a-paper-at-you format. We'll get to open our laptops, share our notes, and scribble on a whiteboard/chalkboard/napkin and come up with things to take with us and do after the conference.

We can also begin proposing unconference-like sessions or workshops during conferences themselves. This has already begun with much success; We held a session at the 2010 American Historical Association annual meeting on "Humanities in the Digital Age", which incorporated aspects of the unconference format that was well-attended. Much broader in scope, the Digital Jumpstart project has been widely attended at several academic conferences, with more meetings in the works. With Digital Jumpstart, the goal is to bring humanists together to give their digital projects a boost, to hear about others' issues or solutions, and even to find collaborators.

After some success with a few unconference-like sessions, we could then begin petitioning organizations to give even further support. The conference could devote an entire day to an unconference, limit it to the first 100 people that sign up, and have a coordinator to oversee the unconference. But it should mainly be user-generated as much as possible. Like THATCamp, conference attendees could propose session ideas ahead of time for the unconference day. The organization could set up a voting system, similar to Code4Lib and SXSW, where attendees voted for sessions to be included in the program. The ones with the most votes would get on the unconference program.

With the latter scenario, two of the most common arguments against academic unconferences—lack of funding for such events and lack of prestige or credit for the event—can be addressed. You would be proposing to lead a session, and it would be accepted through a potentially more competitive process that tradition academic papers. The session's acceptance, number of votes, and eventual number of attendees could certainly contribute to academic credit in some form. And, since it would be an official part of the academic organization's program, you should be able to receive travel funding for it as much as if you were doing a workshop or reading a paper.

A third argument against academic unconferences usually involves some form of the question: "What is actually produced because of an unconference?" And the hard thing about answering this is, all the productive, useful stuff that is produced isn't always tangible until a while after the conference. Participants at THATCamp have forumlated projects (and have found collaborators) during the event, including web-based resources, research articles, other conference sessions or events, and course ideas. Some sessions themselves either try to produce something during their allotted time, or make plans to continue working to produce something after the event. With that in mind, and to address the skeptics' question, here are few things actually produced from THATCamp:

ProfHacker - The awesome blog about how academics can improve their workflow and talk about teaching and research techniques, now hosted at the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Zoterofest - A one-day unconference/workshop at the University of Mary Washington, conceived by Jeff McClurken.
Digital Jumpstart - Unconference-like workshop run by Sharon Leon and Sheila Brennan, whose goals are to help digital humanities project get off the ground.
Ethical Hacking in the Humanities a group-edited syllabus on ethics in hacking for digital humanities, a session proposed by John M. Jones at THATCamp.

The broader thing to keep in mind is that sometimes things are actually produced during the sessions, sometimes afterwards, sometimes not at all. And in my experience, these results depend less on the unconference format itself, and depend more on the actual people leading and contributing to the session, and the unconference as a whole. With most academic conferences, you're expect to come with fully baked soufflés, and if you don't (or its a flop) then you face criticism. There isn't a lot of space for intellectual playfullness and experimentation in most academic conferences, but unconferences provide those kind of outlets; In fact, they thrive on them. And that to me is what conferences should be all about.

Many have loathed the rigidity, formality, and expense of traditional academic conferences. In contrast, unconferences thrive on flexibility, collegiality, and thrift. More to the point, they rely heavily on the attendees themselves—their attitudes, motivations, and work ethics—for success or failure. At unconferences, it generally doesn't matter who says something first; What matters more is who says something thoughtful, and what that thoughtful thing is. Discovery happens through group cooperation. Insight and knowledge are not guarded for the next publication; They're shared openly, with hopes that others can contribute to ongoing conversations that make our work better.

And this really gets to the heart of the issue: Why do we attend conferences, and why do we contribute to them? Ideally, we give conference papers in hopes of sharing our research, getting recognition for such research, and getting critical feedback to take that research conference paper's mere presence on the conference program grants it weight on CVs and tenure reviews, even if only half a dozen people actually came to the session to hear it read. What if instead we start fostering systems that reward you if your unconference session spawns half a dozen projects from attendees. The focus in this case is not on what you produce yourself, but what you help others produce.

Academic conferences as they are now are increasingly expensive, poorly attended (not necessarily in terms of registrations, but it terms of people actually attending sessions), and rarely seem to generate the kind of innovative work needed to meet the challenges of education and scholarship today. If we want to start hacking the academy, lets start hacking this cornerstone of academic culture by incorporating unconferences. We should start small, test some things out, makes changes when necessary. But we should start, if for no other reason than to make the work we and our colleagues do better, and to make our experiences at conferences richer and more productive.

But I Want You to Think!

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 08 Jun 2009 10:00:37 EDT

Early last semester, we had a conversation in my Clio Wired 2 course about building websites to meet user needs, and the strategies to take to ensure our websites were usable. Most of our reading focused on strategies for building commercial websites, but unlike building websites for business, digital humanities projects have to walk a fine line between satisfying user needs/wants while providing information/services we think users 'should' need/want. Its a conversation that has been in the back of my mind for a while now, and this post is an attempt to articulate some of those thoughts.

When a history professor is researching and writing a book, for example, she isn't necessarily concerned with what her "users" would like to read about. Maybe some are, but most academics are concerned less with meeting audience needs than they are with teaching the audience something new. In fact, they see one of their goals as contributing new knowledge, knowledge those academics think will be useful to their profession as a whole. They don't necessarily write monographs to make it easier for, say, K-12 teachers to use them in class. In a lot of ways, usability is prescribed in the format of the academic monograph: table of contents, chapter headings, page numbers, paragraphs, footnotes, the occasional figure or appendix. And, if I may speculate, this prescribed format may undermines the need for the creators of academic scholarship to really think about usability.

Most websites, however, are built with user needs primarily in mind, at least most commerce-based websites. Business do focus-group testing, user testing, and marketing to try to meet particular user needs. In that sense, websites try to provide something users want, without uses have to think about how to get what they want. In fact, one of the leading web usability book in print is titled "Don't Make me Think!" and argues that websites should strive to create interfaces and experience that require little thought to use.

Digital humanities websites, it seems, have to walk a fine line between two very different goals: On the one hand, we do want to provide information and tool that we, as experts, think the audience should use and need. On the other, we can't simply offer it and expect that our audience will find it valuable. The trick with digital humanities projects, it seems, is to encourage users to think about specific things, think we want them to think about, while providing tools and methods for doing that kind of thinking in an unencumbered, clumsy web interface.

In Train of Thoughts, John Lenker argues there are three parts to providing a effective experience on the Web:

Entice - Get the audience interested in your topic
Inform - Provide some meaningful information to the audience; Educate audience about a particular topic.
Invoke - Encourage a response from the audience, ensure that the information you've given them can be put into meaningful action somehow.

Traditional academic scholarship is almost exclusively focused on the second part: Inform. It may dabble in the Entice part, with catchy titles or discussions at book clubs or on the web. And while scholars certainly want to invoke a response from colleagues, the product itself doesn't encourage a variety of responses. Digital humanities, though, has the means of combining all three into a meaningful, usable experience. In fact, I would argue that any work in the digital humanities needs to accomplish all three to be effective.

Assigning Wikipedia in a US History Survey

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 05 Apr 2009 18:34:08 EDT

As some of you might guess, I get mixed reactions whenever I reveal that I use Wikipedia in my history classes. And not just for reading; I actually assign my students to research and write an article for Wikipedia. And it has consistently been one of my most successful assignments. It shows students the difference between fact-only writing and analytical writing, it provides an introduction to research methods, and it gives them more insight into the working of Wikipedia, so they understand why they should or shouldn't use it for various situations.

The Assignment

The assignment consists of two phases, each graded separately:

Phase 1: Students choose a topic related to history that either doesn't have a substantial article already written about it, or a topic that is listed on the history stubs page on Wikipedia. Then, they research the topic and contribute ~500 words to the article. The article must include footnotes, and reference at least two published books, two external websites, and link to at least two other Wikipedia pages. Students must use proper formatting for footnotes, headings, lists, links and other content per Wikipedia formatting guidelines. They must also create a user account, and log in with that user account when editing. If an article's history doesn't include the user name they sent to me at the beginning of the semester, they don't get credit. No exceptions.

Phase 2: After publishing, students must watch the article, see if anyone contributes or changes their article, and if so connect with these users. The goal here is to improve the article, either with others users or individually. If their article is flagged for deletion, students must work to make sure the article isn't deleted. But, regardless of outcome, students must write a ~500 word reflection on what happened to their article, and how their ideas about Wikipedia had changed as a result of the article.

Notes on Process

Topics

Choosing a topic is fairly straight-forward. I always encourage students to find a topic that interests them, that's relevant to their major, their job, or even hobbies. Students have written about various historical topics related to psychology, sociology, engineering, sports, art, and theater, to name a few. If students can't come up with a topic, point them to the stubs page. There are thousands of stub articles to choose from, including United States history, history of science, and military history. All topics have to be approved by me before continuing the assignment. I usually require topics related to U.S. history because that's my primary field of study, and will approve topics if I think there's enough secondary and tertiary sources available to allow for an adequate article.

Research

The research process is, more or less, the same kind of research process you'd expect when assigning a short term paper. We discuss how to find resources on particular topics, how to brainstorm, create outlines, et cetera. I introduce students to the librarian on staff who's relevant to their field of study or topic. (Often, this is the first time students are introduced to these very valuable folks.) Wikipedia also has policies about citation, so I make sure students read the policy on citing sources and verifiability. Additionally, I discuss uses of different kinds of sources, and Wikipedia's preference for secondary and tertiary sources over primary sources. Students articles must not be original research.

Writing and Formatting

Probably the trickiest part of the assignment is showing students how to write for Wikipedia, particularly the way Wikipedia articles are formatted. We take one class period and review "How to Edit a Wikipedia Article," particularly the formatting section. There's a great tutorial and sandbox where students can practice formatting before working on their articles. I demonstrate on-screen how to do different kinds of formatting: footnotes, headings, unordred lists, ordered lists, internal and external links, and inserting an image. There is a useful cheatsheet that details formatting methods for specific content elements.

[]

Publishing and Participating

Like I said earlier, the assignment doesn't end once the article is published. After they publish the article, they must watch and participate in any change that takes place to their article, for good or ill. I show them specifically two sections of their article to watch:

History page - I encourage students not to revert things immediately, but to take the time to look at changes, determine if they help or hurt the article, and take the appropriate action.
Talk page - This is where community members talk about the article in question, offering suggestions for improvement or declaring reasons that the article is irrelevant and show be deleted. Its here that students have to defend their articles, or learn from other Wikipedians about how to improve their articles.

[]

Not infrequently, someone's article will be recommended for deletion, or their changes reverted. In these cases I show students how to interact with Wikipedia admins, review their deletion policy and the process by which they do deletion review. I've had several students' articles get recommended for deletion, and the students justified their articles well enough to save them.

Why Assign a Wikipedia Article?

I have several reasons why I ask students to write an article for Wikipedia:

Learn how to do research: A no-brainer here. The assignment involves some basic research and writing skills, a modest but substantial amount for a 100-level survey course.
Demystify Wikipedia: Most people have preconceptions about Wikipedia, but very little experience actually reading AND writing an Wikipedia article. Fewer people have experience communicating with other Wikipedia users, particularly admins and editors. This, in turn, influences how they interact with others on various social sites and services. Moreover, students learn that not just anything can be published on Wikipedia, there are rules and policies in place for the content that gets to stay on Wikipedia.
Learn the difference between fact-only writing and analytical writing: Most of my students have a difficult time understanding how to make an argument, how to differentiate between fact-based "reporting" and analysis. By actually being forced to write a "just the facts" report, they have been able to see the difference between the two.

As I said earlier, this assignment is consistently one of my most successful assignments. Students find a topic they're interested in, research it, learn how to write for different audiences, learn how to use Wikipedia more efficiently, and understand when its good to use Wikipedia and when its not. Furthermore, they get experience with community and collaborative writing, and can take those skills with them and use them long after the course is finished. It does take a bit of work on my part, to make sure students understand the assignment and the technology involved, but in my opinion its completely worth the effort. Its certainly much more meaningful to have students contribute to a larger, more public body of knowledge than to write a term paper for me that will get thrown away at the end of the semester. If this assignment can produce some good articles on Wikipedia, and gets students talking to others and learning outside of class, I consider it a success.

Academic Technology Goals for Higher Education

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 12 Mar 2009 13:14:28 EDT

Jeff McClurken's recent post about Writing a Strategic Plan for Academic Technologies and Libraries asks a really great question: If given the task of writing a strategic plan for a small institution, what would your top academic technology goals be? After teaching several undergraduate courses, and while currently teaching a graduate course, I've thought about these goals at a classroom-level, but I think these goals could be applied to a broader strategic plan for a university.

1. Make sure students graduate as skilled, thoughtful consumers and producers of digital media

Several smaller goals fit into this:

Learn how to search - Read Bill Turkel's blog. If you're not convinced search is important, READ IT AGAIN. There is more to search than Google, and learning how various searches work—and, more importantly, how to make search for work you—is an incredibly valuable skillset beyond college.
Learn how to manage information flow - For better or for worse, the information age is in overdrive, and all is in flux (thanks again, Bill). But there are tools and services to help you manage that flow, and it should be one of the goals of any university to help students learn how to manage that information. If we want to encourage students to expand their learning beyond the classroom (and I really think we should), then universities need to prepare students for managing the mass of information that comes with it.
Learn how to produce meaningful, well-composed content and share it with others - Rob Wall argues that, in the 21st century, "creativity is the new technology." Its incredible to think of the various ways people can produce and share content for equally various purposes. Anyone with an internet connection can sign up for a weblog right now, and begin producing and sharing content, right now. Anyone with an internet connection can produce and share data visualizations. Anyone with a computer and webcam can record and share video. Anyone who can search the web can find audio content, and create a podcast with it. With all of this opportunity for new ways to create narrative and share ideas comes a real need for universities to teach students new ways to compose those narratives and share those ideas.
Learn how to critique content and methodology - Along with providing the ability to produce content in a variety of media, universities must provide the tools and skills to help students critique content, and discern the effectiveness and usefulness of particular technologies and media. One of the tenants of Mason's PhD in History and New Media program is "critical optimism". So, while we are optimistic about the changes that new media can bring to the practice of history, we're critical about the specific methods that particular media employ. This is an approach that, I think, is already common in most classrooms. In my history course, I teach students how to critically read primary and secondary sources, and how to discern other methodological approaches to a particular issue. These skills are equally important—if not more important—when using and producing digital media.

2. Use free, open-source, and/or extensible tools whenever possible, and encourage faculty, staff, and students to do the same.

Universities spend countless millions on closed, proprietary systems like Blackboard and WebCT, systems that are very overbearing in their pedagogical approaches. In contrast, signing up for a weblog like WordPress is free (and there are plenty of other free options), and the uses for blogs in classes are limitless. While a little more difficult for the average instructor, Moodle is a free, open-source alternative to other learning management systems, and boasts a significant developer community contributing plugins and modules for extended functionality. There's more this, though, than learning management systems: web browsers, word processing, screencasting, image editing, audio/video editing, to name a few. The specific tool, of course, should be chosen based on need and goals, but opting for extensible, open-source, and free alternatives will save universities money, provide more flexibility to instructors, and encourage the university community to do with software what it already tries to do with teaching and research: Contribute knowledge and resources back to the world.

3. Foster academic use of technologies that breaks down boundaries of the classroom, and the university as a whole.

As academic departments face budget cuts and lose staff positions if their enrollments are down, this may be the most difficult, but I think the most potentially beneficial, of all the goals. At the American Historical Association's annual meeting in January, I presented on how I use technology to break down barriers to learning in my courses. Mills Kelly has written extensively on the future of the course, and argues that positive change in learning on university campuses will happen when students take individual responsibility for their own learning. Mills is particularly keen on the ideas of an iTunes-like class, where students can choose specific bits and pieces in a course that interests them. Others have spoken of the networked learner, and of learning environments that are not isolated from the rest of the world, but rather expand through a bottom-up approach. While I really like the potential for learning in a world without walls, I think there are some uses for the "artificial community" that is the classroom; Namely, that courses bring together people who would otherwise not talk to each other, and potentially allow for more diversity in perspectives. Learning based purely on social networking brings with it the danger of learning only inside the enclaves we create for ourselves based solely on who/what we like or who/what we're comfortable with. But I think a balance can be struck, and I think universities should employ academic technologies to find and encourage that balance between classroom and independent learning.

So, there are at least three goals I think academic institutions should try to achieve regarding academic technology. Its certain good food for thought, and I'll continue thinking about these goals for my own teaching and research. I imagine, though, that there are plenty more goals to add. So, lets help Jeff out. What would your academic technology goals be?

Frontiers in Digital History Conference

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 24 Feb 2009 20:41:03 EST

The American Association for History and Computing has extended the deadline for its 2009 Annual Conference, "Frontiers in Digital History," to March 2. The conference is taking place at George Mason University on April 3-5. Here's the updated call for papers:

Frontiers in Digital History The American Association for History and Computing (AAHC) 2009 Annual Conference April 3–5, 2009 George Mason University

What frontiers in digital history are we only beginning to explore, or have yet to explore? What promising but under-utilized tools, techniques, and ideas exist in digital media that can help us do better history? Join the American Association for History and Computing for a lively discussion about the frontiers in doing history with digital media. This conference will be of interest to anyone charting new territory in digital history—both online and in the academic and public worlds—including museum professionals, archivists, librarians, historic preservationists, IT professionals, filmmakers, and academic historians.

Suggested topics for proposals include (but are not limited to):

Museums and exhibits
GIS
Aggregating history
Web 2.0 exhibits and archives
Designing and developing digital history
Teaching digital history
Visualizing the past
Networked Research

The conference committee encourages participants to go beyond theory and into the realm of practice through a variety of presentation formats, including:

Project Demonstrations and prototypes
Paper Presentations
Roundtable Discussions
Workshops

All presenters must be current members of the AAHC. Proposals for complete panels should include a chair. All proposals must include a 200-word abstract for each paper, along with a brief vita for each participant. Please be sure to indicate which member of the panel will serve as the contact person for future correspondence. Please include name, address, telephone number, and email address for each participant.

The deadline for proposal submissions has been extended to March 2, 2009. Send proposals (plain text, Word, RTF, or PDF) or inquiries to either:

Jeremy Boggs Email: jeremy@clioweb.org

Jillian Hinegardner Email: jhinegardner@ursuline.edu

If you have questions, or are interested in participating, send me or Jillian an email. Hope we see you in April!

THATCamp 2009

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 10 Feb 2009 18:21:40 EST

THATCamp, the immensely fun and popular digital humanities unconference hosted by CHNM is back June 27–28, 2009. Because of the popularity of THATCamp last year, we've acquired a bit more space this year and opened up the number of attendees we accept to be somewhere between 70 and 100. And, judging by the number of applications on the first day, we're gonna get twice as many applications as we have spots. The buzz on Twitter has been exciting, and lots of new folks have signed up in addition to a few campers from last year. We may let Dan and Tom in, if they promise to let me and Dave organize it again next year!

Last year's camp was without a doubt the most productive, enjoyable, and rewarding academic conference I've ever attended. Calling it just a conference is a injustice. Its a conference/workshop/tutorial/networking/tinkering/playing-around kind of gathering, perfect for folks interested in a variety of aspects in digital humanities who want to expand their skills and knowledge. Its a true working weekend, where people show things their working on, get feedback, toss around ideas, and connect with others equally excited about the possibilities of digital humanities. We don't read papers, and don't sit around while others read to us. We brainstorm for ideas. We talk about problems. We come up with solutions.

If THATCamp sounds like you're kind of event, check out the website, and fill out the application form to see if you can get a spot! If you have questions, send us a note by email to info@thatcamp.org or a message by Twitter to @thatcamp. *[CHNM]: Center for History and New Media

Three Roles for Teachers using Technology

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 07 Feb 2009 22:26:22 EST

Back in January, I had the privilege of serving on a roundtable entitled Teaching History in the Digital Age at the American Historical Association annual conference. In my talk, "Beyond Classroom Walls: New Boundaries for Teaching and Learning with Digital Tools," I reflected on my own experience defining and redefining boundaries I encountered when I started teaching a US history survey course several years ago. (Slides are available on my SlideShare account.) While my presentation focuses on how I integrated technology and media into my classes in an effort to break down those boundaries, I've thought a bit more about what my new roles are as an educator using technology and social media. These roles have become even more apparent to me as I teach History 697: Creating History in New Media this semester. I've come up with three so far: Instructor as Role Model; Instructor as Tech Support; Instructor as Cheerleader.

Instructor as Role Model

I think any instructor using technology, in the class or out, should think of themselves as a role model for how those technologies can be used for responsible, beneficial goals. One way I do this is to be completely transparent with students regarding my use of technology. I provide links to my blog, my Twitter account, my Flickr account, my YouTube and Vimeo users, my Facebook page, and my instant messenger screennames. I encourage them to follow me, and contact me through any of these methods. I set up rules for contacting me, though, which are followed 99.9% of the time, and that 0.1% is not enough of a problem for me to change my transparency. I also show students how I've used my blog, Twitter feed, and other accounts to build a professional network and share information. While others warn about the ill effects of putting too much of yourself online (which can be true), I try to show students how I use technology to expand my opportunities, not limit them. Overall, I've had positive feedback from students about my openness. I think that I use technology and social media responsibly (though I could work on the efficiency part). Setting an example that students can follow is important if we want those students to be more critical about their use of technology.

Instructor as Tech Support

When utilizing social media and technology in my courses, I've found myself serving as the primary tech support person when students run into trouble. With my tech background, I'm comfortable with this, but I suspect a lot of teachers are not. Explaining the technical aspects of blogging, wikis, RSS, YouTube, and Flickr can take up time spent on other things in class and out, but I think its very important to take on this role. In a lot of cases, support involves me showing students how to find answers to their questions on the Web, on support forums, or other resources. In other cases, support involves me taking 5-10 minutes at the end of class to explain how a particular technology works. While this can be TONS of work, serving as tech support has, I think, given my students more confidence in my ability to teach with and use technology (going back to Instructor as Role Model).

For example, I have an assignment that asks students to research and write an article on Wikipedia. Its not a big article (~500 words), but the assignment does ask a lot from students: Learn how to do proper formatting for Wikipedia, research an article, and try as hard as they can to ensure their article isn't vandalized or deleted AND encourage other users to contribute to the article. Learning these things requires a lot of my time for tech support: Explain how Wikipedia works, how to format footnotes, headings, et cetera, and how to find guidelines to follow if a student's article is up for deletion. This is not the kind of task I'd ask general University tech support, because the assignment is as much about learning these technical things as it is learning about collaborative writing and research. The fact that I can take on a role of tech support helps make the assignment successful.

Instructor as Cheerleader

Out of the three, I think the role of Instructor as Cheerleader is the most important. I really think that there's a lack of cheerleading or positive reinforcement in higher education in general, particularly when trying to teach students to use new kinds of technology or social media. At the beginning of the semester, usually after the first class when I've introduced all the things we'll be doing with computers, I get a few emails from students saying something to the effect that "I'm not good with all this computer stuff." And they probably aren't; I'm not convinced that this generation, like previous generations, is that tech savvy. But I do think every student I have is capable of becoming more proficient with technology than before they entered my class, and can learn how to use the technology they're exposed to every day in new, meaningful, efficient ways.

The prospect of editing a Wikipedia article, to go back to that example, is a strange (and sometimes frightening) proposition for my students. Learning how to format footnotes in Wikipedia, insert images, write the proper code for headings and bulleted lists can be daunting to many, let alone connecting with a few dozen completely unknown Wikipedians to discuss the merits of their articles as some face deletion. Encouragement and genuine interest in the success of each students project is imperative, as is patience. There may be some hand-holding involved as students negotiate with sometime rude Wikipedia admins (I've done this) or spending some extra time during office hours explaining wiki formatting while encouraging student that they are in fact smart enough to do all this computer stuff (I've also done this). Pointing out successes in class, even if its as simple as successfully inserting a YouTube clip into a blog post, goes a long way to get students vested in the assignments and class as a whole.

Results

All of these roles help me accomplish one of my goals in class: Help my students become more savvy, more responsible consumers and producers of media and technology. I think trading of some time covering some particular historical topic to teach students how to extend learning beyond my classroom is more than worth it. In the end, I get more students interested in exploring history and help shape more responsible social technology users. Even if I only influence a handful of students, I'll consider my class a success.

I'm still going to think about these roles, refine them, and perhaps come up with more as my teaching evolves. I probably missed a few roles that you think are important, or your courses may be different enough to warrant different roles when using technology in class. What others have you acquired while teaching with technology? What are the drawbacks and merits of them?

New (and Updated) WordPress Plugins

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 12 Jan 2009 00:18:47 EST

I spent a little time this weekend updating some plugins I've had in the hopper. First, Zac Gordon and I updated ScholarPress Courseware to work with WordPress 2.7. Many thanks to Zac for helping to update Courseware's interface elements to match 2.7's admin theme, and for adding an easy date picker to the schedule edit form. There are still some inconsistencies in the plugin between WP 2.6 and 2.7, but we did the best we could. We'll continue to make improvements to Courseware, so stay tuned at ScholarPress.

I also cleaned up a few custom plugins that I've used on ClioWeb and various other sites. These two plugins, CW Author Base and CW Page Categories, do some simple stuff, but they've been handy to me, so I'm sharing them here in hopes that they're useful to someone else.

CW Author Base--This is a really simple plugin that lets you change the base for author URLs in WordPress. You can already do this for categories and tags in WordPress under the Settings tab, but not author URLs. I think this should be part of the core, but its not. So, if you wanna change the author URL base, save this file as a .php
CW Page Categories--Another very simple plugin that lets you add categories to a page. It includes a template function called cw_listcategories() that you can use in the sidebar to list pages under a category heading. You can also return an array of pages with cw_getpagesbycat($cat) and replace $cat with the category ID.

As always, if you have suggestions for improvement, or add you own code to these plugins, please share!

Web Typography Links

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 06 Jan 2009 21:46:52 EST

I promised Karin Dalziel some resources for doing web typography, and thought I'd just share it with a blog post. These are a few sites, blog posts, and articles I've found useful when learing about web typography; this is by no means a comprehensive list, and you'll find that upon further exploration, there are plenty of debates when it comes to type for the web, especially with sizing type using CSS. (This post also reminds me that I need to clean up some of the type around this site!)

How to Size Text in CSS - Richard Rutter describes various approaches for sizing web type in pixels, ems, and percentages. Rutter pioneered the "62.5% Method" for sizing web type, which I still use.

Five Simple Steps to Better Typography - Mark Boulton's great blog post series on how to make the type on your website better. Nice, illustrated examples, very accessible to non-designers.

Compose to a Vertical Rhythm - Helped establish the use of a baseline grid, or vertical rhythm, for web typography.

Setting Type on the Web to a Baseline Grid - Wilson Miner shows you how to establish a baseline grid for your website, and how to make type of various sizes adhere to that grid.

Text Sizing - provides screenshots (lots of screenshots) of various browsers to compare text sizes.

I Love Typography - Not just web typography, but type in general. Beautiful site, lots of good coverage of all things type.

Web Design is 95% Typography - Great article that discusses the enormous role typography plays in web design.

Typography is the Foundation of Web Design - I couldn't agree more with the title of this post. Samantha Warren discusses the process she uses for implementing great type solutions for the web in a presentation she gave at Refresh Baltimore.

The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web - Great resource that takes Robert Bringhurst's classic on typographic style and applies it to web design.

Web Safe Fonts - Great survey conducted by Jason Cranford Teague that details current web safe fonts and their presence on a variety of platforms and versions.

TypeTester - Lets you quickly and easily compare different typefaces and sizes, and generates CSS.

If you find any other useful resources, please share them!

Omeka Stable 0.10 Release

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 18 Dec 2008 17:44:45 EST

For those of you who haven't heard the news on the Omeka blog or the Twitter feed, the Omeka team has released the stable version of 0.10, and in the process upgraded a few plugins and created some new ones. Kris and Dave did some fantastic work on the MyOmeka plugin, which lets your users create accounts on your Omeka site to add personal notes and tags to items. We upgraded the Geolocation plugin to work with 0.10. Jim Safley updated popular iPaper plugin. And, I contributed a new, simple Social Bookmarking plugin that adds a configurable list of bookmarking services to the bottom of public items in your Omeka archive. There are a few more, all of which you can download on the plugins page

Go check out the new stable release, download and install a few plugins, and let us know what you think!

Part Five: Maintenance, Documentation, and User Feedback

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 16 Dec 2008 00:08:54 EST

The last part of these series briefly discusses some things I keep in mind when maintaining a site after launch, some things I document for anyone charged with adding and updating content on the site, and some good things to keep in mind with regard to user feedback. Hopefully these tips will help you maintain and expand your project beyond the initial launch, and allow you (with the help of user feedback!) to improve the site long after it goes public.

Site Maintenance

Once a site is live, it will still need to be maintained at some level. If you use a content management system like Omeka or WordPress, you will need to keep up with software upgrades and bug fixes, and apply those to your site as needed. Subscribe to the news blog or email listserv for your particular CMS to keep up-to-date with new releases and bug fixes. For projects at CHNM, I'm subscribed to listservs and blogs for WordPress, Drupal, bbPress, and a variety of plugin comment threads.

When upgrading software, I find it best to perform the upgrades on a copy of the site in a undisclosed folder on your server. If you have a development server, use it. Or you can perform upgrades and maintenance on your local computer if you've set up a web development environment on it. (I detail how I set up my web development environment on my wiki.) Of course, be sure to backup any files and databases when performing upgrades.

Documentation

In addition to maintaining the software, you'll need to provide ways for your content team to continue maintaining content on the site. If your website requires regular content updates, and if you expect the site to be relevant and sustainable long after development is done, its prudent to create some documentation for how current and future members of your project team can update the site.

A styleguide is particularly useful for advising the content team on proper markup and formatting for site content, and for future designers and developers who may have to do more significant upgrades to the site's design. The styleguide at the New York Public Library is a perfect example. It outlines the DOCTYPE that webpages on the NYPL website should use, proper markup for things like headings and lists, and how to use/modify CSS on the website. You could easily write something similar for your own site, assuming you made some concrete decisions about layout, typography, and colors during the design and development phases. You did that, right?

User Feedback and Community

After launch, its good to provide some means for direct user feedback. Despite all the planning and testing prior to launch, user feedback is vital to the sustainability of a site and ensures you can adapt your site to the needs of your visitors. Also, it provides a way for users to contribute to the life of the project. Hopefully you can build a regular group of users vested in the success of your project, and recommend it to others. User feedback can come in several forms, from suggestions for improvement to troubleshooting. Methods for soliciting and managing feedback can depend on several factors:

How much feedback you expect
How much time/how many people you have to deal with user feedback
How public you want feedback to be.

At the least, you should provide an email address for users to content for site errors and general questions. If you find yourself dealing with the same questions regularly, though, it would be beneficial to create a Frequently Asked Questions page on your site. You could then funnel inquiries through that page, and if a user's question isn't addressed in that FAQ page, they can then continue to some other process for feedback. This saves time for both you and your users.

More robust forms of feedback could involve setting up a separate section for forums, in which individual users can have accounts, post questions to a forum, and have admins (and other forum members) respond. CHNM uses this on Zotero and Omeka. Omeka in particular uses a free software platform called bbPress, from the makers of WordPress, to power its forums. We set up forum topics for different areas to focus conversations and make it easier for users interested in similar aspects of the project to interact.

With some of the WordPress plugins I've helped develop, I rely on the WordPress forums for user feedback and assistance. I subscribe to the RSS feeds for the ScholarPress Courseware tag, and try to respond to posts there whenever I can. One of the great things about having the support forum there is that other WordPress users can (and do) respond to posts about plugins I help develop. If the code for your project is hosted elsewhere, check if those repositories can also help you set up space for user feedback.

Indirect feedback is also important. This kind of feedback includes blog posts, Twitter messages, and any other things written about your project. Its good to keep up with this activity, and respond when useful, because you should be actively interested in how your project is received by others and encourage others to write about your project. For example, I get Google alerts email for any news and blog posts that link to the Omeka website, I subscribe to the RSS feed for tweets that include "omeka," and I subscribe to the RSS feed for the delicious tag "omeka." There are a few others, but the point is to find a few social app and services, see if people using those services are talking about your project and connect with them. Humanities scholars should see the importance of indirect user feedback and engaging with that feedback. While its great to get people to ask you questions at a conference, its also great to have people cite your work in their own scholarship, write reviews of your work, or recommend your work to their colleagues. Being able to track this kind of feedback, and follow up on this feedback when warranted, is an important part of tracking the impact of your project across a variety of audiences on the Web.

Wrapping Up

That's it! I must apologize for the time it took to complete the series. I hope the series has been useful nonetheless, but I also hope that you take anything I've outlined and modify it for your own needs. This is a good process, but its also good to adapt to the changing needs of your project, your team, and your users. In the end, those are the most important things to consider when framing a design and development process for your project.

Part Four: Front-End Development

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 11 Oct 2008 19:30:50 EDT

Front-end development involves codes that deals with how things are displayed in a browser. This includes HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Back-end development, in contrast, refers to the development on the code and technologies that the end-user hardly ever sees. This includes PHP, MySQL, XML, Perl, or any other languages that affects how a site works underneath. Back-end development usually involves database interaction and programming, installing and modifying any number of content management systems. The lines between front and back-end work can be very blurry. For the purposes of this article I'll be talking about front-end development only; Back-end develop is equally important, but also warrants more space for discussion--perhaps even another post series!

Front-end development usually can't take place until decisions have been made about the front-end design (discussed in the last post). At CHNM, we've build projects where there was one designer, one front-end developer, and one back-end developer, all working in concert to build a project. And, we've built projects that had one person doing all three. Whatever your staffing situation, here's what goes on in this phase:

Photoshop mockups are translated into working HTML/CSS mockups
Naming conventions in code are set and documented.
Design is tested in browsers.
HTML templates are then used to build out the final version of the site (in CMS, or as static pages)

1) Create HTML Mockups

To facilitate faster development of HTML mockups, I've created a "starter kit" that is essentially a directory with a basic file structure and pre-coded files for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You can download my example starter kit and take a look at how I set it up. The file structure I generally follow is:

```

/starter/
    index.php
    /c/
        screen.css
        print.css
        ...any other <abbr>CSS</abbr> files.

    /j/
        global.js
        ...any other necessary javascript files or libraries.

    /i/
        ...any necessary images for the design. Background
                images, logos, etc.

```

My HTML and CSS files also have a basic structure I usually follow. My starter HTML file looks like this:

```

<body>
    <div id="skiplink" class="hide"><a href="#content">Skip to Content</a></div>
    <div id="wrap">
        <div id="header">
            <h1 id="site-title">Site Title</h1>
            <ul id="sitenav" class="navigation">
                <li><a href="#">Lorem</a></li>
                <li><a href="#">Ipsum</a></li>
                <li><a href="#">Dolor</a></li>
                <li><a href="#">Amet</a></li>
            </ul>
        </div>
        <div id="content">
            <div id="primary"></div>
            <div id="secondary"></div>
            <div id="tertiary"></div>
        </div>
        <div id="footer">
            <p>Footer Info</p>
        </div>
    </div>

```

This is a good point for the front-end developer to come up with (and stick to!) naming conventions for various ids and classes used throughout the site. I've found that using #primary, #secondary, #tertiary, and so on, gets me thinking less about the presentation of that content, and more about its relative importance. Its not a perfect solution, and sometimes I have to ditch this convention in favor of others, but the point is that you have a convention, and you follow it throughout your site.

My CSS file starts with generic styling of basic elements, followed by any global classes I use throughout the site, then moves on to each section of the page (wrap, header, content, footer). Here's an example:

```

/* == Reset == */
@import url("reset.css");

/* == Generic styles ======== */
body {font:62.5% "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color:#222;
    background:#fff;}

/* Headings */
h1 {font-size:3.6em; line-height:1em; margin-bottom:1em;}
h2 {font-size:3em; line-height:1em; margin-bottom:1em;}
h3 {font-size:1.8em; line-height:1em; margin-bottom:1em; font-weight:bold;}
h4 {font-size:1.5em; line-height:1.2em; margin-bottom:1.2em; font-weight:bold;}
h5 {font-size:1.5em; line-height:1.2em; margin-bottom:1.2em; color: #999;}
h6 {font-size:1.2em; line-height:1.5em; margin-bottom:1.5em; font-weight:bold;}

/* Links */
a:link {}
a:visited {}
a:focus {}
a:hover {}
a:active {}

h1 a, h2 a, h3 a {text-decoration:none;}

/* Misc Elements */
p,ul,ol,dl,blockquote,address {font-size:1.2em; line-height:1.5em; 
    margin-bottom:1.5em;}
ul {}
ol {}
dl {}
blockquote {}
address {}

/* == Wrap == */
#wrap {width:882px; margin:0 auto;}

/* == Header == */
#header {}

/* == Content == */
#content {}

    #primary {}
    #secondary {}
    #tertiary {}

/* == Footer == */
#footer {}

```

As you can see, I start out with some things already filled in (typography--font sizes, line-heights, margins), but some things I leave blank and fill in as I go. This is a personal preference, and I change things around from project to project. But this gets me started.

Using this starter kit, I build out HTML/CSS mockups based on the Photoshop mockups created in the last stage. I generally try to build the same pages that were presented to the project team, and strive to make the HTML version look and feel the same as the color mockups as much as possible. But, its important to remember than a design will never completely look the same in Photoshop and in the browser, and will rarely look the same across different browsers. Striving for pixel perfection to the color mockup across browsers, while sounding noble, ends up being a significant waste of time. The goal should be to make the HTML mockups look like the color mockups as much as possible, but also be usable and useful to the end-user. If one section of a site is bigger by one point on one browser, its probably not worth the time to figure out why. If its using a completely different typeface, then maybe you have a problem.

2) Test Mockups in Browsers

The advantage to doing HTML mockups before diving straight into the entire project is that you can 1) do the prototypes quickly, and 2) test the design in browsers before doing all the work to apply the design to dynamic content. At CHNM, we test in the following browsers:

Windows

Firefox 3
Internet Explorer 6
Internet Explorer 7
Opera

Macintosh

Firefox 3
Opera
Safari

I try my best to test every single page, but I usually miss a few pages, so its good to have one or more people test your site on different browsers. When taking notes, I generally make a list that starts with the browse in quest, then a subheadings with the title and path of the page I'm looking at, and then specific issues for that page. For example:

Internet Explorer 6

Items Browse page - example.com/items/browse/

Items content extends past page boundary

Individual item titles not showing up

Layout for main column and sidebar is broken (aren't showing up side by side)

This allows me to first focus on a particular browser, then focus on a particular page (and know what its URL is), and get those issues working for that browser. I've found that a lot of issues on one page are similar to other pages, so solving it once usually fixes it globally. But, I like to note each problem on each page, because there may be other issues at play.

3) Applying to Dynamic Content

After you've completed HTML mockups and tested them in various browser, its time to use them when working with dynamic content. If your project is just going to be static pages, simply keep building out HTML pages as you did for the HTML mockups. But if you'll be working with data in a database, now's the time to learn a little bit about the kind of code you'll be using to pull data into your HTML dynamically.

One piece of advice I can give on back-end development is: avoid reinventing the wheel as much as possible. That is to say, look to see if there are solutions available to make your development process easier before deciding to write something from scratch. With Omeka, the project team met early on and explored options for doing the kinds of things with wanted to do with other content management systems (Drupal, WordPress), and determined that the problems we wanted to solve required that we write something new. But even then, we did completely start from scratch. We use a PHP framework, Zend, as the base for the application, which makes development much more rapid and stable than if we wrote our own framework from scratch.

The data needs for a project can greatly impact the kinds of technology a project will need to use (or can't use). I recommend that the development person/team make a list of any available content management systems, frameworks, and libraries and rate their qualities based on what your project needs to accomplish. For example, at CHNM we've use Drupal, Omeka, and WordPress for different projects based on their needs. We build Omeka, and we think it rocks, but its not right for every site. Neither is Drupal or WordPress, or any other CMS out there.

When I'm choosing a CMS or library or framework, I like to give myself some time to figure out how I would build the site with each one (if possible), determine which is most efficient and maintainable, and then go with the best choice. Some examples:

Content Management Systems

PHP Frameworks

JavaScript frameworks and libraries

Many of you will be developing projects that rely on some kind of content management system that employs a theme API to pull content from a database. WordPress and Omeka are two such systems that I've worked with very closely, but other such as Drupal, Joomla, and ExpressionEngine are others that you might be using. One of the final jobs of the front-end developer is take the static HTML mockups she/he has created, and apply the HTML structure to the template files used in one of those systems. In some cases your front-end and back-end developer (if they're two different people) will need to work together to make sure their individual contributions to the project can work together. A back-end developer, for example, may need to explain to a front-end developer about how certain theme API calls work and where to put them in the HTML template, while a front-end developer may need to explain to a back-end developer than the content a plugin generates needs to be in an unordered list with a specific id and class attribute. In short, there's a point where the two types of development merge, usually a few weeks before the site launches.

This will also be a time when the front-end developer will have to account for specific kinds of content not covered in the HTML mockups. This will happen as content for the site gradually gets added to the database, and all the sections and pages for the site outlined in the site map emerge. You may have to add some specific styles for certain content. But the work you've already done will make this process much faster. Once you've done all of this, maybe run some more browser testing for anything new you've added since the HTML mockups, your site should be ready for launch!

[XML]: Extensible Markup Language [API]: Application Programming Interface [URL]: Uniform Resource Locator [CHNM]: Center for History and New Media [HTML]: Hypertext Markup Language [PHP]: Hypertext Pre-Processor *[CSS]: Cascading Style Sheets

Part Three: Design Process

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 04 Jun 2008 10:42:13 EDT

Now we get to the fun part: design. Unlike programming, design is one area that everyone on a project can (and usually does) have an opinion. It can be really fun to come up with new design ideas and get imaginative with a project, but it also possible to spend months on revisions and stymie a creative workflow if you're not careful. By following a process, and sticking to that process as much as possible, I've found that my design work is far more productive and fruitful than without a process.

Generally, my design process follows this flow: Brainstorm & Research -> Concept -> Mockups. Of course, the process never goes straight from one to the next, but meanders as ideas develop. That's OK, so long as you have a process to begin with, and have good, thought-out reasons for going back and forth during the process.

The Process

Brainstorm and Research

The first part of the design process involves something humanists should be quite familiar with: research and brainstorming. Great design solutions take lots of research and lots of thought, and don't simply appear out of thin air. A significant investment in brainstorming and research during the design process helps produce great results far more often than without.

When I begin a design project, I usually ask the project team or project lead what kind of mood or atmosphere we want the site to set for users. It is important to get feedback from the team at this point. I advise setting aside one or two meetings for this, just to come up with aesthetic concepts and sort through which ones are most useful, before touching Photoshop. When I asked this about Gulag, for instance, the responses were almost always "cold," "grey," "dreary," "worn," and "sad." Create mood boards, find other websites that contains elements you like, create color palates, whatever works for you and your team. The point is to get those creative juices flowing, to come up with ideas no matter how crazy. I've found that if you get stakeholders involved at this point it helps head off issues when discussing design mockups later on in the process.

I keep an Idea Box in my office, and put things that I think are designed really well, or use design elements that I'd like to emulate in a future project. These things include magazine clippings, keychains, flyers, product boxes, coffee cup sleeves, anything that I think is designed well, has a strong concept, or implements interesting solutions. I also keep a library of website screenshots that I like using iPhoto. I regularly check out CSS showcase sites like CSS Mania, CSS Beauty, and Stylegala, to name a few. Sometimes I'll take shots of the entire screen, and sometimes I'll take clips of particular portions of a site I like, such as forms, headings, lists, or navigation. All of these serve to get ideas flowing in my head, figure out how others have solved design solutions, and learn from them.

Screenshot of Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives.

Important for designers in general, but especially important for digital humanists, is researching the materials presented on the site. I look at materials not to engage them as an historian, but as a designer (though I can't help but look at them as an historian too). I look for the emotions the materials evoke, for ideas to draw from, for inspiration. For Gulag, there were lots of photos, drawings, letters, and posters on the history of the Soviet Gulag prison system that provided a wealth of design inspiration. I was drawn to a particular photo that depicted the remnants of a barren camp, and decided that would serve as the centerpiece for my design.

The Omeka logo had a somewhat similar development. From a design perspective, Omeka has been one of our more difficult projects to design and market, because we want to appeal to so many audiences: We want it to appeal to a general public, but also to have a professional, academic air to it. As it says on the Omeka website, the term "Omeka" is Swahili for "display goods, to unpack," so we wanted something that embodied that idea too. So, I researched potential sites that could be built with Omeka and looked at sites that our target audience created.

At this stage, I use pencil and paper a lot. Before I touch Photoshop, I sketch ideas, usually thumbnail-sized boxes with layout, color, and graphics ideas. I like to keep a regular notebook for sketching ideas for various projects. I have a box full of crayons and colored pencils. I try out color combinations on paper and quickly draw logo ideas and layout ideas. These help me explore concepts quickly, without the investment of time and energy it takes to sketch ideas on the computer.

Concept

The whole goal of design, for the web or otherwise, is devising and implementing a concept or solution for a specific problem. If you do not have a concept--if you choose images, colors, fonts, et cetera with no reason--you're decorating, not designing. Designers should have a reason for almost every design decision: fonts, font size, font weight, leading and kerning, margins, padding, layout, colors, widths and heights, images. Design does not implement these things haphazardly.

For Gulag, my concept was simple: a cold, snowy camp, isolated and desolate. I took the photo of the camp I had found and made a Photoshop brush of the building and fence, then created a white silhouette of the camp that blended into the white background of the content area of the site, giving the sense that the camp in the header held or contained the content below. The logo employs a font called P22 Johnston Underground which, besides being similar to the font used for the London Underground, is reminiscent of fonts also used in Soviet propaganda posters. Thus, my design for the site combined a rugged, worn, desolate camp with a bureaucratic, constructivist attitude.

Logo for Omeka.

For the Omeka logo, my concept involved modifications to the "unrolling" or "unraveling" that we initially came up with as a team. I liked the idea of a spiral, but also felt that the spiral should have direction, and not seem like a spiral out of control. One of the strengths of Omeka is its structure and ability to frame and guide the creation of an archive or exhibit. So, instead of a random spiral, I used the Fibonacci spiral to indicate unrolling, but in a systematic, controlled, directed way. The path in the logo represents the seemingly endless and creative ways you can use Omeka, while the ratio of squares and rectangles represents the framework and guidance that Omeka provides.

Humanist scholars should see the utility in having a purpose for doing something; we usually have a purpose all the time, whenever we write a paper, give a lecture, or contribute to a conference. We always have a thesis, an argument that always tries to solve a problem or get a concept across to an audience. Design is no different. Good design always has a problem to solve, a concept to get across to an audience. Choices about color, typography, and layout should be solutions to that problem.

Mockups

Once you have a solid concept in place, now you move to creating substantial color mockups in Photoshop or another graphics editing program of your choice. At CHNM, we generally develop 2-3 different mockups, each with 2-3 levels of page: homepage, a "browse" or secondary page (like browsing the results of a search), and a "content" or tertiary page. Sometimes each mockup has its own concept, and sometimes all are simple variations on a central concept. The wireframes created in the previous phase come into play here. Ideally, the design team has enough information about what content will go on a page and how much to do a quality mockup. If they don't have this, it is extremely difficult to do mockups. I almost always make a checklist of all the content elements that should appear on a page, and check them off when I have accounted for them. Adding new content elements can and usually does throw off the design.

As a personal rule, I always start with the most "inside-page" first, or the content/tertiary page. The inside page is arguably the most important page on the site, the page that your users are trying to get to and will want to use. The homepage and the browse pages are important, but only in the sense that they're sole purpose is to help users find that last page of content, the one they're going to use, for research or educational purposes. Think of a website review, an archive page for a single item in your database, or a blog post with comments. Your approach may be different, depending on the information architecture of your site, or your own personal style.

Screenshot of photoshop mockup I created for a redesign of the Western History Association website that illustrates use of guides for grid layout and typography.

While creating mockups, its good to keep a running list of design specs that you'll need to translate into CSS when you begin front-end development. I pay particular attention to font sizes, margins, line-heights, and colors for various parts of text (paragraphs, headings 1-6, lists,etc.). I also think about the grid I'll use for the page design. I use a very handy Photoshop script called GridMaker, that allows you to quickly create a grid of columns and gutters using values you input. I almost always design pages using a 12-column system, which allows for the most flexibility (2 divisions of 6 columns, 3 divisions of 4 columns, 4 divisions of 3 columns).

Photoshop Management

A few tips for doing mockups in Photoshop:

When making color mockups in Photoshop, I usually set the resolution to 300dpi, so that they print nicer and can be used in grant applications (which CHNM does a lot). You can bump them down to 72 dpi to use directly on your website if needed.
Name your layers. Let me say that again. Name your layers. It is so much easier for someone else on a project team to open your photoshop file and find a particular element on the page if you name your layers meaningfully. Don't use a name like "layer 1" because, well, that's just not meaningful. I don't have solid naming conventions, but it might be good practice to implement some.
Use layer groups. When I do a mockup, I generally have each page level I'm creating in its own folder, so I can work in one file and not three separate files. I also use folders for sections or groups of content.

Presenting and Discussing Design

A few quick tips/observations on some best approaches for presenting and discussing design:

The design team should prepare a design brief, written or oral, to present to the project team on the design concept implemented for each mockup. Part of a designer's role is to sell her/his design, to explain why she made certain design decisions and how they successfully apply the overall concept of the site. This helps in a few ways: 1) It allows your thought process concerning design decisions to be more open and available to the project team, and 2) in most cases, it will help you counter unhelpful feedback like "I don't like orange." by showing someone giving that kind of feedback how to provide more constructive, nuanced reasons.
Stress that design isn't about using favorites: favorite color, font, images, whatever. Design is about finding the right solution for your project. For example, I hate purple. I can't stand it. But I've used in on several sites because I thought it provided the right solution for a concept we were considering. Similarly, Gill Sans is probably my favorite font, but I don't use it on every site I make (even my own blog) because its not always the best design solution for a particular project.
Resist design stenography. Design isn't about simply taking orders or requests from someone and implementing them. "Change this color to red" isn't design. This requires diligence and respect from all sides: especially the designers and the project managers. Compromises can easily be reached, with patience, respect, and intelligent discussion.
Avoid "mix-and-match" design, or taking elements from multiple design concepts and combining them. If you've done the design carefully, and implemented each concept consistently, mixing design elements from different concepts will be counter-productive.
Limit the number of feedback rounds and revisions, and avoid design-by-committee. A project can easily spend months on design revisions, and can end up including a dozen different people, each with her/his own opinions on a design. Its very easy for the project team to get bogged down in discussions of "I don't like this color" or "that font is too big," especially if this comes from way too many people. Too many cooks in the kitchen is an apt analogy. Set a specific round of revisions (I prefer to limit feedback to 2 rounds), and set the number
Don't be defensive. A designer on a team will invariably have to discuss design with people who aren't designers and who don't think and speak like designers. Getting defensive about design decisions will only create animosity among the team, and never leads to productive results. As a designer, part of my role is to demystifying the design process, to help non-designers understand how I approach a project as a designer.
Be positive and diplomatic with feedback, and help other better articulate their reasons for critique There are a few ways to react to feedback. One way to react to someone not liking a particular color or font is to explain why you made that design choice to begin with ("I wanted to make this stand out because in our wireframes we wanted this piece of content to seem more important than the rest.") and then ask whether they agree with my reasoning. For instance, I chose a font for a logo for a CHNM project, and a few folks on the project team didn't like the font. I explained that I chose the font because I felt it conveyed a sense of what I called "professional playfulness" and that allowed others to better articulate why they didn't like the font, in this case because they didn't want the logo to exhibit playfulness. I was then better able to find out what idea they did want the logo to exhibit, and choose fonts accordingly.

Designer's Toolkit

Here are a few things I keep in my toolkit and highly recommend:

Pencil, Pen, Paper!!! - Colored pencils, markers, crayons, lots of scratch paper. Use 'em, don't be afraid to draw something stupid. Get ideas on paper, as many as you can. Design concepts evolve with thought and experimentation, so don't be afraid to go crazy.
Idea Box - Keep stuff you think is designed well, and think about why you think it is designed well.
Photo album or collection - For screenshots and other images. I use iPhoto, but you could easily use Flickr or some other online service. I also have albums when doing research for a project, like Gulag. Half of the image catalog we have on the Gulag site is on my laptop, because I looked through them when doing research for the design.
Photoshop and Illustrator, with a host of brushes, patterns, and plugins. Make brushes and patterns yourself, and export them so other members of your team can use them too.

Part Two: Information Architecture and Organization

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 27 Apr 2008 14:00:36 EDT

Before you even write a line of code or color a pixel, the project team should define the information architecture of a site. A lot of people fail to realize that the organization of content greatly affects the design and development of a site. Adding a new section of content months after the design has been finalized can throw a wrench in the design, and developers need some idea as to what content will be used by site visitors before coding. I don't think this content has to exist in its entirety at this stage, but it useful to have a solid sense of what you plan to create. Of course, things come up, and new content may have to be added or the information architecture needs to be changed. This is fine, so long as everyone understands that this adds time to the completing of a project, may require designers and developers on the project to revisit their work, and may require reworking the site architecture.

Initial Steps

Determine genre
Content inventory/audit
Site Maps
Page wireframes

Genres

Collecting Sites/Online Archives

Online archives and online collecting sites provide an interesting challenge to defining site architecture. On one hand, they are challenging because the much of the content itself is continuously updated, and never finished. On the other, it can be easier to narrow down the scope of the kinds of content you want to collect and archive. Thus, collecting sites and online archives need to blend

An example of this kind of project is the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank. The goal of the project team when organizing HDMB was to feature the contributions from the public, and account for as many different kinds of contributions as possible: audio, video, images, and text. The site architecture of HDMB reflects a blend of hierarchical guidance and fluid exploration by the user, and is flexible enough to account for constantly-updated content, provided by the public.

Online Exhibits

The goal of online exhibits is to provide a structured, guided presentation of content to the user. Ideally, online exhibits combine an overarching narrative interspersed with relevant exhibit items or objects showcased from the exhibit archive.

In some cases, online exhibits organize content in very hierarchical, guided ways. Object of History, for instance, organizes its content around six featured objects, and asks visitors to explore each of those objects separately, associating additional items, interviews, and text along the way. The structure of each object's exhibit is the same, which helps build comfort and allows users to anticipate how the other exhibits will be presented.

A more complicated exhibit, like America on the Move, offers a variety of ways for users to explore the content. A structured "Exhibit" gives users a chronologically-organized presentation of the content. The "Collection" is a typical archive of items that users can browse by keyword, search. The "Themes" section allows users to explore the content across time, thematically. Multiple options, multiple ways of "reading" the site, allows for more independence on the part of the user to explore how she/he feels.

Both approaches, however, depend on how the project team wants to present the content to the user, and where they want users to focus. Object of History has very specific goals: introduce uses to how historians can use material culture, provide narrative and related items to six key objects, and provide a place for users to try their hand at doing their own exhibits. America on the Move has more general goals: present and document the impact that movement and transportation has had on US history, and provide ways for users to explore that topic as they wish. Both approaches are valid and useful, but both are also reflected in the information architecture of the site.

Teaching Resources

With sites focused on teaching and learning we have a set target audience: teachers and students first, then the general public. As a result, the IA of the site reflects the needs of the primary audience. While some of the kinds of content may be similar, the manner in which site visitors go to access that content is different. Women and World History is an educational site that structures its site to emphasize the teaching resources it offers. Sections like "Teaching Case Studies," "Primary Sources," "Analyzing Evidence," and "Modules" highlight how the site can help teachers to present the history women throughout the world in their classrooms. The titles of sections, the presentation of various content elements, all cater to the audience and the goals of the site.

Auditing and Displaying Information Architecture

Site Architecture Visualizations: Site Maps

I generally start thinking about site architecture with site maps, first sketched on paper or a whiteboard, then developed more formally with software like Omnigraffle or Illustrator. Dan Brown, in his book Communicating Design, rightly points out that site maps alone can simplify a web site too much, hiding the "spaghetti-like structure that's really there." Brown points out that site maps are a hold-over from a much simply time of web site development, when sites were simply static pages with little dynamic or database-driven interaction. (Brown) Still, I think site maps provide a useful method for visualization relationships among web pages on your site, and provide you with a map for potential avenues through which users can access your content.

Example site map using Garrett IA stencils in Omnigraffle.

When creating a site map you should strive to:

Represent the virtual structure of a site with some simplicity.
Represent relationships among sections/pages of a site
Begin conversation for naming pages and sections (not concrete at this point)
Explain why you think those relationships work for the site and for your audience

I use a tool called Omnigraffle to develop site maps and user interaction flowcharts. Omnigraffle comes preinstalled with the Garrett IA stencils--which I used in the example site map--and other stencil packages are available for download elsewhere.

Content Inventory: Spreadsheet

After getting a broader, general sense of the site architecture, its good to start a content inventory for each section and page of your site. This not only help to make the abstract site map more concrete, it also provides a communication tool between content managers and designers when building web pages. These are very helpful, for instance, for organizing and publishing complicated online exhibits that require lots of outside resources and displaying multiple files on a page.

Spreadsheets can be a quick and easy way to list information architecture. Using a spreadsheet can feel more like creating an "inventory" or "audit" of site content, but it can be useful for hierarchically organizing web pages, their descriptions, and a brief listing of their content. Content inventories are great because it gets you thinking about what content you want to display on each page, divorced from design.

Example of a content inventory from the online exhibit of Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom.

I used a content inventory when creating the NPS exhibit for Gulag a few years ago. With that project, our goal was to recreate an physical exhibit on the web. Thus, the physical exhibit already had set content and organization. The task, then, was to translate the display panels from the physical exhibit into distinct web pages, and make sure that the information displayed on each panel corresponded to the each respective web page. I typically use five main headings:

Section - The section title
Page - the title of the page
Location - The URL of the page
Description - A brief description of the page, how it fits with the section.
Contents - Number of paragraphs, word count, figures, images, video, audio, with specific file names to make finding easier.

Page Content Visualizations: Wireframes

A content inventory is very helpful when beginning the third part of site architecture: page wireframes. Page wireframes belong in the IA stage because they're much less about design (layout, typography, color) and more about the importance of content pieces relative to each other. Additionally, they function as blueprint for what specific content areas should be on each page. It is extremely difficult to design a web page, or code a web page, if you do not know what the site architecture is as a whole and what content will go on the page. Creating and discussing wireframes in the IA stage not only help anticipate specific content pieces for each page, they also help you evaluate how your site organization is represented on individual pages.

Remember, the goal for wireframes is to discuss relative importance of content on a page--what should be important, not how to make it important.

When discussing wireframes, try to steer the conversation away from the design aesthetics of the wireframe and more towards the content delivery of the wireframe. What content does it emphasize? What content does it reduce in importance? Should one piece of content appear more important than others? Is all the content represented on the page? Avoid conversations like "The navigation needs to be on the right," or "The font should be Georgia" in favor of observations like "I think the callouts should be emphasized more than the secondary navigation," or "The item's title should be equally important to the items subheadings," Remember, the goal for wireframes is to discuss relative importance of content on a page--what should be important, not how to make it important. There's plenty of time for how conversations in the design phase. Discussing what goes on the page, and how each page component related to the others, will give the designers good ideas to do their jobs: design.

I recommend creating three levels of wireframes: homepage, browse page, show page. Your mileage may vary, depending on your content and type of site, but its good to think about how content is presented differently at different levels of your site. I also use Omnigraffle to draw page wireframes, using a stencil package by Michael Angeles, but I've also done wireframes on whiteboards, and with pencil and paper. In fact, I would encourage you to start with pencil and paper before creating a more formal wireframe in Omnigraffle.

Content Delivery

All the planning for information architecture will pretty much go to waste if that content isn't delivered in a timely fashion. Luke Wroblewski suggests visualizing a "content delivery schedule" to keep the development and delivery of content on time. Using a simple calendar or table, you could construct a list of specific pages or sections of content that needs to be delivered, when it's due, and who's responsible for delivering it. An simple example using a table:

Name	URL	Due Date	Provider	Received?
Homepage	example.com	05.04.08	John Hawking, jhawking@example.com	X
About	example.com/about/	05.12.08	Mary Bailey, mbailey@example.com
Exhibit One	example.com/exhibit1/	05.22.08	Larry Stevens, lstevens@example.com

You could just as easily use a spreadsheet, Google Calendar, milestones in Basecamp, or a wiki page, but the end goals are the same: have deadlines for content delivery and know who should be delivering content.

Importance of Information Architecture

Here are a few concluding points/summaries about why content management and information architecture are vital:

Thinking about content organization gets you thinking more about what kind of site you want to build, who you want to use this site, and how you can best cater to that audience
Genres of sites impact information architecture.
Scope creep with content--involving both removing content and adding new content--affects decisions in future design/development phases.
Begin thinking more abstractly about site architecture (site maps) and end with more concrete thoughts (page wireframes)
Be sure that all the steps you take in developing site architecture coincide with the project requirements you set at the very beginning. All work in this phase must ensure the requirements are met.

Once the team has agreed upon the architecture and organization of a site's content, designers can begin working on, you guessed it, design! In the next post I'll discuss the process for coming up with a design for your project!

Part One: Figure Out What You're Building

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 18 Apr 2008 13:24:38 EDT

Seems simple enough, but I can't begin to count the number of times that failing to do this caused a project to lose direction. Meeting with project managers and content creators about what exactly we're building, what kind of site we're creating, is of the utmost importance at the beginning of a project. Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler call this phase "Defining the Project,"1 while Jesse James Garrett calls this phase "Strategy,"2 but both essentially mean the same thing: figure out what exactly you're building, who's it for, and what is needed for the successful completion of the project.

I would advise that in this phase, you try to answer the following:

What is the site?
What content will be on the site?
Who is the audience? How will we want them to use the site? How will they use the site in other ways?
What specific components are needed on the site? What technologies? Static HTML? Need dynamic content? Need a CMS? Need a custom web application or interactive features?
What is the timeframe for completing specific phases of the project? What is the timeframe for completing the entire project? What other projects are vying for time?
Who is on the project team? What are their responsibilities? How much of their time do we have, or can get?

Questions

What is the site?

If you can't answer this, it will be very difficult for everyone on the team to actually build it. Its OK for the definition or description of the site to evolve over time. In fact, you should probably expect this, as your user base grows or you get new content. The project team does need to hash out, in a paragraph or two, what exactly the site is about, what it offers that other sites do not, and why it is important. If you can't justify building the project, you should consider whether you should build it at all.

What content will be on the site?

It is very helpful to everyone on the team to have a discusion of what kinds of content will be on the site. This isn't saying that the content needs to be done at this point; only that a good idea about what content and how much will be on the site. Is is primarily images? Text? Video? Some combination thereof? Is the content something the team is preparing, or something collected from the public? Is it a "web translation" of a physical exhibit or a book? Is it web-native? The kinds of content, its origins, and the expected interaction between users and the content, will influence answers about who the target audience is and what technologies are needed for the site.

Who is the audience?

The answer to this question has important consequences for the development of the site. Even if you have a solid answer for what the site is, and what content will be on the site, the audience for your site greatly affection how you present that content on the site. A teaching site on the history of the Spanish-American war may look and be organized differently if the primary audience is elementary or high school students instead of teachers. The language used on the site, the content for the site, and the design are all affected by the target audiences.

Needed technologies?

From the very beginning, before one line of code is written or one pixel moved in Photoshop, the team needs to decide what kinds of technologies will be needed for the website. Answers to this question depend on answers regarding what the site is about.

The development team specifically needs to help answer this question. Following Tom Watson's advice, the project team should come together to discuss problems to solve, and what technologies will best solve those problems. You do not, for example, need to use a robust content management system like Drupal if your project consists of only a dozen static HTML pages.You do not need AJAX simply becuase other sites have AJAX; You do not need a blog because other sites have a blog. In other words, do not have a "feature-centric" mindset when discussing options for a project. Think about what your want the site to accomplish, and then decide what technologies will best help and why they will help. Have a reason for everything!

I would say that the development team needs to be the lead on answering this question. They will (or should) have the most experience with determining which technologies will solve specific problems. But its generally good to talk about the problems first, so the development team can decide on which techology solution will best solve those problems.

Timeframes?

All of the previous answers can be fantastic and full of possibility until you talk about the most important aspect of a project: time. Time can be a harsh master. It is a very a good idea to set deadlines and milestones, to keep the project moving forward and give everyone a sense of how long things will take and when they'll be done. In some cases, work by each team member can continue simultaneously. In others, one team member must complete a requirement before another team member can start or finish her/his requirements.

In some cases, deadlines are set by grants: "We promised a fully-function site to collect public reflections by May 2009," for example. Those absolutely should be met. Others can be a little more flexible, but not so flexible that the project never gets finished. Here's a quick process for setting milestones and criteria:

Figure out what milestones are needed (content complete, CMS installed, wireframes completed, etc)
Set deadlines for each milestone, for specific phases of the project
Associate specific criteria for completing milestones by the deadline
If those requirements aren't met, decide whether to move the deadline for the milestone up to allow for completing the criteria or to remove specific criteria as unnecessary.

In other words, deadlines should be stable enough to provide direction and purpose for the team, but flexible enough to account for unexpected contingencies. If you've reached the deadline for a milestone, but do not have all the criteria done for the milestone, consider whether those criteria are necessary to move on. Its OK to say that some criteria are, in the end, unnecessary to consider a milestone complete, and to move those criteria to other milestones and deadlines.

Having milestones, set criteria for meeting those milestones, and deadlines for milestones help keep the project on track, and prevent "feature-creep" or "scope-creep." By this I mean the tendency for a project to take on new features or new scopes that were not set in the beginning of the process, and cause deadlines to be missed. Its fine to add new features, or change the scope of the project, so long as everyone on the team understands that the timeframe and deadlines may have to shift because of those new requirements.

Team Members

Everyone on the team should be introduced to each other, with a brief discussion of each person's specific skills and responsibilities for the project. This not only helps build camaraderie, it also lets someone know who to contact for specific questions or issues. Having trouble finding or using the project logo? Ask the designer. Having a problem with a specific aspect of the CMS? Ask a developer. Not sure where the content is for a specific section? As a content lead or project manager.

Management Hubs

This is a lot of information to manage, a lot of tasks to track, and a lot of people to potentially know and talk to. You shouldn't even try to manage it all on paper, or in your head. The project team needs a central location to go retrieve information about the project, manage tasks, and learn more about other phases of the project. In comes a management hub.

At CHNM, we use Basecamp, a service created and offered by 37 signals. We manage dozens of projects on our Basecamp account, with each project having a homepage, Messages, To-Dos, Milestones, Writeboards, and a place for file uploads. There is a list of everyone involved with the project, with roles and contact information. You can associate a specific to-do list to a milestone, and can thus determine if you can "complete" a milestone if you have completed all the tasks in the associated to-do list. You can assign to-dos to a specific person. We use Writeboards for meeting agendas, notes, and any other documentation we want to keep (styleguides, ideas, etc), and we tend to use the Messages feature more than email to send correspondence concerning a project, that way everyone has an archived copy of the message in Basecamp. As CHNM has grown, Basecamp has become indispensable for managing all our projects.

Alternatively, you could easily use a wiki to manage your projects in much the same way as Basecamp. Free wiki services abound on the web (PBWiki is great, for instance). While not as feature-rich as Basecamp, wikis can fulfill all the needs for project management, with a little work and devotion to organization. You could set up a PBWiki with the following pages:

Homepage--The "dashboard" with the description of the project, the goals for a project, and list of team members with responsibilities. Links to other sections:Timeframe, To-Dos, and Notes.
To-Dos--divided by person or aspect of a project, marked off as they're completed.
Notes--any meeting notes, archived discussions, or ideas you want to archive.
Timeframe--a running list of milestones, with criteria listed for successful completion of each milestone.

In any case, the hubs should at least contain the following:

Description of the project

A paragraph or two stating what the purpose of the project is, what it encompasses, who its target audience is, and what the site will offer.

Goals for the project

A well-defined list of goals or deliverables for the successful completion of the project. This helps keep everyone on target, and ensures that any decisions made during the development of a project should only contribute to, and not add or detract from, the goals.

Project team members

I recommend devoting an entire page, or section on the main page, for listing team members, with their roles or list of primary responsibilities listed and contact information. Perhaps even a link to personal webpages or profiles.

Timeframe

Deadlines, criteria for completion of the project, and major milestones.

To-Do lists

Pretty straight-forward: lists of things that need to get done for a project. This can be divided by person, by team (design team, development team, content team) or by sections of the site. its helpful to have these in once place, so that everyone on the project has a sense of the amount of work everyone is facing. Good especially if someone asks for new features not part of the original description or goals for the project.

Meeting notes, various content pages, links as needed

Good to keep in one central location for all team members to contribute to and refer to throughout the project.

You should totally feel free to set up a wiki however you want, but you goals should be: keep everyone informed, archive project progress, and keep the scope of the project clear and visible.

All Alone?

If you're your own project manager, have this meeting with yourself. Before you type one line of code or color one pixel in Photoshop, go through this process. Set up a project hub. Take meeting notes. Create a timetable. Make to-dos. Some of it may be meaningless (like list of team members), but it helps to formalize the development of a project. And, if you end up getting a grant or someone volunteers to help you with the project, you'll easily be able to orient them and integrate them into the workflow for the project. If it helps, have someone else around to talk through ideas and get things down more concretely, or pretend you're explaining the project to someone else.

What's Next?

After doing all of this, either in one meeting or several, you should be set to move into the next phase of development: Information Architecture. I'll cover this next week!

See Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler, Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works, Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press, 2005, 40.
Jesse James Garrett, The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web, New York: AIGA and New Riders, 2003, 23.

Digital Humanities Design and Development Process

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 06 Apr 2008 12:57:38 EDT

This post is the intro to a series on the process I recommend for creating a digital humanities project from scratch, from initial conception to launch and aftermath. The last few months, I've been researching design and development processes in an effort to establish and document them for folks at CHNM, and for my own benefit. In a lot of cases, the process could be generalized for any kind of project, but I hope to address specific goals and concerns that humanities projects have at various stages of development. So, here's what to expect:

The Series

Part One: Figure Out What You're Building

Figure out what exactly you're building. Seems simple enough. Meeting with project managers and content creators about what exactly we're doing, what kind of site we're building, is of the utmost importance at the beginning of a project. This post will address some basic questions to answer when first starting a project, establishing responsibilities, and setting a timetable that works for everyone.

Part Two: Information Organization and Architecture

Get organized. Before you touch a line of code or a pixel, figure out what the information architecture of a site is. A lot of people fail to realize that the structure and organization of content greatly affects the design and development of a site. Here we'll take a look at some useful techniques for working out how the information is organized throughout a site and on specific pages.

Part Three: Design Process

Create meaningful design solutions. Now that we have a stable information architecture, its time to put that information into a useful, meaningful design. The important thing to remember here is that design is about solving problems and addressing specific issues. Its not about your favorite color or font; its how all the design elements (color, typography, space, layout) work in concert to provide users with a meaningful web experience that we defined in previous steps. Here we'll discuss how to start brainstorming for design ideas, how to bring those ideas into tangible results backed by a concept, and how to present and discuss those results with the project team to get productive feedback.

Part Four: Front-End Development

From pictures to code. OK, so we have a design concept that everyone on the project team has approved. Now we need to take those mockups and translate them into working web pages, and eventually apply them to the entire site. In this post, we'll take a look at how to go from those image-based mockups to HTML mockups to a full-scale working website.

Part Five: Going Live, Maintenance, Documentation

Launch and post-launch tasks. When you take the site live, your work is still not done. The site will need to be maintained, content may need to be added, and user concerns will certainly need to be addressed. Here I briefly discuss the steps to make a site live, elaborate on points concerning maintenance of a website, and provide ways to document the websites to better facilitate that maintenance.

Fluidity

These aren't discreet "steps" in that one must be finished before work on the other can begin. This kind of process would be very impractical. Instead, I like the approach Jesse James Garrett takes in his The Elements of User Experience. Garrett argues that work on each step should finish before work on the next can finish. So, for example, establishing the information architecture can't be completely finished until you've finished figuring out what exactly you're building.1 Work on all steps continues well into the next, but changes in one step can mean that the team has to revisit previous steps. This approach provides a much more fluid, flexible work process, but also requires lots of dependencies and clear communication among all involved.

Any code or files I use will be included with each article for download. I really hope you find the series useful. Check back next week for Part One: Figuring it Out.

Jesse James Garrett, The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web, New York: AIGA and New Riders, 2003, 27.

Duties of a Student

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 03 Mar 2008 23:15:43 EST

The Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules have made their way around the blogosphere a bit recently. They're a great set of rules that, while targed at art students. One of my favorites, however, is this:

General Duties of a Student: Pull everything out of your teacher. Pull everything out of your fellow students.

What I like most about this is the expectation that students demand more of their teachers, and of their fellow students. According to this rule, it is the duty of each student to get everything they can out of their interactions with those in class, instructors and fellow students. I really like this idea. I like the notion that students are duty-bound to learn from other students, and to get them to learn more themselves. Instead of a model where the instructor hands pristine knowledge off to students in a unilateral way, this rule fosters a model where the instructor isn't the only source for learning or motivation to learn.

This is something I'll probably start putting on my class syllabi. I mean, when was the last time one of your instructors told you in class that you should feel obligated to get the most out of your fellow students? We don't encourage this enough, I don't think, and we should.

Design and Development Setup

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 02 Mar 2008 15:17:40 EST

I've received a few emails from readers over the last few months asking what tools I use for my work at CHNM. So, here's a quick run-down of the hardware and software I use on any given day.

Development Environment

I develop most projects on my local machine, a MacBook Pro running OS X "Leopard." I have a nice 24" Apple Cinema display at work that lets me keep a few windows open at once. I actually had a 30" display, but downgraded because I started feeling like that was too much space (thought it was very handy when working in Illustrator).

I use the Apache server pre-installed with OS X, and enable and modify the PHP 5 package that also comes pre-installed. I also run MySQL 5, so I can work with database-driven software like WordPress and Omeka. Basically, I use my laptop as a web server, and work locally. Its very handy because files load faster, and I don't need an internet connection to work. In fact, as I'm writing this I'm at work on an Omeka theme, on an airplane 37,000ft in the air (en route to Portland, OR).

Browsers

I usually test a project on the following browsers: Firefox, Safari, and Opera for Macintosh; Firefox, IE7, IE6, and Opera for Windows. We have a Windows machine set up in the office that has both IE7 and IE6 installed.

For initial development, I use Firefox, with a bunch of extensions. My favorite extensions include the Web Developer Toolbar, Firebug, Operator, and of course, Zotero. I use Operator to check for any microformatted goodness on pages (and make sure to use as much microformats code on my web pages as possible). I use Zotero to take extensive notes during meetings with project managers, and take notes on various sites I visit. I have a whole library devoted to "Web Design/Development" and sub-folder for specific projects.

Other Software

For all my coding, I use Textmate. Textmate is quick, straight-forward, and has exactly what I need to code websites. I've made a few bundles and snippets for Textmate (that I'll eventually put on the server somewhere for download) that help me speed up my workflow a little, including personal CSS snippets, WordPress specific snippets, and Omeka snippets. I set up individual projects in Textmate, so I can work with all the files in a given folder I've devoted to an individual site, and keep those on my desktop. Additionally, the "Find in Project" feature in Textmate is fantastic, especially if I need to find instances of a specific function or line of code across a site (like a WordPress or Omeka installation).

I use Transmit for all my FTP needs. Its a slick little app, with a nice icon. Furthermore, I followed the instructions given by Muffin Research Labs to set up a Textmate project that will open files on a server in a tabbed interface. Quite handy, especially if you edit files directly on the server frequently.

For image editing and interface design, I use Photoshop and Illustrator, and a slew of brushes, patterns, and scripts. I make my own patterns and brushes frequently, and group brushes into packages to share with other CHNMers working on the same project. That way, we all have the same brushes and patterns to work with, which makes consistency in design a bit easier.

iPhoto--I browse a lot of CSS galleries like CSS Beauty, Stylegala, and CSS Mania. I take screenshots of sites I like, and store those screenshots in albums on iPhoto. In addition to whole webpages, I also take screenshots of specific components or parts of a site I like, such as lists, comments, headings, navigation, etc. We also tend to do a few diagrams at CHNM when discussing a site or application, so I take photos of those whiteboards and keep them in iPhoto to refer to later.

Adium--We frequently use chat clients at CHNM to communicate, so I have a special group for my CHNM buddies. I also have an additional group just for the design/development team.

Miscellaneous Sites and Services

I use Google Reader to aggregate all my feeds and keep them in one nice, tidy location that I can access anywhere with an internet connection. I have a folder just for design gallery sites, a folder for design/development magazines (A List Apart, Digital Web), and a folder for individual design/development bloggers.

I post "what I'm doing" to my Twitter account, and follow a few. Twitter's great for getting notifications for interesting links, or for near "real-time" discussion among. The tweets published while debating IE8's use of the meta tag last month was very interesting, and helped keep me informed about what debate issues were important for the web folks I follow. The Omeka team has been using Twitter very effectively to communicate with current and potential users, and post about updates, on Omeka's Twitter account. CHNM and Zotero also have Twitter accounts.

So, there you have it! A digital humanist's toolkit, more or less. This leans more towards the development side of my toolkit, but I hope you find it useful. What do you use? [CSS]: Cascading Style Sheet [CHNM]: Center for History and New Media

Omeka Everywhere

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 26 Feb 2008 08:23:02 EST

Dave Lester and I are pleased to announce the latest episode of THATPodcast. In this episode, we introduce Omeka on the heels of its public release. We're grateful that Sharon Leon and Tom Scheinfeldt, project directors for Omeka, agreed to interviews for the podcast. They provide some great commentary on what Omeka is and how it contributes to digital humanities. Dave follows the interviews with a nice screencast explaining how to set up an Omeka installation on your own server.

The Omeka development team is en route to Portland, Oregon for [code4lib, taking place February 25-28. We're presenting Omeka on Wednesday, and we're looking for to meeting new folks and sharing ideas. There are lots of other great panels, including a discussion by Jay Datema from the NYPL Labs. If you're in Portland, I'd love to meet you, so stop by after our panel to say hello! I've got Omeka stickers and bookmarks to give away. And, if you're not in Portland, you can read my reactions as the conference progresses on my Twitter account. [28]: 2008-02-29 [February 25]: 2008-02-25 *[THAT]: The Humanities and Technology

Omeka Public Beta Release

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 20 Feb 2008 21:11:52 EST

The news is out: We've released Omeka to the public! It's a public beta, dubbed version 0.9.0, but we've made some great progress since the first private invitation release early last Fall. We have lots of exciting work ahead of us, and we're looking forward to building a strong user community and working with that community as we continue developing Omeka. So, go download Omeka and try it out!

Teaching with Blogs

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 06 Feb 2008 00:06:07 EST

Last Friday, Mills Kelly gave a wonderful presentation on his use of weblogs in his history courses in a forum organized by the Center for Teaching Excellence at GMU. If you ever get a chance to listen to Mills talk about teaching, drop whatever you're doing and go listen. Though they in no way do justice to Mills's presentation, here are a few notes I took:

Mills uses blogs instead of course management systems because its something he can set up, modify, and control. He doesn't have to rely on university tech support, or work through the university. Was dissatisfied with systems like Blackboard and WebCT because the interfaces are clunky, have lots of features he didn't need/use.
After switching to blogs, Mills was surprised that students actually wrote more on blogs than on forums in WebCT. Students told him this was because blogging appealed to them more; it was something they may actually use or do outside of class.
Forums = Socratic model. Blogs = Conversational model. With forums, Mills would ask a question, and students would respond. With blogs, students took more initiative to respond on their own, ask their own questions, approach the topic in their own way.
Mills uses blogs to get students prepared prior to class, for the work they'll do in class. So, once class starts he can drop straight into conversation by pointing out posts from students. Breaks the ice, and gets conversation in class going much easier.
What doesn't work: 1) Students don't really take off with blogs as much as he'd like, to make it "their" space to explore and do whatever they want with. Wants more spontaneous participation. 2) Students don't like to critique other students' work. They're reluctant to criticize other students.
Add a link to your own blog to the course website. Students will read it, because some students are interested in what professors think or are working on. Gives students access to the professor that's different than in the classroom, and shows them that professors are thinking about topics outside the classroom.

*[GMU]: George Mason University

THATCamp

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 02 Feb 2008 09:05:49 EST

Playing off the "THAT" acronym, CHNM, Digital Campus, and THATPodcast are sponsoring THATCamp. Taking place May 31-June 1, THATCamp is an "unconference" for digital humanities. The event is hosted by the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University. If you have a strong interest in the future of digital humanities and want to participate in something other than a traditional conference, send an email to thatcamp.info@gmail.com stating who you are, what you want to talk about, and what you'd like to get out of the camp. The sign-up deadline for THATCamp is March 15. [June 1]: 20080602 [CHNM]: Center for History and New Media *[May 31]: 20080531

THATPodcast

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 27 Jan 2008 11:15:58 EST

As the crew from Digital Campus have already announced, Dave Lester and I published our first episode of our new podcast, THATPodcast. The first show focused on WordPress, and included an interview with Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress, and a screencast covering our plugin ScholarPress Courseware.

Even though I had taken a digital history documentary class a few years ago, it still surprised me how much work creating a podcast involved. Like Dave, though, I'm pretty happy with what we came up with, despite getting a little rushed. Dave did a lot of work at the end, so most of the credit for the success of the first show should go to him. Thanks, Dave.

Our plan is to roll out a new THATPodcast show once a month. In February our show will cover Omeka, the free, open source platform for managing collections and exhibits now in development at the Center for History and New Media. We're going to time episode two with the public release of Omeka, so be sure to check back next month!

In the Works

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 14 Nov 2007 09:26:57 EST

After a few months away from blogging, I'm taking it up again. Here's a rundown of what I've been doing the last few months:

ScholarPress

CHNM News and Dave have already pointed this out: Dave and I have started ScholarPress, a suite of WordPress plugins with academics in mind. We have two already out in the world, being downloaded as we speak, and a few more in the works.

The first plugin is Dave's WPBook plugin, which acts as a bridge between a WordPress blog and a Facebook application. I've used the plugin to put my course information, pulled directly from my course website, in an application on Facebook that students can add to their profiles. Just another way to make course information available to students.

The second plugin, Courseware, was originally created by me and Josh Greenberg over the summer of 2006. I've used it for all of the classes I've taught so far. It gives you the ability to manage a syllabus, bibliography, and assignments through a WordPress blog. I've always set up a WordPress blog for my course site, and used Courseware to publish class assignments and meetings. The schedule page includes a link to subscribe to the schedule in a calendar application; it parses events marked up with microformats and creates a vCal file.

A few other plugins in the works:

Gradebook--a plugin that works with Courseware to give instructors the ability to store and share grades securely with students.
Bibliographer--I'm considering making the bibliography portion of the Courseware plugin separate, and beefing it up to do multiple reading lists, reviews, ratings, etc. Of course, it would work with Courseware.
Footnoter--Would give post writers the ability to easily and quickly add footnotes to blog posts through the WYSIWYG editor of WordPress, and have the footnotes appear when hovering over the superscripted note.
Highlighter--This plugin would allow readers to select a portion of a blog post or page and associate a comment with that selection.

Omeka

The biggest project I've been working on at CHNM for the past few months is Omeka. Put simply, Omeka is a simple platform to allow cultural institutions (museums, historical societies, libraries), or pretty much anyone, to manage and publish items, collections, and exhibits on the Web. We've used earlier versions of Omeka to power the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank and Object of History, and we're using the latest releases of Omeka to run a few projects currently under development, like Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives, which is set to launch at the end of November.

If you're interested in getting on the list of beta testers before the public release (which is early March), visit Omeka's website for more information.

Fresh Start

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 30 Sep 2007 11:38:59 EDT

Lots of work going on under the hood, lots of new projects underway.

The old stuff is under Version 1 .

Murphy-Proofing

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 30 May 2007 01:16:39 EDT

Those of you with my IM contact on your buddy list know that, every now and then, my status message reads "talking law down at Murphy's bar." That's a line from a Sister Hazel song, and the law that I'm talking about is, in fact, Murphy's Law. In short, Murphy's Law states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, if given the chance. And lately I've been giving lots of things lots of chances.

I've decided to take a break from blogging, for at least a month, maybe the rest of the summer. I am profoundly guilty of taking on more than I can manage, and I've been feeling quite overwhelmed lately. I've been frustrated because I have so many things I want to work on and participate in, but I lack the time, focus, and energy to do my best with all of those things. Even worse, I avoid those things by doing other stuff that's totally unnecessary. I feel restless, unfocused, even a bit melancholy. Right now, I need to prioritize. I need to start making some headway on other projects I have going. I need to get some perspective on what I want to accomplish, and own up to what I can't accomplish at this moment in time and move on.

I don't think I've even scratched the surface of what I want to do with blogging. I want to come back, with a renewed enthusiasm for this medium and purpose for this site. For the next few weeks, however, I need to take care of some other things. *[IM]: Instant Messenger

Historical Wallpaper

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 20 May 2007 09:58:38 EDT

Historic New England has a nice section on its site on the History of Wallpaper. A timeline correlates historical periods to wallpaper design changes.

White Trash History

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 19 May 2007 14:05:04 EDT

A recent article from the National Sexuality Resource Center discusses the history of "white trash" as a term and a social/cultural phenomenon: "That Ain't White: The Long and Ugly History of 'Trash' Talk."

Smithsonian Images on Flickr

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 18 May 2007 21:46:24 EDT

Right after I read Sharon's post on the Smithsonian Images site and copyright, I stumbled across this Flickr collection of over 6,000 images from the Smithsonian Images site that "appear to be overwhelmingly in the public domain." A memo from Public.Resource.Org explains their rationale.

Humanities Design Podcast

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 18 May 2007 19:49:42 EDT

My first foray into podcasting: I was a guest on Episode 5 of Digital Campus. Dan, Mills, and Tom were kind enough to invite me to talk about design for digital humanities. Like my first published book review, this is my best venture into podcasting because, well, it's my first. I have to say that, after doing the podcast, I have a renewed admiration for folks who do podcasting well. The Digital Campus team is superb. I don't think I do well, but participating in this weeks podcast makes me want to get better and learn to use podcasting well. I have a follow-up post in the work that I'll publish over the weekend, but I wanted to thank the team at Digital Campus for giving me the opportunity to talk. Design for digital humanities a big topic to discuss, one that could quite possibly have its own podcast in and of itself (and one I should discuss more on this blog). Also, thanks to the indefatigable Ken Albers for editing the podcast and making me sound a little better than I usually do.

Ando Hiroshige Gallery

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 16 May 2007 14:48:40 EDT

The Woodblock Prints of Andro Hiroshige contains hundreds of images by the 19th-century Japanese print artist Hiroshige. Beautiful stuff.

Summer ECHO Workshops and Grants

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 16 May 2007 09:29:52 EDT

The Center for History and New Media (CHNM) has announced that we are taking applications for our summer ECHO (Exploring and Collecting History Online) workshop on the practice of digital history. The workshop is July 12-15, on George Mason University's Fairfax campus. Applications are due June 8 and can be completed at this form.

CHNM also has small ($1000) grants to help support online collecting projects that focus on the history of science, technology, and industry. Grant proposals (500 words minimum) and a C.V. are due by July 1, and should be mailed to chnm@gmu.edu with the subject line "ECHO Grant Proposal." *[CHNM]: Center for History and New Media

Baseball and XML

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 15 May 2007 10:15:12 EDT

I meant to post this a while back: Two of my favorite things--baseball and XML--are used at The Baseball Analysts to analyze various pitching stats. See, for example, this article discussing the Enhanced Gameday application from MLB.com. Major League Baseball provides XML files of games, albeit in a rather inaccessible form. You'll have to dig deep to find specific games and players, but the stats are there for 2004 to today. *[XML]: Extensible Markup Language

Rickwood Field Restoration

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 14 May 2007 10:04:59 EDT

"Rickwood Field a Nod to an Earlier Era"-- A nice story by Jim Capel about the history and restoration of Rickwood Field, a baseball park built in 1910 in Birmingham, Alabama.

MHC #2

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 13 May 2007 13:40:50 EDT

Gary at Victoria's Cross? has posted an excellent second edition of the Military History Carnival. Check it out!

Helvetica Turns 50

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 13 May 2007 12:48:54 EDT

John Gruber links to an interesting BBC article on the 50th birthday of Helvetica. Helvetica's had a rather contentious history among designers, and has spawned a number of offshoots and clones (including the much-maligned Arial typeface).

The end of the article, however, is particularly interesting to me. To conclude, the article states that "whether you use it, or choose not to, you are sending out a message." It alludes to a small degree at how much more the populace in general are "designers" or think like designers. I'm not sure I entirely agree with this, but it's interesting to think about. More broadly, it hints at how important typography is to modern culture. The historical development of typography and its uses hasn't been addressed by academic historians as far as I know. (Roland Marchand's seminal Advertising the American Dream spends only one paragraph on a superficial discussion of typography in early 20th-century advertising.)

History-Inspired Wallets

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 13 May 2007 12:40:30 EDT

Simon Collison links to MadeByPaddy, a great shop making and selling wallets with designs from civil defense books and pamphlets from the US and UK. My favorite so far is "Bunker," which uses plans from 1959 for building a personal bomb shelter.

More History on Flickr

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 12 May 2007 11:28:20 EDT

In case anyone didn't know, Flickr is a great place to find people preserving and sharing all sorts of history online. Recently, Jason Kottke linked to Ye Olde Metal Days, a photoset of 80s metal band photos. There's also this 1962 Fallout Shelter Handbook that's part of Flickr user "wardomatic's" Vintage Things collection. User "rocketeer" has a nice set titled WWII that include old World War II photos found in a used book purchased for a dollar at a library. In addition to creating sets, users are also adding their photos to various public photo pools on Flickr, like The World War II Vintage Photo Pool or The Old Photographs Pool. Also, you can also browse through all the images tagged "history."

Not Junk

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 11 May 2007 13:13:43 EDT

Retro Junk is "your memory machine" and source for some great retro culture, including cartoons like Super Mario Brothers, Voltron: Defender of the Universe, and Thundercats. Most of Retro Junk's archive covers the 70s, 80s, and early 90s.

Personal History Writing

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 10 May 2007 09:47:22 EDT

This morning I stumbled upon an interesting (and relatively new) personal and family history blog, Passing it On by Larry Lehmer. Lehmer is running a nice series of posts on writing your own personal history, in the spirit of Personal History Month (which is May...I had no clue). The series starts with "Good Morning, Class!" and currently at "Remembers the Places where Memories were Made," and all the posts help to encourage thinking and writing about personal pasts.

Passing it On has inspired me to think more seriously about my own personal history and my family history. My mom is very interested in our family history, and does significant amounts of genealogical research. Additionally, all the collecting projects I've been involved with have made me realize that new digital historians also need skills as digital archivists and collectors. As academic historians, I think we sometimes forget about our own personal and family histories, but its seems like a fun and intimate way to connect to the past and to think of ourselves and our relatives as historical actors. To foster this kind of interest in personal history, I think one of my projects for my History 120 class next fall will involve students writing their own personal history or family history. This could be accomplished fairly easily through individual blog posts, over the course of the semester. Or it could be done in some way with the way-cool Nearbie (which I definitely need to write about at length).

Has anyone else thought about doing personal history? What other personal and family history blogs are out there? Have you used personal history or family history in the classroom? Please share!

1940s Reproduction Posters

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 09 May 2007 10:22:28 EDT

The 1940s Society has some great British Reproduction Posters, including a great poster of a pig with the message "We Want Your Kitchen Waste."

Abandoned

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 08 May 2007 09:59:11 EDT

Abandoned Places asks "why are abandoned places so attractive?" The site uses frames (very annoying), but it contains fantastic images of abandoned factories, barracks, airplanes, and whole towns in various places in Europe. You may already know, from how often I link to them, that I love individual, enthusiastic projects like this. (Hat Tip: D. Keith Robinson.)

Early Twentieth-Century Type

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 08 May 2007 09:07:54 EDT

Early Twentieth-Century Typography photo set on Flickr. Absolutely. Awesome.

Route 66 Histories through Google Maps

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 07 May 2007 10:58:58 EDT

A great example of doing history with Google Maps: America's Highway: Oral Histories of Route 66 by Jay Crim and Shekar Davarya is a Google Map of the journey and subsequent oral histories Crim and Davarya conducted while traveling Route 66 in the summer of 2002. Web, we definitely need more stuff like this. I've long thought about doing a map of all the historical markers, monuments, and museums along I-66 and I-81 in Virginia (basically my trip from Fairfax to Pound). A few other folks have blogged about the Route 66 map project, including the Tulsa Preservation Commission and Programmable Web.

London Kerning

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 06 May 2007 12:33:24 EDT

Detail of "London's Kerning" is a map of London created only with type. (Hat tip: Cameron Moll).

Alamo’s Many Sides

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 04 May 2007 14:46:31 EDT

"Remembering the Alamo Is Easier When You Know Its Many-Sided History" at the New York Times discusses the Alamo's latest exhibition, which "may provide some perspective on the opposing traps of sanitized idealism and cynical self-disgust."

Adopting Artifacts

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 04 May 2007 09:30:44 EDT

Tim Compeau at Collection Resurrection writes about a great new program involving the Gananoque Museum Collections: "Adopt an Artefact." Interested individuals can "adopt" items in the collection for a small fee to help with preservation and display.

Collections in Flickr

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 04 May 2007 09:00:35 EDT

Musematic points to a great article entitled "Organizing a collection using flickr" at Evil Mad Scientist. It explains how to photograph, tag, and display collections on Flickr. I might do this with my PEZ collection.

Web Design Survey

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 03 May 2007 10:04:39 EDT

Are you someone who makes websites? If so, please consider visiting A List Apart and take their Web Design Survey for 2007. Very little is known about web design as a community and profession. Practically nothing is known about it historically, though its been around 10-15 years. This survey (and hopefully my dissertation on the history of CSS and web design) will help alleviate this oversights and start a much-needed dialog about web design, its practitioners, and its history.

Community Map

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 03 May 2007 09:27:32 EDT

if:book has posted a great map of online communities. I like how USENET is represented (I believe) by an island now underwater. It would be interesting to do an historical visualization of these communities with the same map technique. How have the size and boundaries changed over time? What "countries" have acquired new territory?

History Carnival 52

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 01 May 2007 16:50:23 EDT

Welcome to the 52nd History Carnival! This will be (for me, anyways) the end-of-the-semester edition, an edition that I would enjoy to relax and reflect after a long but productive semester of teaching, researching, coding, CSSing, Photoshop mocking uping, and various other sundry things. So, I hope you can sit back and and enjoy some great posts from the last month.

The Carnival

Kids and History

We'll start out with my favorite post from this month, by Tim Abbott. Reflecting on his historical interests as a kid, Abbott does "Paul Phillipoteaux one better" with magic markers as he discusses his own cyclorame of the battle of Gettysburg in Cyclorama in Newsprint.

At History is Elementary, "elementaryhistoryteacher" recounts how she teaches the history of political parties to her students in "13 Things about Political Parties in the U.S."

Dog History

We should take some time to consider the history of our beloved pets, especially dogs. Natalie Bennett explains why buying a dog in nineteenth-century London did not come without problems in "A fit companion for a duchess". Elizabeth Chadwick's "Caveat Canem!" discusses the kinds of dogs around Britain in 1066.

Found History

If Tom's shown me anything, it's that we can find history almost anywhere. And gladly wolde (s)he lerne points out some "Medievalist in Training" t-shirts in "Celebration and a T-shirt." The shirts come in a variety of sizes and colors. Perfect for that hard-to-by-for medievalist student you know.

Looking at how history is inspiration, Laura Scime at anEndlessArray sees a connection between the design aesthetic of today's Web 2.0 look (see Patahistory 2.0) and 1980s design in "Lego my Logo: Web 2.0 and 1980s Branding Aesthetics."

Ancient and Medieval

Jarod Kearney explains the history of May Day in May Day: Pagans, Christians, and a Whole Lot of Pole-Dancing.

Judith Weingarten at Zenobia: Empress of the East has an interesting series on "The Four Julia's," which includes "More Uppity Women: the 4 Julia's (Part IV)" and "More Uppity Women: the 4 Julia's (Part IV) ... continued".

Gillian Polack at Food History tries to convince people that medieval did not live off of or hide rancid food in "Food poisoning, rotten food and general bad temper."

War and Society

Some bloggers this month have written on various contexts and implications of war. Romeo Vitelli's post on Action T4 discusses the Nazi eugenics program that initially euthanized disable children (with the cooperation of parents). While the program formally ended in 1941, Vitelli argues that it was an "important first step" in the Nazi "Final Solution."

Looking at the Allied side during WWII, Brett Holman highlights the experiences of an Australian soldier's first impressions of wartime Britain in "An Anzac on England". The soldier, Sydney Melbourne (supposedly a pseudonym), wondered about Britain's idle farm land and was struck by the lack of "civic pride" in a London filled with dirt.

Lastly, Mike Antonucci looks at the Falklands War between Argentina and Britain in a nice series of posts, the latest of which is "Falklands Aftermath". Some other posts from the same series include and "Sometimes the Wrong Approach is the Right Approach" and "Argentine Errors". The battle over the Falkland Islands was 25 years ago, and Antonucci's is a series of posts on the conflict and its history.

Digital Humanities

Historians grapple with the implications of digitization and access to information. Sarah at Order and Access asks "What is lost and what is gained in the digitizing of collections?" Rob Townsend at the American Historical Association Blog also addresses that question with regard to Google Books. Rob's "Google Books: What's Not to Like?" offers a balanced critique of Google's online digital book service.

Gavin Robinson indirectly addresses digitization by using Flickr in some interesting ways. His "Great War photos on Flickr" explains how historians can do some pretty useful things with images in a Flickr account. There's lots of good history on Flickr, as Gavin shows us.

Rob MacDougall tackles the concept of history appliances in "History and Appliances: I Love the Gilded Age" and "History and Appliances: The Case for Luddism". The last one is a response to William Turkel's "Luddism is a Luxury You Can't Afford".

Dave Davisson elaborates on the implications of all this crazy web stuff for historians in his "Digital History in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction to History 2.0".

Ideologies, Perspectives, Theories

Gus diZerega critiques the "moral and political meltdown" of classical liberalism in "Progressivism and the fate of Liberalism".

Barista discusses "living in yesterday's tomorrow," a list of predictions that Ladies Home Journal in 1902 predicted would change by 2002. Some are right on, others are right off, but its incredible and revealing to critique how the past predicted the future.

And even though we got a fair bit on Foucault in the last carnival, I'll admit that I can't get enough. The Valve keeps the Foucault conversation going with "The Warden Will See You Now, Mr. Foucault" and Jeremy at Foucault Blog discusses an important term for Foucault: "Problematization".

Reviews

The month of April was a good month for reviews of all kinds: books, television, websites. Here are a few highlights: Kevin M. Levin reviews some History Channel fare in "This Isn't Your Grandmother's W.T. Sherman: A Review of the History Channel's 'Sherman's March'".

J. Otto Pohl writes "Review of Sidonia Dedina's Edvard Benes: The Liquidator: Fiend of the German Purge"

The Little Professor critiques William St. Clair's The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period in "Writers, Readers, and Reputations: Literary Life in Britain 1870-1918".

Kate Brown at World History Blog reviews two books on "Executing Women in Ohio", both of which expose the rarely-discussed topic of women on death row.

Ben Vershbow at if:book provides a thorough critique of the new harpers.org website.

Finally, Sepoy provides a very good discussion of William Dalrymple's The Last Mughal in "1857 and Dalrymple's The Last Mughal", which generated some great discussion in the comments.

Violence and Crimes

Before the events at Virginia Tech on April 16, "Yetimonk" published "A Jigsaw of School Shootings," a very thoughful piece on the relatively history of school shootings.

"The Torch Killer, or the Wickedest Stepmother Ever" by Laura James resurrects and analyzes a forgotten murder case.

Shaheen Lakhan adds a historical and psychological perspective to war in general in "Is war a psychosis?", while Elder of Ziyon discusses "April, 1948: How the Arabs left Tiberias".

Memory and History

How do memory and history intersect? How do we use memory for historical purposes? In some cases, we go to museums and historical places to remember, or at least get as close to a personal memory as possible from a site or recreation. Greg King discusses "The Monitor Center" in Virginia, while Kristan Tetens elaborates on the the Indian governments plans to organize events and programs related to the 150th anniversary of the Uprisng of 1857 (or the Sepoy Rebellion) in "1857--2007". and discusses other "odds and ends." At All Things Pakistan, Adil Najam elaborates on the "The Treasures of Takht-i-Bahi".

In other cases, parties want to deliberately forget or choose to interpret history in advantageous ways. Jeremiah at Jottings from the Granite Studio critiques the People's Republic of China's notion that Tibet was historically a part of China. "Protests at the Roof of the World, Bad History, and a new PR strategy for the P.R.C". Jeremiah notes that China's decision to take the Olympic torch to the summit of Mount Everest is "provocative" and highlights China's shaky history in justifying its borders and territorial claims.

Specifically regarding Virginia Tech, Sheila Brennan speculates on how tragedy changes our view of technology in "Technology in Tragedy," while Mills Kelly discusses the April 16 Archive that the folks at Virginia Tech's Center for Digital Discourse and Culture are running.

At a more personal level, Nathanael Robinson's "My 1992" discusses some important questions about personal associations to historical events, particularly those involving Rodney King verdict and ensuing riots in Los Angeles. Nathanael believes "historical memory is seldom personal memory," and his post really makes me think about my personal perspective and memories of historical events.

Next Time

I hope you've enjoyed it! And be sure to look out for great blogging in the month of May. The host for the June 1 edition will be the American Presidents Blog. Please send nominations to them through the carnival nomination form.

New Theme

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 29 Apr 2007 10:27:32 EDT

The new theme is up, though I'm not done with it.

Flow of Wikipedia

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 28 Apr 2007 09:15:54 EDT

History Flow is a project that graphs the history of user collaboration on Wikipedia. The program tracks individual user history, the history of specific text on a page (what stays consistent, what changes over time), and the degree to which users contribute to an article.

Web 2.0 Inspiration from...the 80s?

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 27 Apr 2007 12:00:49 EDT

"Lego my Logo" argues that Web 2.0 design got its inspiration from (or is similar to) the brand aesthetics of the 1980s such as Lego, Frogger, and Cabbage Patch Kids.

Send Those Carnival Nominations!

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 26 Apr 2007 23:16:48 EDT

Despite the infrequency of posting this month, I am around, and plan to host the next History Carnival on May 1. Send nominations to jeremy AT clioweb DOT org (using "Carnival Nomination" or some derivative thereof in the subject line), or use the blog carnival submission form. (I promise to have my WordPress theme working and stop using the Kubric theme by then as well.)

Thinking Bloggers: Clio 2 Students

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 26 Apr 2007 23:09:00 EDT

Bill Turkel kindly tagged me with the "Thinking Blogger" award. Two. Months. Ago. Yes, I'm just now getting around to doing this. I'd certainly tag Bill back with this award, but I don't think that's in the rules. Anyways, Bill, you make me think. But you probably already knew that.

I took Clio 2 from Paula Petrik during the Spring 2004 academic semester. (Here's the Spring 2004 course site; here's the Spring 2007 course site.) It was the first time that she taught web design using CSS, and I loved every minute of it. I was still very new to it, but absorbed every technique I could find, read every discussion on CSS browser bugs I could find, and spent countless hours learning new things about Photoshop, video games, and plain old semantic HTML (now called POSH). Now, three years later, Paula's class is lightyears ahead of me when I took that class, and I learn news things from reading their blogs and following their journey through (more or less) the same assignments (and road bumps) that I encountered a few years ago. They help me think about things I never thought about when I took the class, and certainly motivate me to keep up my skills and continue learning.

So, I give the "Thinking Blogger Award" to students in this semester's Clio 2 class:

You're it!

End of Print Journals?

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 02 Apr 2007 10:45:30 EDT

Charles Bailey at DigitalKoans reports on an interesting discussion on the Liblicense-l listserv about whether it's time to stop printing journals. While Bailey agrees that the print journal is not required for reading purposes, he still finds that print journals may be needed (at least at this point) to ensure preservation of and full access to scholarship. Though Bailey observes that many libraries are dropping print journals due to cost (is access to electronic journals really cheaper?), libraries don't believe that publishers can be relied upon for preservation efforts. It seems to me that one solution, not discussed much, would be to rely on individual users or collectors instead of larger archival systems and institutions, for preservation. Is there such as thing as a "napster" for scholarship? This, of course, would require a significant change in the culture of academia in relation to its scholarship. Maybe it's not a great idea, but I'm throwing it out there anyways. Thoughts, anyone?

Turnitin Sued

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 01 Apr 2007 18:30:46 EDT

Two high school students from Virginia have sued Turnitin for infringing their copyrights on papers. Should be an interesting case to follow. (Hat Tip: Bryan Alexander.)

History Carnival 51 Available

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 01 Apr 2007 14:23:42 EDT

I've been pretty bad lately for The latest history carnival, number 51, is available at A Don's Life. 300 and Foucault are among the many great topics blogged this week by the history blogosphere. I'll be hosting History Carnival 52 on May 1, so send nominations for the the best blogging in the month of April to jeremy AT clioweb DOT org.

Death of Robert Adler

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 21 Mar 2007 11:34:09 EDT

Robert Adler, the inventor of the television remote control, passed away on February 15. Bill DeRouchey at History of the Button has a nice write-up.

Wikipedia and Open Access Research

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 19 Mar 2007 09:00:33 EDT

John Willinsky's latest article in First Monday, "What Open Access Research Can Do for Wikipedia," argues that open access research can help make Wikipedia better. Interestingly, Willinsky finds that only two percent of the 100 entries surveyed by Willinsky cited open access research, though 60 percent of a subset of 20 entries cited research that could be found with Google Scholar. Willinsky calls upon Wikipedia users and scholars alike to contribute more to open access research and cite that research in Wikipedia articles. Specifically, "if Wikipedia were to form more of a public access point to this research and if public expectations around this 'see for yourself' posture increases," Willinsky states, "then researchers and scholars may well have a greater incentive to make their published work open access." (Hat tip: Open Access News.)

Confederate Flag, Hanged

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 18 Mar 2007 23:25:21 EDT

John Sims sees the Confederate flag as "visual terrorism" and created, among other exhibits, gallows with a Confederate flag in a noose as part of an art museum exhibit in Florida. Sons of Confederate Veterans are, as you may have expected, upset.

Nazi Characters in Marvel

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 18 Mar 2007 13:19:16 EDT

Marvel Nazis is a list of all the Nazi characters in the Marvel comic book universe. Part of the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

New Syndication Feeds

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 08 Mar 2007 16:14:05 EST

In the midst of all this house cleaning I'm doing around ClioWeb, I've moved my feeds over to FeedBurner. Your subscription to my blog should automatically get rerouted to my Feedburner feeds, but you might want to do update your newsreaders manually: http://feeds.feedburner.com/clioweb

Digital Campus Podcast

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 08 Mar 2007 00:37:50 EST

Dan Cohen, Mills Kelly, and Tom Scheinfeldt have started Digital Campus, a podcast devoted to the pedagogical and scholarly aspects of digital humanities. Yet another example of why CHNM is such a fantastic place to work. The first podcast is entitled "Wikipedia: Friend or Foe?" Definitely good stuff, so subscribe to it! *[CHNM]: Center for History and New Media

SXSW Mixtape

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 06 Mar 2007 14:10:13 EST

Getting into the spirit of the upcoming SXSW festival, the Washington Post blog Going Out Gurus have posted their March Mixtape.

Bridges of New York

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 05 Mar 2007 10:48:45 EST

The New Yorker has Eugene de Salignac's photos of early 20th-century New York bridges in Above Town.

Upgraded

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 04 Mar 2007 22:09:01 EST

The move over to WordPress 2.1.2 went fairly well. I have a few wrinkles to iron out, specifically with regard to some new template functions. Have to get used to that "Blogroll" tab instead of the "Links" tab in the admin panel, too. Update: Some way, some how, the upgrade messed up my links. That'll take a while to clean up. I've also switched to the default WordPress theme until I get the theme stuff worked out as well.

Importance of Computing's Pasts and Futures

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 01 Mar 2007 13:13:36 EST

Alan Kay: The PC Must Be Revamped--Now -- Great interview with Kay by Allan E. Alter. Among other things, Kay criticizes how computer programmers only think about the present, and not the past or future. "The things that are wrong with the Web today are due to this lack of curiosity in the computing profession. And it's very characteristic of a pop culture. Pop culture lives in the present; it doesn't really live in the future or want to know about great ideas from the past. I'm saying there's a lot of useful knowledge and wisdom out there for anybody who is curious, and who takes the time to do something other than just executing on some current plan. Cicero said, 'Who knows only his own generation remains always a child.' People who live in the present often wind up exploiting the present to an extent that it starts removing the possibility of having a future."

Nebraska Workshop for Digital Humanities

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 26 Feb 2007 14:15:30 EST

The Second Annual Nebraska Digital Workshop is seeing project proposals for its October 2007 gathering. Deadline is May 1, and I definitely want to send something in this year.

In Defense of Timelines

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 26 Feb 2007 00:27:38 EST

Paula has a nice critical write-up on the "unbearable uselessness of timelines," particularly those used in history textbooks. I've been working a bit on timeline applications, so Paula's post made me think seriously about the role of timelines for scholarship and pedagogy. While I agree with Paula's assessment of past and current uses of timelines, I think timelines can be useful if designed and implemented in deliberately thoughtful ways.

Uselessness (In Most Cases)

Paula is quite correct: timelines are, for the most part, unbearable and useless. Most simply display a single date with a single event, with no discussion or indication about how the events are constructed into a larger narrative. There is not contextual analysis; simply a listing of events the publisher felt was important to include. Take this example: The Abraham Lincoln timeline from The History Place. There is little thought on how to best present the information contained in the timeline. It is simply a list, organized by year, of major events that involved Lincoln. The information is factual, to the point, but dry and not engaging.

I will admit, however, that I have asked students to look at timelines. I do not, however, assign timeline reading for students to simply get a list of facts to remember; I ask students to evaluate timelines, to question which facts have been selected in the presentation, critique why those choices were made, and question how the presentation of those facts helps or hinder historical understanding. One of my goals as an instructor of history is to teach students how to read, evaluate, critique, and present information, in a variety of forms. Historians do this all the time with their own work (and especially with the work of other historians). As historians, we choose to present history in deliberate ways, and think critically about how best to present facts and evidence. It's an important part of historical work, and it's a process that spans multiple ways of presenting knowledge. So, one way I teach students about the construction of history (and knowledge in general) is to critique how history is presented through timelines.

Presenting Information

For me, the problem with timeliness is a matter of information presentation. Most timelines present information very poorly. Timelines lack cohesion, contexts, goals. With most timelines on the web, it seem that their creators didn't think about how to best present the information contained in the timeline.

The thing is, historians think about how to present information all the time. Books, like websites, timelines, charts, graphs, and spreadsheets, are merely a delivery system for information. We think about how the information is organized in our books and articles. We constantly draft, reorganize, rephrase, and annotate our monographs and articles. We add maps and images in hopes of delivering more understandable, more organized knowledge. Additionally, we critique information and its presentation in a multitude of primary sources: images, letters, diaries, census records, probate records, court cases, laws, paintings, shards from clay pots, ancient tools, maps, surveys, newspaper articles, advertisements. All of these are also, at their simplest level, delivery systems for information, each with their own set of rules and criteria for how they are read.

Historians need to think about how information is organized and presented in multiple ways. This is one of the reasons why historians, particularly those studying new media applications of history, should learn more about user interface design, information architecture, and the presentation of information. I completely agree with Paula: Many timelines published are poorly designed and presented. But this is not the fault of timelines as a genre; The fault lies in those creating timelines without really thinking about what information they present, why they present it, and most importantly how they present it.

Towards Useful Timelines

So, why can't we use timelines in a more informed, engaging way? I think we can. Like the other ways we present historical information, we need a critical understanding of how to best create, present, and critique the content in timelines. I think timelines can serve as a useful tool in a number of scholarly and pedagogical contexts. Of course, thinking isn't enough; I've got to show it. So, my next few posts will explore some potential ways for creating and presenting useful timelines.

Clioaudio Launch

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 25 Feb 2007 18:40:00 EST

Alun Salt's Clioaudio brings great history to the world of podcasting. Awesome.

Commentpress from if:book

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 11 Feb 2007 16:30:41 EST

I'm definitely looking forward to the release of if:book's WordPress plugin Commentpress. if:book has used a nice, sophisticated system that allows for rich user comments on a paragraph-level, using WordPress as a CMS. They've used the system on a few of their projects, including The Iraq Study Group Report and The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age. *[CMS]: Content Management System

Ourstory Carnival

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 10 Feb 2007 16:41:51 EST

A great idea: Ourstory Carnival at Taking Place seeks to "breakdown the hierarchical approach to history that only shares stories to promote patriotism and pacifism. We want to create an ever-evolving ourstory of what makes us who we are." (HT: Sharon.)

Digithum: E-Journal for Digital Humanities

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 09 Feb 2007 10:16:48 EST

Digithum is an annual digital humanities journal, published by Humanities Studies and the Languages and Cultures Studies at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Like every e-journal should, Digithum has an RSS feed, a nice design, quality peer-reviewed articles, and a regular and consistent publishing schedule. *[RSS]: Really Simply Syndication

StoryCorps Interviews of African-American Families

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 08 Feb 2007 09:30:07 EST

The StoryCorps Griot is a one-year funded project that plans to record stories from 1750 African-American families across the United States, focusing especially on veterans of the Second World War and participants in the Civil Rights movement. Starting February 15, StoryCorps will visit Atlanta, Georgia to conduct interviews. Griot (pronounced "gree-oh") "is a role of honor, designating someone who maintains community tradition and memory through storytelling, music, and dance."

Federalist Papers and hAtom

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 06 Feb 2007 11:00:29 EST

Edward O'Connor has marked up the Federalist Papers in hAtom. Nice choice for a domain name, too. O'Connor has linked various papers from the Federalist Papers together, and has also linked the papers to the Constitution, Articles of Confederation, and the Declaration of Independence.

Royal Society Archive Timeline

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 05 Feb 2007 09:53:06 EST

Visualizing the Royal Society Archive, 1665-2005 -- Chris Harrison has created an interesting timeline of author word distribution in the published papers of the Royal Society's journal. Among other things, Harrison notes that paper titles have grown shorter over the past 340 years and there was a significant decrease in the number of papers published starting in 1761. The visualization of the timeline is nice,though the images available on the website are too small to read details. It certainly makes me want to try an HTML version, but that would prove very challenging. *[HTML]: Hypertext Markup Language

Mozilla Memory Podcast

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 01 Feb 2007 11:54:46 EST

The talented Ken Albers and the rest of the team running the Mozilla Digital Memory Bank have started a podcast at their project blog.

Readings in Design for Digital Humanities

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 31 Jan 2007 21:41:11 EST

William Turkel's great series of posts on a reading list for digital humanities is a must-read for anyone interested in doing history or other humanities work on the Web. I think there's some room to add a few more books (and perhaps some weblogs, if the academic world is ready to add weblogs to the reading lists of its graduate students).

Where's the Design?

I was talking with Josh recently about the importance of design for historians. Josh has often said (and I totally agree) that a digital reputation is growing in importance for academics. When someone Google's your name, you should want your own site, with your own words, to be among the top search results. I've often told folks who are reluctant to start blogging because they don't want it to hinder their job-finding efforts that I'm more afraid of not having an online presence, or having one that is plain boring, than to have one that is controversial. It is very easy for someone to commit the former than the latter. Academics go to conferences to be seen, to interact, to socialize. The Web is a fantastic social environment, and it has great potential to help (or hurt) your reputation.

With that in mind, its useful to think about the importance of design for digital humanities. As I was preaching the gospel of good web design for historians to Josh (I think Josh is one of the few people who can bear listening to me talk about this stuff), he agreed by saying something to the effect that "Yeah, you wouldn't go to an academic conference to present a paper wearing dirty, torn jeans and ratty t-shirt." Exactly! Presentation, organization, and implementation of information are all just as important as finding and providing information. (If you need further proof that historians do in fact care how web sites are presented, visit Paula Petrik's excellent presentation, "Picture This!".)

Paula's Clio Wired 2 course are discussing the role of personality and branding in web design, critiquing among other things Luke Wroblewski's sample chapter "Who Are You?" More broadly, Paula's class (past and present) constantly addresses the role of design for the digital historian. This semester's class has mixed reactions about the utility of design, ranging from Ken Albers's interesting critique that trust through design can be easily abused to Jenny Reeder's desire to create emotional attachments to her websites through design. It looks to be a really interesting class this semester, and goes to show that study of the field of digital history should consider the importance of design.

So, I would add a few web and interface design books and sites to Turkel's list, including:

Transcending CSS by Andy Clarke
Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman
Web Design on a Shoestring by Carrie Bickner-Zeldman
Train of Thoughts: Designing the Effective Web Experience, by John C. Lenker, Jr.
Don't Make Me Think!, by Steve Krug
MTIV: Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer, by Hillman Curtis
Beautiful Evidence, and Visual Explanations, by Edward Tufte
Thinking with Type, by Ellen Lupton
Site-seeing: A Visual Approach to Web-Usability, by Luke Wroblewski
A List Apart
Digital Web Magazine
Jakob Nielsen (Whether you agree with him or not, you have to deal with him.)

I'll keep thinking about this, and adding books to the list. Any others we should add?

Where are the Weblogs?

In addition to publications on web design, I don't think a digital humanities seminar/field statement would be complete without discussing important weblogs in the field. A few I would include:

Turkel's own Digital History Hacks
edwired - Mills Kelly's excellent blog on "the intersecton of digital technologies and history." Mills covers lots of issues related to new media, history, and pedagogy.
Dan Cohen
Chapati Mystery, especially Manan's excellent Polyglot Manifesto I and II.
Semantic Humanities
if:book - Their projects on re-presenting books and other published material are also a must-read.
Musematic
Past Thinking

I think books are great, but for future digital historians, it is imperative to keep up with the latest thinking in the field (of digital humanities), and the best way to do that is to subscribe to the field's various, wonderful weblogs. Perhaps it would be be beneficial to create a list of must-read blog posts on digital humanities? Any other weblogs we should add?

Old Audio Cassette Design

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 19 Jan 2007 14:46:34 EST

tapedeck.org has a fantastic collection of images of old audio cassettes. So far, they have 138 different cassettes, spanning from the 1970s to the 1990s. The collection can be broken down by manufacturer, tape length, or tape quality.

Soviet Bus Stops

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 15 Jan 2007 14:00:51 EST

The Soviet Roadside Bus-Stop -- Interesting photography collection by Christopher Herwig which features the creative design of bus stop structures created throughout the former Soviet Union. The structures seem to combine a degree of nationalist pride, industrial design, and local flavor and culture. Here's my favorite.

Early Modern Portrait Print Advertising

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 15 Jan 2007 12:00:46 EST

C.H.L. George is blogging about the research for her 2005 PhD thesis at Topical Portrait Prints, 1660-1714. George's topic is, as you may have guessed from the title, topical portrait print advertisements from London newspapers in the 17th and 18th centuries. George provides information on specific advertisements and collections consulted for the thesis and talks about the benefits of blogging a PhD after graduating. (Namely, the opportunity to reflect and reevaluate your work.)

Things I ABSOLUTELY Have to Finish...

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 15 Jan 2007 11:42:37 EST

...by the end of this week

History 120 website and syllabus
History & Art History department website
Column for JAHC

...by the end of this month

New Media minor field statement (yes, I'm dead serious about this one)
Draft of dissertation proposal (send to Mike for review)
Book review for journal

You can be quite sure that there's more to come. *[JAHC]: Journal of the Association for History and Computing

Museums have Gender?

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 12 Jan 2007 09:46:25 EST

Sheila wonders if museums have genders, as she finds some museum pages on MySpace with a specific gender filled out in the profile. The Warhol museum is male, while the Hamner Museum in California is female. It would be interesting to compare how all kinds of groups and institutions using MySpace use the gender field in the profile.

History as Antidote

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 09 Jan 2007 11:56:47 EST

A nice way to start off 2007: Authur Schlesinger's Folly's Antidote from the January 1 NYT explains how history is "the best antidote to delusions of omnipotence and omniscience," among other things. (Hat tip: Rob MacDougall) *[NYT]: New York Times

Thousand-Dollar Bill Worth Millions

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 17 Dec 2006 09:21:10 EST

A $1,000 U.S. note, printed in 1890, garnered nearly 2.3 million dollars from an art and rare currency collector in Dallas, Texas. The bill is know as a "Grand Watermelon" because of the stripe pattern used on the zeros. A portrait of Union Major General George G. Meade is on the front.

History Carnival 45

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 16 Dec 2006 10:49:33 EST

The History Carnival's holiday party edition has been posted at Acephaous. Great stuff to read this weekend!

Instant History: Just add the Internet

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 15 Dec 2006 23:22:02 EST

In Instant Digital History, Brian at AotW reminds us how easy (and free!) it is to make a history website. Brian highlights the Wethersfield in the Civil War site, which uses Blogger, as a example. The barrier for entry to the web is much lower, and keeps getting lower, making it possible for almost any historian with the motivation to put interesting, accessible history on the web. The Wethersfield site interests me too because it's an example of how a blogging tool and the blog medium have been appropriated for purposes other than blogging.

What 'Apocalypto' Gets Wrong

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 13 Dec 2006 12:00:21 EST

At least some of it. Historian Julia Guernsey says that Apocalypto is an insult to Mayan culture in an interview with American-Statesman. Among other things, Guernsey criticizes Gibson's portrayal of the Maya as overly violent and subhuman.

Webdesign Timeline

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 12 Dec 2006 16:44:47 EST

Webdesign Timeline -- Awesome, awesome project that surveyed and collected hundreds of stories related to the history of the web. The projected ended in July 2005, and was part of the Decade of Web Design conference in January 2005.

Forgotten Detroit

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 12 Dec 2006 10:34:42 EST

Forgotten Detroit documents "the past, present, and future situations" of a number of pre-Depression buildings, including hotels, theaters, and office buildings.

Timeline of Computing at Columbia

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 12 Dec 2006 10:00:22 EST

Computing at Columbia Timeline -- Extensive site about the history of computing at Columbia University.

Tacky Times

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 11 Dec 2006 10:30:05 EST

On the heels of Rob's old, weird America, the Tacky Times covers "tackiness, frivolousness, and downright decadence" from the past. The mag has a weblog, but it seems down for the moment.

WWII Posters on Flickr

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 11 Dec 2006 10:00:00 EST

WWII Posters Flickr Photoset -- Great collection of posters from the Second World War.

Book Meme

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 10 Dec 2006 17:11:06 EST

Apparently, I can't count or read, or I'm dyslexic. I've edited this to start on the fifth sentence, not the third, and to show only three sentences, not five!

I've been tagged by Josh. Here it goes:

1. Grab the book closest to you

Interestingly enough, I was reading a book about the web (among other things), so the book was in my hand when I got Josh's tag.

2. Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence

Mmmkay...

3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog

In other words, the associations are not the work of an individual consciousness, but rather the sum total of thousands and thousands of individual decisions, a guide to the Web created by following an unimaginable number of footprints.

It's an intoxicating idea, and strangely fitting. After all, a guide to the entire Web should be more than just a collection of hand-crafted ratings.

Name the book and the author

Steven Johnson, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software (New York: Scribner, 2001)

I tag Sheila, Amanda, and Tom.

Kansas License Plates, 1913-2005

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 10 Dec 2006 14:02:47 EST

Long ago I had ambitions of collecting old license plates. I've only got 2 old ones (1962 Oregon, 1970 Tennessee). Kansas License Plates -- 1913 thru 2005 makes me want to start my collecting anew. The 1951-1955 plates that resemble the actual shape of Kansas are really cool.

Changing New York

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 10 Dec 2006 13:46:37 EST

New York Changing -- Interesting photo gallery by Douglas Levere, from The Morning News, that shows photos from 1930s New York and today. Levere revisited parts of New York photographed by Berenice Abbott and published in her Changing New York(1939).

Rob is weird and Weird Old America

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 10 Dec 2006 13:46:10 EST

The Old, Weird America -- As good a teaser as anyone can write, Rob MacDougall's recent post outlines his plans to embark on "some expeditions into the old, weird America." On why he hadn't started earlier: "I think I was worried how the word â€œweirdâ€ might look to a skittish job search committee. Score 1/2 for the Tribbles of the world. But now Iâ€™m kicking myself, as I think the old, weird America--the idea and the phrase itself--is on the verge of having an Elvis moment." Go, Rob, go. Looking forward to it!

Making the Macintosh

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 10 Dec 2006 13:35:24 EST

Making the Macintosh Home Page -- "The exhibit features primary documents, such as memos tracing the evolution of the Macintosh mouse; images, such as technical drawings, stills from commercials, notes from user tests; and interviews with members of the Macintosh development team, technical writers, and founders of user groups."

Victoria & Albert Museum

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 08 Dec 2006 09:27:21 EST

Victoria & Albert Museum -- Really nice web site design, and some great content from the V&A; Museum in London. The almost-open Museum of Childhood seems especially cool.

Web 2.0 and Digital Humanities

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 06 Dec 2006 00:35:32 EST

How does Web 2.0 affect digital humanities scholarship and teaching? Tonight's Digital Humanities forum, hosted by the Center for History and New Media, addressed that question, and raised others, with presentations by Bryan Alexander, Dan Cohen, and Edward Maloney.

Presentations

Bryan blogs at Infocult, Dracula Blogged, and Liberal Education Today. Bryan gave a very succinct and informative overview of various Web 2.0 services. The web is now in the second stage of media development outlined by Janet Murray. The first stage is where new media imitates older media (cinema imitated theater, the web imitated print material). The second stage explores what new things are possible. Specifically, Bryan highlighted the power of microcontent, rather than sites or documents as a whole, and the ability for users to create and critique that microcontent(videos, podcasts, blog posts, commenting). Bryan applauded the collaborative authoring and editing (wikis) and mashups. Web 2.0 is user-centered, thrives on user-generated content, and is mashable and sharable.

Dan gave a brief presentation on Zotero, the Firefox plugin for academic research and citation. Regarding Web 2.0, Dan sees lots of power and potential in collective intelligence and harnessing the power of group activity. So, one of the goals for Zotero in 2007 is storing user information on servers (as opposed to the user's local machine) and aggregating tags, scholarly annotations. Essentially, we want to capitalize on the power of the "long tail" of digital scholarship.

Finally, Edward questioned why education course management lags so far behind other technological developments. Services like Blackboard are dated almost a decade in terms of the technology and culture of the web today. Even more problematic, he argued, is that current college and university course management focus solely on the course, as opposed to the student and instructor. Edward is part of a project called the "Digital Notebook," where students and teachers can keep all their materials created in college, research notes, papers, etc. This kind of college/university application would be student and instructor focused, as opposed to Blackboard.

Overall, really great stuff.

Questions

Portability of Social Networks and "Identities"

The first question that came to my mind was: How should we, as "Web 2.0" scholars and teachers, manage all our "identities" and accounts? How can we effectively combine Flickr, YouTube, del.icio.us, Odeo, Wikipedia, Ma.gnolia, Digg, Blogger/WordPress/TypePad, Newsvine, Google, Upcoming, Bloglines, Technorati, and other Web 2.0 services effectively?

One of the biggest problems I see with Web 2.0 is that, while new services pop-up almost everyday, managing accounts on those services can be a hassle. Web 2.0 is great for social networking, but only within the app itself. Others, like Jeremy Keith and Derek Featherstone, have discussed at length the difficulties with connecting personal information and data across social apps, specifically lists of contacts and friends. Portability and sharing of data across applications seems like the next big issue the social web should tackle, and humanities academics would do well to get involved.

Teaching Students How to Use Web 2.0 Services

Resident teaching-and-learning scholar Mills Kelly asked a very interesting question: How do we teach students how to use the technologies they're already using to learn?

It's not as simple as you might think. Students are already familiar with Flickr, and a good portion of my own students have Facebook or MySpace accounts, and most are familiar with Wikipedia. But how do we integrate this stuff students already use into teaching and learning? We have to teach an academic understanding beyond simple technical proficiency. We have to teach technical proficiency, too.

Where to Go from Here?

For digital humanists, a few things we need to understand and do: We need to teach students new ways of using social applications and services. We need to see value in collaboration across social networks. We need to understand how Web 2.0 applications work, even at a basic level. (That is, it seems beneficial to me to understand what RSS is, how APIs work, what folksonomy and tagging involves, among other things.) We need to have conversations with the designers and developers that build and use these services. Finally, we need to stop talking about how Web 2.0 will help our scholarship and pedagogy, and actually start using it.

Update: Mills beat me to the punch, and posted some nice notes of his own..

[API]: Application Programmers Interface [RSS]: Really Simple Syndication

Early Photos of Disneyland

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 04 Dec 2006 09:15:36 EST

Disneyland's Grand Opening -- Images of Disneyland's opening in 1955, from the USC Library Regional History Collection. (Hat tip: Boing Boing.) *[USC]: University of Southern California

"We Didn't Start the Fire" as Web 2.0 History

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 04 Dec 2006 00:23:47 EST

Nick Fessel's great post "We Didn't Start the Fire 2.0" takes the lyrics of Billy Joel's song of the same name and adds information to it "Web 2.0 style." I'll definitely have to think of other songs to do something similar...any suggestions?

History Carnival 44 Available

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 03 Dec 2006 15:46:56 EST

Barista has put together a fantastic edition of the History Carnival.

History of Mario Brothers

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 03 Dec 2006 10:30:10 EST

The History of Mario Bros. - Who Said History Was Boring? *[Bros.]: Brothers

Steps to Preserve Family History

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 03 Dec 2006 00:31:33 EST

13 Steps to Preserve Your Family History -- If you've been wanting to record some family history (I've been kicking myself for not already starting) and don't know how to do it, these tips might help.

Open-Access Versions of The Access Principle

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 02 Dec 2006 21:23:55 EST

John Willinsky's book The Access Principle has an open-access version at MIT Press, and at DLIST. [DLIST]: Digital Library of Information Science and Technology [MIT]: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Books: Essays on Present and Future

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 02 Dec 2006 12:04:54 EST

Via if:book, Forbes has a nice collection of essays on the present and future development of books. From the introductory article:

Are books in danger?

The conventional wisdom would say yes. After all, more and more media--the Internet, cable television, satellite radio, videogames--compete for our time. And the Web in particular, with its emphasis on textual snippets, skimming and collaborative creation, seems ill-suited to nurture the sustained, authoritative transmission of complex ideas that has been the historical purview of the printed page.

But surprise--the conventional wisdom is wrong. Our special report on books and the future of publishing is brim-full of reasons to be optimistic. People are reading more, not less. The Internet is fueling literacy. Giving books away online increases off-line readership. New forms of expression--wikis, networked books--are blossoming in a digital hothouse.

People still burn books. But that only means that books are still dangerous enough to destroy. And if people want to destroy them, they are valuable enough that they will endure.

I do think that new media have caused renegotiations of how books are defined, and how the author/reader relationship or "social contract" is constructed. But I've never quite understood the fear that books are going away because of the internet. I've seen web design and development books flourish over the past few years. Book on blogging, blogging, grow in number every year and sell with success. And putting book content online has not hindered book development in the slightest. In fact, it has encouraged the success of books.

Trimming Text with JavaScript

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 01 Dec 2006 10:19:57 EST

The way cool 24 ways is starting up again for the 2006 season, and its starting off right with Drew McClellan's "Tasty Text Trimmer," which shows you how you can give users the option to trim the length of content with JavaScript.

Deciphering the Archimedes Palimpsest

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 01 Dec 2006 10:05:34 EST

A Layered Look Reveals Ancient Greek Texts -- from the New York Times, an article about a project deciphering the "moldy pages" of the Archimedes Palimpsest. Researchers have discovered, among other things, two new speeches by Hyperides, an orator from 4th century B.C. Greece.

Internet Acquisitions History

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 25 Nov 2006 10:38:18 EST

Research Connect has an interesting list of past and present internet acquisitions in their History of the Internet: Internet Acquisitions.

Mapping London, Past and Present

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 24 Nov 2006 11:46:13 EST

Moon River points out a great exhibit from the British Library: London: A Life in Google Maps. The exhibition marks up a modern map of London with points pertaining to historic maps from the library's collection. The maps cover the founding of London by the Romans to today.

Different Sides to Thanksgiving

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 24 Nov 2006 11:36:53 EST

Teachers Emphasize the Indians' Side -- Elementary school teachers take different approaches to teaching about Thanksgiving, with mixed reactions. (Hat Tip: De-Constructing History)

Visualizing Music

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 24 Nov 2006 10:38:07 EST

The Visual Context of Music -- BibliOdyssey's fantastic post on past visualization of music, including some great examples of different graphic scores. I somehow missed this back in July, but if you've already seen it, it's definitely worth another look.

Chernobyl, 1986-2006

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 24 Nov 2006 10:30:25 EST

1986-2006 -- An artistic project commemorating the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986.

Zeldman on Incorporating Web Standards

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 24 Nov 2006 10:24:50 EST

If you have been meaning to read Zeldman's Designing with Web Standards but keep forgetting to pick up a copy, here's a sample chapter: "Jeffrey Zeldman on Why to Incorporate Web Standards," at Informit.

History of Swiss Posters

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 22 Nov 2006 16:36:25 EST

Swiss Poster History -- Very cool posters from Swiss artists throughout the twentieth century.

New Face for the Times

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 22 Nov 2006 10:30:30 EST

"After 221 years, the worldâ€™s leading newspaper shows off a fresh face" -- The Times sports a new typeface, and provides a nice visual history of its past mastheads, spanning over two centuries. (Hat Tip: Philobiblon.)

UW-Madison History of Science and Technology Collections

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 21 Nov 2006 23:04:28 EST

History of Science and Technology,UW-Madison -- "The History of Science and Technology Collection brings together in digital facsimile two categories of primary and secondary publications: writings about scientific research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and unique or valuable titles in science and technology held by the UW-Madison libraries."

Early American Colonization as IM

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 21 Nov 2006 18:12:26 EST

Early American Colonization as IM -- "h0n0rspain572: hey you guys, i gunna go invade india." "nat_amer727: we not indians you noob." (Hat Tip: Epistemographer)

Producing History

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 21 Nov 2006 00:30:23 EST

History 61: The Production of History -- Timothy Burke's excellent syllabus and request for suggestions for books, movies, and television shows related to history.

Television History

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 20 Nov 2006 23:04:17 EST

"'Dont Know Much About History:' What Counts as Historical Work in Television Studies" -- In the latest issue of Flow, Aniko Bodroghkozy addresses the role that television studies/scholars should have in academic history.

Electronic Scholarship and Issues of Control

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 17 Nov 2006 10:02:20 EST

Just a quick thought that I need to turn into something more nuanced:

I recently read Tara McPherson's Flowarticle, "What Color Is Your Scholarship?," which looks at "academia's slow adoption of new technologies for its own work." One of the strong points about electronic media, McPherson maintains, is the degree to which the user maintains control over the medium, even though that control is more "ideology than ontology." In otherwords, user control over digital media is more perception and thought than an actuality.

But I would argue that, in fact, electronic media does increasingly gives users control over how they use that media. More than perception, recent developments in new media give users the ability to subscribe to content, publish and comment on that content themselves, and participate in a broad community of authoring and sharing information.

It seems like an interesting negotiation among all interested parties: Publishers, authors, institutions, readers...who should have the most control, and why? And at what cost? It seems like, within academia, the higher the level of control given to publishers and institutions over a publication, the more that publication is "worth" in terms of authority. In contrast, the more control given to authors and readers over a publication, the less that publication is worth. This doesn't quite make sense to me; maybe I'm being to simplistic. Maybe this is one reason academics, particularly historians, are reluctant to adopt electronic forms of scholarly publication. But it seems that academics need to address issues of control and issues of professional "worth" of publications as we move further along in the digital age.

Thinking at the Interface

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 13 Nov 2006 14:33:28 EST

International HASTAC Conference "Electronic Techtonics: Thinking at the Interface" -- A CFP for the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) first conference on "interface" in arts, sciences, and culture. Held at Duke University, April 17-19, 2007. [HASTAC]: Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory [CFP]: Call for Papers

DC Technology & Humanities Forum

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 09 Nov 2006 17:33:44 EST

The December 5th presentation of the DC-Area Technology & Humanities Forum is hosted by the Center for History and New Media. The topic: "Scholarship 2.0: What Web 2.0 Means for Digital Humanists."

Shootout! History Channel Game

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 05 Nov 2006 18:22:58 EST

Shootout! the Video Game -- To accompany its popular Shootout! television show series, the History Channel now offers a downloadable game so you can "participate in amazing 3-D recreations of the battles that shaped history." Windows only, as far as I can tell. Scenarios for the game: "New battles will be released as new episodes of Shootout! premier this season. Upcoming episodes include " Iraq's Most Wanted: Terror at the Border," "Okinawa: The Last Battle of World War II," and "Raid on the Bataan Death Camp."" Seems like the History Channel is either branching out into new audience demographics. I'm not really sure what to think about this yet. I'd have to play the game to make a more informed comment, but it seems like this is less about learning and exploring history than it is about acquiring some kind of prosthetic memory of the events, and reveling in the events. (via Yahoo! News)

History Games

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 05 Nov 2006 10:41:32 EST

The Museee McCord Museum games section (The McCord Museum of Canadian History) has some very fun interactive Flash games on different periods and topics in history. In the "Mind your Manners!" section, there are games on the Victorian period and the Roaring Twenties. You can also explore late 19th and early 20th-century department stores and games and toys.

Ghost Photos

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 04 Nov 2006 22:53:19 EST

Very cool site (no title) in which someone has layered old photos of places against modern photos. Nice way to show what has changed, and what hasn't. The best one out of the bunch (IMO) is a picture outside a dorm. *[IMO]: In My Opinion

Old Computers

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 04 Nov 2006 22:44:35 EST

Old-Computers.com -- A ten-year effort by Thierry Schembri and Olivier Boisseau, boasting a collection of nearly 950 old computers, some as early as 1950.

WordPress 2.0.5

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 04 Nov 2006 22:33:41 EST

The latest release of WordPress (version 2.0.5, "Ronan") is out for your downloading pleasure.

Keywords from Presidential Speeches

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 03 Nov 2006 22:02:43 EST

What words in presidential speeches and documents have been the most popular or most frequently used? To help answer that question, Chirag Mehta has created a very slick web page that generates a tag cloud for various documents created by past American presidents, called "US Presidential Speeches Tag Cloud." Historians will quickly note that, while the projects title says "presidential speeches," a number of the documents are written letters, essays, or other documents, and not speeches. Chirag says as much in the colophon below the tag cloud. That aside, the site is a really interesting look at what keywords or phrases are popular at given points in time.

It's interesting to see, in the various State of the Union addresses for instance, what words reoccur most often, which words are older(meaning words that have been used in past documents) and which words are newer. Words like "terrorist" are obviously newer (note that it's the most used word in the past four State of the Union speeches by George W. Bush), while words like "strengthen" are older. The word "appropriation" was pretty popular until FDR (FDR used "aggression" and "aggressor" a lot). It is also interesting to see what topics and issues change over time by looking at the language of the documents. "Treaty" was a pretty popular word in the late 19th century among presidents from Grant to Teddy Roosevelt, most likely referring to various treaties with Native Americans. Overall, this reveals lots of potential for new rhetorical analysis of any kind of textual historical document with this kind of graphical representation of words.

(Via Boing Boing.) *[FDR]: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Oversights

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 01 Nov 2006 19:32:59 EST

Absent from History -- Guardian Unlimited article criticizing the latest Clint Eastwood movie Flags of our Fathers for not showing any African-American soldiers during the fight at Iwo Jima. "Nearly 900 African-Americans fought on the Japanese island but not one appears in Clint Eastwood's Oscar-tipped film, writes Dan Glaister."

Nominations for History Carnival 42

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 31 Oct 2006 12:35:35 EST

Sergey Romanov of Holocaust Controversies hosts the next history carnival tomorrow. Email nominations for recently published history posts (since October 15) to sergeyhc[AT]gmail[DOT]com, or use the submission form.

Examples of Block-Level Commenting

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 30 Oct 2006 15:21:34 EST

Some interesting work is going on with "block-level commenting," or the ability for readers/users to comment on specific portions or "blocks" of a post. Jack Slocum's example uses WordPress and the slick Yahoo! UI, while Tim Groves at Brand Spanking New offers something similar. I can imagine lots of uses for this with footnoting/endnoting scholarly writing on the web, and with critiquing publications and preprints.

History's Walls

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 29 Oct 2006 12:58:43 EST

"The Walls Tumbled by Time" -- By Joel Garreau at the Washington Post, an interesting (but brief) discussion of the failure of walls to separate and protect cultures and national boundaries thoughout history. Division, separation, and segregation, for various reasons, are widely reoccurring themes in human history, and the investments (economic, technological, and cultural) in enforcing those segregations are enormous.

Penguin Bookcover Photoset

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 29 Oct 2006 12:46:22 EST

Penguin Books: A Photoset on Flickr -- "After buying the book - Penguin By Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005, I started searching local book stores and online for some of the old Penguin and Penican books. Here's what I have so far."

Second Life History

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 29 Oct 2006 11:50:13 EST

The SL History Wiki chronicles the history of the Second Life virtual world. The wiki includes an interesting mix of the culture of Second Life communities and characters (E.g. character records, holidays, sports), and a documentation of the changes in the technology that makes up Second Life (a timeline of software development, titled "Second Life Through the Ages").

Down and Out

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 29 Oct 2006 11:35:21 EST

A cold/cough/sore throat had me down most of last week, and I unfortunately failed to attend the DC History conference yesterday (opted instead to sleep most of the day). Thanks to everyone who posted comments on blogging conference sessions...it's an interesting topic, one that requires a little more research, thought, and blogging on my part.

“Fake” Versus “True” Sharing

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 27 Oct 2006 07:46:49 EDT

Joi Ito asks, Is YouTube 'Web 2.0'?" as a follow-up to a post by Lawrence Lessig, "The Ethics of Web 2.0." Lessig specifically differentiates between "true sharing" and "fake sharing." For Lessig, YouTube is a "fake sharing" site because it does not allow users to download content; all traffic is directed back to YouTube, thus YouTube, not the users, essentially controls the content.

Blogging Conference Sessions

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 25 Oct 2006 18:05:23 EDT

The 33rd Annual Conference on Washington, D.C. Historical Studies takes place this weekend. The schedule offers lots of good stuff. I'm particularly interested in one session, "Washingtonâ€™s Not-So-Gilded Age." George Mason's own James Garber is presenting "'Foul, Repulsive, and Unsightly:' Washington, DC's Sewage Problems and Improvements, 1865-1880." during the session, a topic very much in line with my own research interests in filth and cleanliness.

This upcoming conference, as well as the fast-approaching annual conference by the American Historical Association, has had me thinking about best strategies for blogging conference sessions. Blogging conferences is nothing new: Kottke recently blogged PopTech, Josh Greenberg blogged notes from South by Southwest last semester (as did scores of other bloggers), just to name a few examples. I plan to blog about the session this weekend, and the sessions I'll attend at the AHA. With that in mind, I'd like to come up with a few good approaches to best blog conference sessions. So, good readers of ClioWeb, do you have suggestions? Links to resources? *[AHA]: American Historical Association

Museum Website Review Series

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 23 Oct 2006 12:54:19 EDT

Interesting stuff going on at Relaxing on the Trail. Sheila is planning to "review one history museum site from every US state, including DC, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and Guam." The first post in the series (or should it be called an epic?) is on the Chicago History Museum.

Past Futures

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 17 Oct 2006 15:37:07 EDT

The Future Isn't What It Used to Be -- Discussion of a book about past ideas of the future.

404 History

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 17 Oct 2006 15:21:07 EDT

History of 404 -- A brief history of the 404 page.

Video Games and Counterfactual History

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 16 Oct 2006 22:51:03 EDT

How to Win a War -- New York Magazine article about WWII video games and the benefits of counterfactual history.

1993 Internet News Story

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 16 Oct 2006 00:16:31 EDT

The Internet in 1993 -- Television news story about an interesting phenomenon: The Internet!

1800s Ephemera

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 16 Oct 2006 00:10:46 EDT

1800s Ephemera -- Nice images of bank notes, theater items and old baseball items.

TheTypeTrust Fonts

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 15 Oct 2006 20:04:05 EDT

TheTypeTrust -- Nice type promotion and distribution agency. My favorite fonts: Boycott, Estilo, and Reservation Wide.

History Carnival XLI

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 15 Oct 2006 16:50:29 EDT

Welcome to History Carnival XLI! Lots of great stuff in this edition, especially good to get the week started off right.

Finding, Using (and Misusing) Evidence

My favorite post of the bunch: In Sponges, Moss, and Stones, Michael Gilleland of Laudator Temporis Acti provides an interesting compilation of various discussions of ancient defecation practices and cleansing techniques. "Papadopoulos does make an intriguing and attractive suggestion, that the Athenians may have used discarded ostraka (potsherds), with the names of prominent politicians scratched on them for ostracism, to wipe after defecation."

Apparently Atlantis is now in Sardinia, though John MacKay explains why that's silly in "Bad science writing and an old favorite". In The Curse of the One Rabbit: Tree Rings Corroborate Aztec Folklore," Daniel Collins points out that, for the Aztecs, "the year One Rabbit was strongly associated with catastrophic events such as famine. Tree-ring data suggest their fear was based on long experience."

Though I highly doubt that Jonathan Dresner could ask a stupid question, he's "asking stupid questions...so you don't have to" about the ceremony of "rectification of names."

In "The Wife of Bath, Writen Authority, and the Antifeminist Tradition," History Geek notices a "dual effect" of the Wife of Bath's rebellion toward her husband in Chaucer's Wife of Bath.

In the Audience

Gracchi at Westminster Wisdom critiques a visit by Bernard Bailyn in American at the Academy. RandomAlex takes notes on a lecture on "New Science on Ancient Lives" in "A Tale of Three Egyptian Mummies.". M.G. Sheftall writes "Self-Immolation Tactics as Media Spin, Cultural Pretense, and Strategic Initiative: Japanese and Jihadist Cases," which is a "companion piece" to the October 10 lecture by Yuri Tanaka.

Of Revolutions and Agency

Feminish gets the award for most nominated blog. Natasha's The March of the Women, Part I and Part II, recounts women's activism during the French Revolution.

The Sappho Manifesto's Revolutionary of the Week for September 27 was Elizabeth "Lizzie" Jennings. Jennings was a teacher and organ player who challenged segregated public transportation in New York in 1854.

Aboriginal Australians gets attention from John Tracey, as he discusses public toilets on Boundary Street (among other things), in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia in "The History of Public Toilets, Community Notice Boards, and Welfare Agencies in West End.". (I agree with Alun: the post's title doesn't do it justice.)

Early Modern Fare

At Early Modern Whale, Roy Booth talks about a sour footnote to the history of childhood: The case of the Witches of Warboys, 1593. Meanwhile, Giornale Nuovo introduces The Genius of Salvator Rosa." "Genius" in this instances means "characteristic disposition."

Archives and Memoirs, and Memories

Feminish's "Past Lives: Women's Journals Online alerts us to Harvard's Open Collections, containing thousands of primary sources, including diaries. Jennie W. at American Presidents Blog recounts Children's Letters to the President," Jennie highlights a letter to Ronald Reagan by Andy Smith, a seventh-grader, who requested "federal funds to hire a crew to clean up [his] room."

While we're reading about diaries and memoirs, check out Natalie Bennett's review of Walking to Greenham, a memoir by Ann Pettitt. Pettitt was "one of the founders" of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp.

In "Buried Alive,"Nene Adams recounts a story from the Manchester Guardian (1851) of Martha Clarke, who buried her baby alive and was subsequently tried and sentenced to death in 1851.

The "Friday Find" at Joshua Rosenau's Thoughts from Kansas involves the story of Fred Melcher, a family friend of Rosenau. The Melcher family papers are now at the University of Virginia, where a graduate student found an unpublished poem by Robert Frost. Melcher's grandfather was a friend of Frost, and also helped create the Newberry Medal.

In "Some Kind of Evil," Barista discusses the personal history of Myrtle Jones.

Museums

More reasons for me to visit England: Diamond Geezer reviews the Museum of Brands, Packaging, and Advertising, while Natalie Bennett reviews the exhibition Myths of Bengal in the British Museum at My London Your London.

Morgen Jahnke provides us with a nice overview of the history of Teatro La Fenice, the famed opera house Venice that was consumed by a fire in 1996.

Modern Issues

In "That 70s Show," Evan Roberts challenges the stereotype of Democrats as "deficit-spending wastrels" by looking back to past events.

At Walking the Berkshires, Tim Abbott recounts the comic characters Willie and Joe, the "iconic WWII combat infantrymen" created by Bill Mauldin. Abbott weaves a nice story of how Mauldin was "no cut out for a successful stateside career," and how Willie and Joe had similar difficulties adjusting to civilian life.

For another angle on WWII, check out John McKay's Nazis in Antartica.

In "Holocaust Denial on Parade," Andrew Mathis argues that Holocaust deniers deliberately seek to break the law to gain attention and news publicity, and are not simply victims of rights violations. Another article at Holocaust Controversies (this time by Sergey Romanov) illustrates "how the convergence of evidence works."

Classics, Analogies, and Department Building

(Yeah, not a great category name...I'm running out of ideas.)

Kevin Levin at Civil War Memory highlights yet "Another Poor Historical Analogy," this time made by Condoleezza Rice. Rice compared the war in Iraq to the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

In a very interesting exercise, "Populate a History Department," Mark Grimsley posted the seemingly simple question: If you could populate a history department of 15 full-time faculty, "what positions would you select, and why?" The comments are also a fantastic read.

The Little Professor's Editorial elaborated on the meanings and implications of "classic" publications.

Digital History

The big questions this time around for digital historians are: What do we leave behind? How do we find it? And who's in charge? Past Thinking and Tom Scheinfeldt's Found History discuss History Matters's effort to "[raise] awareness of the importance of history in our everyday lives and encouraging involvement in heritage in England and Wales." Found History also critiques the Yahoo! Time Capsule.

While William Turkel of Digital History Hacks discusses the problems associated with searching for history, others have similar issues with tagging (folksonomy). Mills Kelly has raised some interesting questions on tagging history. In "Social Tagging and Museums," Kelly Lewis at Curiouser and Curiouser... discusses how online museums can attract new "patrons" with tagging and folksonomy.

Jeremy Sandor gets the prize for best quote: "At the beginning of September, I never would have imagined that in a month's time I would be explaining the basic uses of data structures. Is 'data structure' even a term that should be part of a historian's vocabulary?" His "From the Digital History Trenches" compares three folksonomy-driven sites: del.icio.us, Technorati, and Flickr to determine which site's tags brought up the most relevant results. Technorati's results were "more informative;" User tagging on del.icio.us provided the least helpful results.

Humor (or Not)

Last, but not least, two funny contributions this round: Brooks Simpson of Civil Warriors points us to a YouTube clip prompting views to buy a book. And, lest any dashing academics out there wish for the life of adventure, heroism, and occasional skirmishes with the Nazis, Andy Bryan reports on the news that Indiana Jones was denied tenure in "Back from Yet Another Globetrotting Adventure, Indiana Jones Checks His Mail and Discovers That His Bid for Tenure Has Been Denied".

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the reading! The next History Carnival will be hosted by Sergey Romanov at Holocaust Controversies. Send nomination to sergeyhc[at]gmail.com or use the carnival form.

And if you didn't get enough here, there's plenty to read at the latest Asian History Carnival at Rhine River. The Carnival of Bad History takes place October 22 at archy. Send nominations to badhistory[at]aol[dot]com. And Recent Finds hosts the October 22 edition of Carnivalesque. Send nominations to hkarll002[at]henrikkarll.dk or use the form.

Early Hearing Devices

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 13 Oct 2006 21:39:49 EDT

Deafness in Disguise: 19th and 20th Century Concealed Hearing Devices -- The featued collection of the September 06 issue of D-Lib magazine, contributed by Cathy Sarli.

Passing of Peter Norman

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 13 Oct 2006 12:09:51 EDT

Brother of the Fist: The Passing of Peter Norman -- Very good article by David Zirin. Peter Norman was the 1968 Olympic 200m silver medalist from Australia who stood on the platform with gold and bronze medal winners Tommie Smith and John Carlos as they "raised black gloved fists smashing the sky on the medal stand in Mexico City." Norman wasn't simply an ignorant bystander: "I asked what they wanted me to do to help." (Hat Tip: Ken Albers.)

Virtual Oregon Trail

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 13 Oct 2006 10:40:11 EDT

Virtual Apple 2 - Oregon Trail -- I must be on a video game kick today. Play Oregon Trail! Sorry, Mac folks, but it requires ActiveX so you'll need to be on a Windows machine to play. (Hat Tip: Kris Kelly.)

History of the Flight Simulator

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 13 Oct 2006 10:18:20 EDT

Flight Simulator History and Old Flight Simulator Vault -- The first is an effort to chronicle the history of flight simulator software; The second is a vault of downloads of old flight simulator programs. Both sites created and maintained by Jos Grupping. Very cool!

Evolution of Speechballoons

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 13 Oct 2006 10:06:08 EDT

Evolution of Speechballoons -- Interesting look at how illustrators have depicted speech in various cartoons and other images over time. Part of Andy's Early Comics Archive. The site is not well-organized, but it contains lots of good stuff. Has anyone written or researched the depiction of speech, and other sounds, in medieval or early modern art and illustrations?

Crisis in Citizenship?

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 12 Oct 2006 10:14:31 EDT

Eugene Hickok believes that tax-payer dollars shouldn't be used to "underwrite courses in such things as the history of comic book art." Hickok's recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, "No Undergrad Left Behind," (registration free, but required) argues for more transparency and accountability on the part of colleges and universities. A member of the National Civics Literacy Board at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), Hickok sees college education falling into a dismal abyss that only the the philosophies of the No Child Left Behind program can save. Hickok references a report based on standardized test results, "The Coming Crisis in Citizenship," created by ISI. The test quizzed "more than 14,000 randomly selected college freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges and universities across the country." The results: "college seniors failed the civic literacy assessment with an average score of 53.2 percent."

You Don't Need College to Pass This Test

The test involved 60 multiple-choice questions covering a (not-so-broad) variety of topics, listed in the Test Question Themes chart on the ISI site. ("Because the survey is ongoing, the full survey instrument is unavailable for distribution.") I'd love to see what's on this quiz, but we'll have to wait until they release it. In the meantime, perhaps the sample quiz will suffice.

Like it or not, you don't actually need to go to college or university to learn the basic facts to pass this test. Anyone with $30.00 (give or take) and the motivation to do so can buy a modest college history or government textbook, study it for a few weeks, and pass this test. Actually, you don't need $30.00; Just go to your local library, sign up for some computer time, and read Wikipedia articles (which, despite criticism to the contrary, easily have information accurate enough to pass the ISI test, let alone the sample quiz). You could consult H-Bot to answer a few questions. For example, the sample quiz on the ISI site asks: "During which period was the American Constitution amended to guarantee women the right to vote?" CHNM's H-Bot can answer this question: C. 1900-1925 (H-Bot says 1920, specifically).1 If H-Bot can correctly answer 75-80% of the quiz's questions, does that make H-Bot an "informed and engaged" citizen?

What is Engaged Citizenship?

The problem with Mr. Hickok's editorial and with similar opinions is they have an unfounded belief that knowledge of basic historical facts makes for a good, engaged citizen. Quite the opposite; Knowing facts simply to pass a standardized test not only fails to help students "understand their nation's history and founding principles," it fails to help them become "informed and engaged citizens."

As Sam Weinberg has argued, historical thinking is what matters, not historical memorization. Do I think it is important that students understand historical facts? Absolutely. I do not, however, expect them to memorize facts; that's what textbooks and other resources are for. I think multiple-choice, fact-only tests are not only boring, they're also insulting and demeaning, and do nothing to "engage" students. I want students to be able to understand and challenge why we focus on certain facts and not others, and how we use those facts in debate and discussion. The ISI test won't teach students to question why teachers discuss the Monroe Doctrine, for example, and question why they don't discuss slavery in the United States. (Interestingly, there's nothing in the themes list about slavery in the United States.) If we teach only to help students pass this test, or to simply memorize facts, we are failing our students. Plain. And. Simple.

Informed and engaged citizenship does not involve the ability to remember facts. Instead, it involves the ability to think about which facts are important (and which are not), how others use facts to shape arguments, and why those facts and those arguments are important as opposed to others. This ability stretches well beyond the study of history. I don't simply want students to remember that, in 1920, the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in the United States (or, more accurately, prohibited disenfranchisement based on sex). I want them to think about why we needed an amendment in the first place for women to be able to vote, and why it took so long after the creation of the Constitution to create and pass such an amendment. That's the kind of questioning and critical thinking that makes for a informed and engaged citizen. And that's the kind of questioning and critical thinking I hope college students learn in history and government classrooms. Put simply, I want my students to ask why with anything they encounter, then go forth unafraid to seek out the answer.

And for the record, I think it would be awesome to take a course on the history of comic book art, and maybe even teach one someday.

Footnotes

1 Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig have discussed H-Bot's capabilities, and the problems associated with "factualist history" in "Web of Lies?" (2005).

*[ISI]: Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Critiquing the State of Military History

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 12 Oct 2006 09:59:27 EDT

Military History Autopsy, Part 1 and Part 2 -- Sheila at Relaxing on the Trail provides a nice counter to John Miller's recent National Review article on the state of military history.

Nominations for History Carnival XLI

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 11 Oct 2006 08:39:43 EDT

Please keep the nominations for History Carnival XLI coming in! ClioWeb hosts the next carnival on October 15. Please send nominations using my contact form or the carnival submission form.

Historical Health Posters

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 09 Oct 2006 21:24:55 EDT

Visual Culture and Health Posters -- From the National Library of Medicine. (Hat tip: khaosworks.)

Nylon Reaches Sweet Sixteen

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 09 Oct 2006 21:18:11 EDT

Nylon Reaches Sweet Sixteen -- From Modern Mechanix.

Histories of RSS

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 09 Oct 2006 20:58:43 EDT

Tom Scheinfeldt emailed me a link to a nice wiki entry on the history of RSS, which in turn led to more reading on RSS's history. A few links of interest:

Mark Pilgrim's "brief history of RSS from July 2000 to November 2000," during which time RSS "forked." Pilgrim has documented lots of interesting discussions.
Joseph Reagle's"Web RSS (Syndication) History" is a brief but detailed timeline of RSS's development.
WebReference.com's The Evolution of RSS.
Dave Riner's RSS 2.0 Political FAQ: An interview with the principle creator of RSS.

Exploiting History?

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 09 Oct 2006 19:43:44 EDT

"Can Rosa Parks Sell Pickup Trucks?" - Or, what the article really asks: Should Chevorlet use Rosa Parks to sell pickup trucks?

Zotero's Out!

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 06 Oct 2006 10:18:12 EDT

Zotero -- "a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work--in the web browser itself." Zotero requires the 2.0 beta of Firefox.

History Carnival XL

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 03 Oct 2006 07:02:49 EDT

The fortieth edition of the History Carnival, brought to you by Rob MacDougall, embodies exactly why Old is the New New is one of my favorite blogs to read. Very nice job, Rob. ClioWeb hosts History Carnival XLI on October 15. (XLI has a better feel to it than 41. Its like the Super Bowl.) Send nominations to jeremy [AT] clioweb [DOT] org or use the submissions form.

History Carnival XL Coming Soon

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 30 Sep 2006 14:40:01 EDT

Rob at Old is the New New hosts the history carnival tomorrow, so hurry and send in nominations through the carnival form, or by email at "electromail - at - robmacdougall - org" (not com).

Takes One to Know One

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 29 Sep 2006 15:10:21 EDT

It Takes One to Know One -- Tom Scheinfeldt of Found History fame takes to task a recent Washington Post editorial criticizing blogging by Robert Samuelson. I think Samuelson may simply be lashing out at bloggers because he fears for his job.

History is....

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 29 Sep 2006 11:13:03 EDT

For the past few weeks, a "Design is..." meme has exploded, where designers have been creating desktops promoting what they think "design" is. In a similar spirit, I thought it would be cool to think about what "History is..." and make a desktop for it. The first thing that came to mind is "History is a Perpetual Beta." I've argued previously on ClioWeb, and on an AAHC conference panel, that history, like many Web 2.0 applications, is in a perpetual "beta," or in a constant state of testing, revision, and improvement. So, to spice up your computer's desktop:

Download:

I'm also taking requests to do a "History is..." desktop image. What do you think history is? Leave a response in the comments, or contact me. And feel free to make your own and let everyone know what and where it is!

Update: Sepoy at Chapati Mystery has created a desktop, and we created a Flickr pool, so if you make one and have a Flickr account, please add it to the pool!

History of Manga

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 28 Sep 2006 11:36:16 EDT

A History of Manga -- By Matt Thorn.

Buttons Have a History

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 28 Sep 2006 11:21:40 EDT

History of the Button -- "Tracing the history of interaction design through the history of the button, from flashlights to websites and beyond." This is a fantastic blog, and I highly recommend taking a look.

Afraid of CSS?

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 28 Sep 2006 11:15:15 EDT

12 Lessons for Those Afraid of CSS and Standards -- A nice list of rules for those news to CSS and designing with web standards. *[CSS]: Cascading Stylesheets

Jobs at CHNM

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 28 Sep 2006 10:33:59 EDT

We've got a lot of job openings at CHNM. If you're interested in history and new media and want to work with some great people, applying for one of the following positions:

Technology Evangelist (Technology Outreach Coordinator): The Center for History & New Media at George Mason University is seeking a technology evangelist for Zotero (www.zotero.org), an open source bibliographic management and note-taking tool for the Firefox web browser. The technology evangelist will be responsible for building alliances with scholarly organizations and libraries, encouraging scholars to try Zotero, developing and maintaining user documentation, and building awareness of this next-generation research tool. We are looking for an energetic, well-organized individual with excellent written and oral communication skills. Applicants should have at least some graduate training in library science or one of the humanities or social science disciplines as well as familiarity with relevant technologies (e.g., XML, RDF, metadata standards, and Firefox extensions) and scholarly research practices. This is a grant-funded, two-year position at the Center for History and New Media (http://chnm.gmu.edu) at George Mason University, which is known for innovative work in digital media. Located in Fairfax, Virginia, CHNM is 15 miles from Washington, DC, and accessible by public transportation. Apply online at http://jobs.gmu.edu for position 10378Z; please include letter of application, resume, and three references. If you have questions, please write chnm@gmu.edu with the subject line â€œTechnology Evangelist.â€ We will begin considering applications October 15, 2006, and continue until the position is filled.

Web Designer: The Center for History & New Media at George Mason University is seeking a web designer and developer. We require an energetic and well-organized individual to work on a variety of innovative, web-based history projects. This position is particularly appropriate for someone with a combined interest in technology and history. The successful applicant will be able to create mockups and wireframes for historical, cultural, and educational websites and bring those ideas to fruition using the latest and highest web development standards. Fluency with current web design technologies (including ability to hand code HTML, CSS, and Javascript) and familiarity with web accessibility and web usability standards are essential. Some familiarity with web-database technologies (MySQL, PHP), contemporary trends in web development (e.g., AJAX, DHTML and DOM Scripting, Rails) and multimedia and graphic design applications (Flash, including ActionScript, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator) is a plus, as is prior work in history or the humanities. This is a grant-funded two-year position at the Center for History and New Media (http://chnm.gmu.edu), which is known for innovative work in digital media. Located in Fairfax, Virginia, CHNM is 15 miles from Washington, DC, and accessible by public transportation. Apply online (including resume, three references, links to prior web/multimedia work, and a cover letter describing technology background and any interest in history) at http://jobs.gmu.edu for position 10376Z. If you have questions, contact us at chnm@gmu.edu with subject line â€œWeb Designer.â€ We will begin considering applications on 10/15/2006 and continue until the position is filled.

Senior Programmer: The Center for History & New Media (http://chnm.gmu.edu) at George Mason University is seeking a programmer to work primarily on Zotero (http://www.zotero.org), an open source bibliographic management and note-taking tool for the Firefox web browser. Applicants should have an advanced knowledge of JavaScript, XUL, XML, CSS, and other technologies critical for Firefox development, such as XPCOM. Applicants should also have a working knowledge of PHP, Java, and MySQL, and have solid command-line Linux skills. Ability to work in a team is very important. This is a grant-funded, two-year position at the Center for History and New Media (http://chnm.gmu.edu), which is known for innovative work in digital media. Located in Fairfax, Virginia, CHNM is 15 miles from Washington, DC, and accessible by public transportation. Apply online at http://jobs.gmu.edu for position 10377Z; please include cover letter should with salary requirements and a description of relevant programming projects and experience; resume, and three references. Applications without a cover letter and resume will not be considered. If you have questions, contact us at chnm@gmu.edu with subject line â€œsenior programmer.â€ We will begin considering applications on 10/15/2006 and continue until the position is filled.

Budget and Grants Administrator: The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, a leading national center that uses new technology to teach and present the past, is seeking a half-time (20 hours per week) Budget and Grants Administrator to provide grants and budget support. Primary responsibilities include: processing, tracking, and reconciliation of all financial transactions and budgetary commitments; management of reimbursements and payments; recommend action and provide intervention on account discrepancies; help developing a system for tracking all grants and grant reporting deadlines; maintenance and updating of fiscal files to meet audit requirements; acting as liaison to General Accounting, Purchasing, and Office of Sponsored Programs; providing support for Principal Investigators; and helping to prepare budgets and budget narratives for grant proposals. Knowledge and skills required/preferred include: advanced knowledge of MS Word and MS Excel; familiarity with federal grant regulations; excellent verbal, interpersonal, and written communication; ability to multitask, organize, and prioritize; and ability to work in team-oriented, fast-paced environment. Apply online at http://jobs.gmu.edu for position 02092z. (You can direct questions about the position to chnm@gmu.edu with the subject line â€œgrants administrator.â€) We will begin considering applications on September 29, 2006, and continue until the position is filled.

*[CHNM]: Center for History and New Media

Latest Bad History Carnival

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 27 Sep 2006 09:09:17 EDT

Carnival of Bad History 9 -- The latest Bad History blog carnival, hosted this round by World History Blog.

Using Microformats

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 24 Sep 2006 11:50:08 EDT

Using Microformats -- Written by Brian Suda, Using Microformats is a nice introduction and reference manual for microformat markup.

Podcasts without the Pod

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 23 Sep 2006 09:20:53 EDT

Apple Hits Podcast Ready with Nastygram -- I'm a big fan of Apple products, but what are they thinking?

Riff on Lewis and Clark

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 22 Sep 2006 20:30:59 EDT

Lewis and Clark: What Else Happened -- "This weblog is not so much about Lewis and Clark as it is a riff on Lewis and Clark. Itâ€™s about simultaneity."

Teaching Movie Making

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 19 Sep 2006 17:41:31 EDT

I have the honor of talking on Josh's Clio Wired course this evening. The topic for discussion, at least where I'm involved: Making simple movies with iMovie. If you haven't checked out the Clio Wired course for this semester, you totally should. Some very smart folks are blogging some very good stuff. Students include:

Subscribe to their blogs or stop by the course's blog feed, and be sure to leave comments!

History Carnival 39 Available

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 16 Sep 2006 18:58:52 EDT

History Carnival XXXIX--Hosted by Ralph Luker at Cliopatria. Check it out!

Appearance, Feet, Pronounciation

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 16 Sep 2006 17:44:56 EDT

How to Spot a Jap--A 1942 comic published by the U.S. War Department. Even though I know stuff like this existed, I'm still astonished and disgusted. (Hat Tip: Kottke.)

Maybe This Isn't So Funny

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 13 Sep 2006 09:17:48 EDT

"Bush: 'History Cannot Judge Me if I End it Soon'" -- from The Onion

Presidential Action

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 13 Sep 2006 00:34:11 EDT

Presidential Action figures from Target.com. Action figures. They're also listed under "Humor."

Consortium on the Revolutionary Era

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 08 Sep 2006 21:20:49 EDT

The Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750-1850 is holding its annual conference March 1-3, 2007 in Arlington and Fairfax Virginia. Keynote speakers include Philip Morgan of Johns Hopkins University, Sarah Maza of Northwestern University, and Charles Tilly of Columbia University. Paper proposals are due October 15.

Musee Mechanique

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 08 Sep 2006 11:06:31 EDT

Musee Mechanique -- "...one of the worldâ€™s largest privately owned collections of mechanically operated musical instruments and antique arcade machines." (Hat tip: Heather).

The “20 and Odd”

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 08 Sep 2006 10:57:28 EDT

"Mystery of Virginia's First Slaves Is Unlocked 400 Years Later" -- from the Washington Post.

Listing Pages with WordPress

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 24 Aug 2006 18:44:46 EDT

For you WordPress geeks out there: I've recently had the need to list the child pages of a particular page in addition to listing those same pages once you visit a child page. In this case, I only have one level of child pages. So, my page structure looked like this:

Main Page
- Subpage One
- Subpage Two
- Subpage Three

You'd want to list the same subpages on both the Main Page and the respective subpages. I came up with a simple solution. First, we need to query the post to get its information. So I set up a PHP variable $page and set it equal to $wp_query->post;. Then a create another variable called $parent_id and do a database query to get the ID of the $page variable's post_parent. Of course, if $parent_id is empty, then that means the page has no parent, and is thus a Main Page. So, for this case, I throw in a simple if check that will set an empty $parent_id to the page's ID, which is found using $post->ID. The full script for finding this info, which I put in the <head>, is:

<?php
$page = $wp_query->post;
$parent_id = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT ID FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE ID = '$page->post_parent;'");
if(!$parent_id) $parent_id = $post->ID;
?>

Then, to actually generate the HTML for the page list, I use the following code in the body of my page template:

<?php if(wp_list_pages("child_of=".$parent_id."&echo=0")): ?>
- <?php
- wp_list_pages("title_li=&child_of=".$parent_id."&depth=1");
- ?>
<?php endif; ?>

In a nutshell, the second part of the script does two things. First, an if statement checks to see if there are in fact subpages for the page's value for $parent_id. That's the <?php if(wp_list_pages("child_of=".$parent_id."&echo=0")): ?> line. So, if a page doesn't have subpages, it won't generate the unordered list. Remember, if the page is a Main Page, $parent_id is the page's ID (see the explanation above). Second, if the first check goes through, then the script will generate the list of pages using the wp_list_pages() WordPress template function, using the $parent_id in its argument for child_of. For more info on how the wp_list_pages() works, see the WordPress Codex page Template Tags/WP List Pages.

There might be better solutions for this kind of problem, but I thought I'd share it and see if there are ways to improve the scripts. It's working pretty well for me, and I think there are multiple ways to use this kind of page query to make page-specific additions to your site. I do need to come up with a solution for multiple levels of pages (two or more levels deep). If anyone has thoughts on that, please leave a comment!

Katrina's Jewish Voices

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 22 Aug 2006 21:26:41 EDT

Just coming up for air. It's been one heck of a summer. I'm very pleased to announce that Katrina's Jewish Voices has launched. Katrina's Jewish Voices is an online collection project that CHNM built for the Jewish Women's Archive. *[CHNM]: Center for History and New Media

Nice Edition of A List Apart

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 21 Jun 2006 11:52:19 EDT

The latest issue of A List Apart addresses unobtrusive DOM Scripting (Jeremy Keith), pretty and accessible forms (Nick Rigby), and planning workflow and organization for a web team (Shane Diffily).

The Cost of Internet Explorer

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 21 Jun 2006 10:35:39 EDT

How Much is That Browser in the Windows OS? -- Khoi Vinh's take on the high costs of designing for Internet Explorer. *[OS]: Operating System

NYT Article on Gulag Exhibit

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 07 Jun 2006 09:05:47 EDT

Today's New York Times includes a review article entitled "'Gulag,' a Show at Ellis Island, Depicts a Penal System Gone Awry (registration free, but required) on the National Park Service's "Gulag" exhibit.

Revise and Dissent

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 25 May 2006 14:09:50 EDT

I have the privilege of being a contributor to the newest group blog at the HNN, Revise and Dissent. *[HNN]: History News Network

GAM3R 7H30RY

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 25 May 2006 13:02:26 EDT

GAM3R 7H30RY is a digital book-in-progress that explore critical theories of games and their correlations to the real world. (Hat Tip: Open Access News.)

Good News

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 25 May 2006 12:58:05 EDT

After three (or more!) months, over 100 books, and countless instant messenger coversations with colleagues, I'm relieved to announce that I passed my major field comprehensive exams yesterday!

D.C. Punk History

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 23 May 2006 09:23:35 EDT

Tom Scheinfeldt has "found" more history, in the form of a mobile techology-enabled tour of Washington, D.C.'s punk rock scene.

FM10 Openness Conference

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 22 May 2006 18:45:14 EDT

FM10 Openness: Code, Science, and Content, presented by First Monday.

Carnivalesque XV at Siris

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 22 May 2006 09:31:56 EDT

Siris has posted another excellent edition of the Carnivalesque (an ancient/medieval history edition).

714

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 21 May 2006 12:12:36 EDT

Barry ties the Babe with his 714th homerun yesterday against the Oakland Athletics.

Issues with Web-Based Scholarship

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 21 May 2006 09:30:34 EDT

Paula Petrik has begun a three-part examination of Scholarship, (X)HTML, and CSS. In the wake of Manan's "Polyglot Manifesto", we should definitely keep up with Paula's series. [(X)HTML]: Extensible Hypertext Markup Language [CSS]: Cascading Style Sheets

Ajax Image Rotator

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 21 May 2006 09:22:55 EDT

I'm hoping the good readers of ClioWeb can help me out. I'm looking for an Ajax-based image rotator that does a fade-in/fade-out effect, like the effect I've done at Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom. There I use Flash (and some pretty ugly Flash at that), but I'd like to do this with JavaScript. I'd like a script that would allow me to either pull images from a database or read an XML file that lists images, and rotate through each image, fading the previous one. The techniques for doing this are out there, but I've yet to find a unified solution. I'm going to try my hand at writing one (after my exams, of course), but would love to know if something out there exists. Any ideas?

Update (09.13.06): Slideshow Alternative from SonSpring does pretty much what I wanted!

Sounds of History

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 18 May 2006 16:12:22 EDT

Historical Sounds in MP3 Format.

Future-ese

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 17 May 2006 08:30:31 EDT

For historians to engage with the public, we need "to not only speak past-ese and present-ese but also, future-ese." From Chapati Mystery's "The Polyglot Manifesto I." Read it. Right. Now.

Heroic Computer

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 17 May 2006 08:17:08 EDT

Heroic Computer Dies to Save World from Master's Thesis, at The Onion.

Another Splendid Carnival

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 16 May 2006 09:47:16 EDT

History Carnival #31 is available at Airminded, and it's one of the best yet!

Early Modern E-Prints

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 13 May 2006 12:16:24 EDT

Sharon Howard has added an open-access e-prints category to her Early Modern Resources.

Lessons from Wikipedia

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 07 May 2006 21:41:32 EDT

A couple of folks around the blogosphere have been working on articles for Wikipedia and have some interesting observations. In "Wikipedia and Me" and "Wikipedia and Me and a Few Other People," Alun at Archaeoastronomy discusses his work on the article "archaeoastronomy" and the subsequent changes to that entry. While Alun's "not a complete convert," he does think the edited article is better than the original. Alun is still critical of Wikipedia's policy dubbed Neutral Point-of-View.

Mills Kelly at edwired also has some interesting observations on Wikipedia. Mills edited an entry on the Donner Party and blogged about it in "What's for Dinner?" and "What's for Dinner? (cont'd)." After editing the Donner Party entry to reflect recent archaeological evidence that doubts the extent that cannibalism took place among the party, someone edited the entry to make Mills's contributions more "palatable." But, Mills asks, "is this better history?"

Gustave Who?

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 06 May 2006 21:00:23 EDT

The Little Professor has some really interesting links pertaining to the French artist Gustave Dore.

AAHC Blog

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 05 May 2006 12:23:55 EDT

In an effort to reach out to a broader public and to continue conversations from April's online conference, the American Association for History and Computing now has a blog.

May Day Pictures

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 05 May 2006 09:40:48 EDT

Check out Chapati Mystery's photos from May Day.

CSS-Based Timelines

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 04 May 2006 09:07:11 EDT

Some of us at CHNM are trying to create a CSS/XHTML/JavaScript-based historical timeline, one that uses accessibile, semantic code but presents itself in graphically-complex ways and is portable across devices and programs. I haven't found any examples of this on the Internet, but I have found several examples of timelines in general.

Most sites display a timeline as tabular data or, more commonly, in plain, unsemantic HTML.

In other cases, sites use an image created in Photoshop, Illustrator, or some other graphics program. While visually appealing, they're void of any hard-coded data pertaining to the events displayed. Examples include:

This, while the timeline in the first few examples actually contain coded data (even if that data is relatively meaningless), they aren't as complicated graphically as the images. Conversely, while the images convey some sense of change over time and multiple layers for events, the fact that they include no actual code pertaining to the events make them inaccessibile and unusable in other contexts. We want a semantically-coded list of events that we can make graphically stimulating and usable in a number of different settings.

Right now, the best option involves creating an XML file of the events and parse that XML with either Flash or with Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), a relatively recent standard advocated by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3). Regarding the latter, the Historical Event and Markup Linking Project (HEML) has produced a working XML schema that helps to, among other things, code and output an historical timeline. See, for example, the timeline of Archaic Greece or Alexander the Great. While timelines may be the bane of some historians' existences (and the timelines presented at the HEML site are very simple), the challenge associated with coding and presenting a timeline really fascinates me. The Alexander timeline could easily be done with plain CSS and XHTML. The Archaic Greece timeline, however, is a little more visually complex because events overlap each other and lines associated with certain places on the timeline structure the presentation of events. While the Alexander time is fairly linear, the Archic Greece timeline has more layers, or "depth," for lack of a better term. Overlapping of events and associations among events present challenges to making digital timelines with plain HTML and CSS.

I'm confident that there's a solution, using dashes of CSS and JavaScript with a solidly-structured XML or XHTML page. If examples of this already exist, please send me links or examples. If not, feel free to leave you thoughts on this problem. [XML]: Extensible Markup Language [HEML]: Historical Event and Markup Linking Project [SVG]: Scalable Vector Graphics [CHNM]: the Center for History and New Media [HTML]: Hypertext Markup Language [W3]: World Wide Web Consortium [XHTML]: Extensible Hypertext Markup Language [CSS]: Cascading Style Sheets

Bloggership Papers Online

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 02 May 2006 10:04:34 EDT

The papers from the "Bloggership: How Blogs are Transforming Legal Scholarship" conference are now online for your reading pleasure. Looks like some really interesting stuff.

Get a Mac

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 02 May 2006 00:13:21 EDT

Watch the TV Ads. The "Network" is really funny.

Sharon Goes OA

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 01 May 2006 22:59:36 EDT

Sharon drinks the Kool-Aid that is open access and creates her own publications archive.

Comics as Storytelling

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 01 May 2006 16:46:38 EDT

"Comics as Storytelling" features Scott McCloud in discussions on the ways in which digital media, particularly with regard to comics, shapes the storytelling enterprise. Sponsored by the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanties.

Sheila's New Blog Address

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 01 May 2006 14:02:11 EDT

One of the results of my transition to a new server is that Sheila Brennan's blog, SB: Relaxing on the Bayou, has changed addresses. Please unsubscribe and resubscribe to Sheila's feed, and update your bookmarks.

Reboot Time

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 01 May 2006 13:51:43 EDT

Along with hosting the History Carnival, ClioWeb also participated in the May 1st CSS Reboot. Go tell me what you think about my design, and check out the rest of the CSS Rebooters!

History Carnival Number 30

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 01 May 2006 13:25:41 EDT

Welcome to the 30th edition of the History Carnival! For your reading pleasure we have an awesome collection of posts, representing the best in history blogging. So sit back with a cup of coffee or other satisfying beverage and enjoy the reading!

First off, what are some of the problems that historians face? Acephalous discusses the problems with the phrase "a useable past" in "On 'Useable' History: A Rant in One Long, Hoarse Howl." Thinking about what plagarism should encourage us to do instead of not to do, Stephanie Hurter at Word Choice presents "The Spirit of History." For William Turkel, a useable past is probably one that we can find and access. In his "Methodology for the Infinite Archive," Turkel discusses the problems and possibilities associated with digital primary and secondary soruces, and the new skills historians need to use digital materials. Earmarks in Early Modern Culture discusses Steve Connor's manifesto for cultural phenomenology in history in "Cultural Phenomenology." Finally, another problem historians face is people who claim to be historians, as David Meadows argues in "Baigent." Meadows specifically takes issue with Michael Baigent and his commentary on the FoxNews show "The O'Reilly Factor"

Presenting historical experience, in writing and in artwork, can be a daunting challenge. In "Shared Experience," trenchfever presents a review article for The Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. trenchfever reviews artwork from official war artists during the Second World War. The post discusses issues artists faced in depicting the myriad of experiences of war and highlights the roles of artists as both creators of artwork and soldiers in combat. Similarly, Alan Baumler provides a nice discussion of Imperial images in "Imperial Self-Images." Baumler writes:

I find it a bit more interesting that this is the most explicit case I have seen of imperial spectacle aimed at the ruler themselves. Imperial and royal spectacle is usually studied on the assumption that the audience was the populace or the court or the citizenry or something. One obvious hard to study audience is the ruler themselves. Chinese imperial ritual was intended to constrain as much as to empower the ruler, emperors were probably aware of this, but their reaction to the ritual is hard to know.

In "The Return of Uwano Ishinosuke" Nick Kapur writes about Uwano Uwano, a former Japanese Army soldier left on Sakhalin Island after the Soviets captured the island during the Second World War. Orac at Respectful Insolence also comments on the return of Uwano in "I Didn's Think This Was Still Happening."

Reminants of the past are all around us, as 100 Word Minimum reminds us in "Ghost Signs" and "Up At Dawn." The dairy-turned-apartment building in Richmond, Virginia (in the second post) is great!

On the Japan side of Frog in a Well, K.M. Lawson finds some interesting reasons for the inclusion and exclusion of historical information in encyclopedia entries in "To Stab a Historian."

Regarding historians, the general public, access to history, and public history: Nick Terry at Holocaust Controversies takes a critical approach in "Don't Know Much About History...." Rightly so, I think, Nick argues that historians need to get involved in public history instead of sneering at it. And Steve Muhlberger takes issue with Juan Cole's latest assertion that classic American writing is usavailable in Arabic, and questions access to classic writings for other cultures in general in "Unknown to Readers of Arabic." Jonathan Dresner reminds us that the history textbook controversy between China and Japan has larger implications. In "China-Japan Historical Struggle Reaches MIT," Jonathan criticizes the censorship of a John Dower site on racist imagery, and raises questions regarding the ramifications of warnings that precede violent and racist historical imagery. And David Brion Davis is "concerned with the erosion of interest in history," and tells us why we should remember in "The Importance of History."

Now for a bit of labor history. In "May Day with Heart," Peter Linebaugh takes a look back at the history surrounding May Day and the violence in Haymarket in Chicago. Political Calculation's post "Union Membership Trends in the U.S. Private Sector" focuses on the decline of unions in the United States.

We have a good deal of ancient history fare this time around. "Papyri: Artemidorus and Oxyrhynchus posted at PhDIva, discusses a rediscovered 50 B.C. papyrus by Artemidorus, which is a copy of his second book in an eleven-book series on Mediterranean geography. Tony Keen critiques a Timewatch show on "The Mystery of the Headless Romans" in "Headless Romans." Alex Bordessa at Alex's Historical Fiction also talks about about decapitations and references Tony's post in "Dr. Who and the Skellies?" Chris Weimer at Thoughts on Antiquity discusses "Ancient Translation Problems." Finally, Martin Rundkvist keeps us up-to-date with his field research in "Fieldwork in Östra Husby.". Martin didn' find any Viking artifacts but did discover some remains from a prehistoric settlement.

Martin's not finished. His "William's Counter" explains Martin's "unexpected historical acquaintance" with William IV of Nassau-Dietz after discovering a 18th-century counter used on a abacus.

And if archaeology on more modern history is your thing, check out Mills Kelly's post "What's for Dinner?" Mills notes that the excavation of the Donner Party site is "very CSI" and argues for more cooperation among historians and archaeologists.

In Blogging the Renaissance, Truewit takes a look at a 16th-century illustrated book on hunting, and gives us some great observations. Apparently, Queen Elizabeth was an "expert tracker of some sort, able to arbitrate between the competing claims of hunters, each of them holding a pile of droppings up to her and shouting 'Pick Mine!'"

Calling Margery Kempe crazy does matter, according to Dr. Virago. "Calling Margery Kempe Crazy--And Why it Matters" asks about student reactions to The Book of Margery Kempe. Students aren't merely dismissing Margery Kempe; They're empowering her, just as she wanted to be empowered as a martyr.

At Siris, Brandon's post entitled "Texas Independence and Zavala" discusses the role that Lorenzo de Zavala played in Texas's independence from Mexico and the reasons why Mexican patriots supported Texas indepencence. Brandon and Nathanael continue the conversation in "Tejas por los Tejanos" at The Rhine River.

"Generations of Food Advice" at Ahistoricality features a great web resource, Timeline of Dietary Advice,which cronicles thousands of years of food and dietary advice.

David T. Beito reminds us of the death of T.R.M. Howard, a tireless civil rights activist who was also one of the wealthiest African-Amercian in Mississipi at the time, in "T.R.M. Howard: Thirty Years Later."

Caleb McDaniel's "The Half-Way House" gets the prize for most nominated post. Caleb ties arguments to the abolition of slavery with current debates about nuclear proliferation. Caleb writes:

How can we aver that trading nukes is immoral without making the corollary claim that possessing them in the first place is? No more easily than someone who believed that holding human beings as property was immoral could consistently oppose the slave trade without opposing slavery. And how can we claim that those states who presently hold nuclear weapons--by the mere accident of their historical discovery and development in certain wealthy countries--have a right to hold them indefinitely, while those states who, by accident of history, are free of nuclear weapons cannot acquire them? No more easily than someone who opposed the proliferation of slaves in the West could support their continued bondage in the South.

In the category of Holocaust history, rememberence, and controversy, we have Baraita's post entitled "Counting on History," which provides a history of Yom Ha-Shoah (Holocaust Rememberance Day) and the Omer. In "Whoever Thought This Would Be a Good Idea," Orac rightly questions the folks who wanted to perform Jesus Christ Superstar at a former Nazi death camp in Poland. And Sergey Romanov at Holocaust Controversies surveys documentation on Heinrich Himmler's visit to the Birkenau camp in "Correction Curner #2: Himmler's Visit to Birkenau in 1942."

To close, we have a few posts to remind us how history is important with regard to current events. Caleb gets the prize for the second most-nominated post with "The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons." Madman of Chu poses questions about China's future in "The China Syndrome." Finally, for those of us interested in creating a separatist movement (and who isn't, even a little bit?), Miland at World History Blog looks at the history of "separatist fantasies" in the United States. Miland's "The Dominion of British West Florida and Tips for Creating an American Separatist Cause' starts with the Republic of West Florida, a small but powerful state that lasted 72 days in 1810. Miland's post references a current separatist movement on Wake Island.

That's all, folks! Hope you've enjoyed the carnival. Send any errors or compaints to me at jeremy[at]clioweb[dot]org or leave them in the comments below.

Also of note: The Asian History Carnival takes place May 5th at Miscellany. Send nominations to Katrina Gulliver.

Update: Brett Holman of Airminded hosts the next History Carnival on May 15.

HigherEd BlogCon 2006

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 29 Apr 2006 22:42:10 EDT

Know Enough to Be Dangerous.

Two Days Away

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 29 Apr 2006 10:49:04 EDT

The 30th History Carnival is approaching fast! Keep sending in the nominations to jboggs AT gmu DOT edu or (finally) jeremy AT clioweb DOT org, or by the Blog Carnival form. Thanks to all who have submitted nominations so far!

ClioWeb is Back in Business

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 28 Apr 2006 17:01:33 EDT

After a few small headaches, domain transfer woes, and struggles with .htaccess, ClioWeb is back in business. Hopefully your newsreader feed is still working. If not, try unsubscribing and subscribing again to http://clioweb.org/feed/

Digital Dissertations

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 28 Apr 2006 10:09:00 EDT

The University of Wisconsin chooses to accept a student's digital dissertation because it used video and other multimedia under Fair Use guidelines. Bravo to the student, Virginia Kuhn, and to her university. (Hat tip to Rob Townsend.)

Historians Protest Smithsonian's Deals

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 27 Apr 2006 23:46:04 EDT

"Historians Protest Smithsonian's Deals.," in the Washington Post

Zeno's Paralysis and Open Access

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 27 Apr 2006 20:53:42 EDT

Stevan Harnad's "Opening Access by Overcoming Zeno's Paralysis" persuasively argues that barriers to open access publishing in academia result from unfounded fears and phobias on the part of academics.

Library 2.0

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 27 Apr 2006 20:43:32 EDT

Paul Miller's "Coming Together around Library 2.0: A Focus for Discussion and a Call to Arms."

History Carnival Submissions

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 25 Apr 2006 18:05:14 EDT

ClioWeb hosts the May 1 History Carnival, so send in your post submissions to me by email (jboggs AT gmu DOT edu) or use the submission form at Blog Carnival. I need more nominations, so keep sending them in! And, with Cliopatria's blogroll now sporting over 400 history blogs, I know there must be some great stuff out there!

Changes

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 25 Apr 2006 16:57:50 EDT

The past few months I've contemplated moving ClioWeb from a commercial host to CHNM's server, and some downtime last week and this week on my server has made the choice even easier. So, if you visit clioweb.org, you'll get redirected to my staff directory on CHNM's server. Hopefully I can get my nameserver stuff straightened out soon. Eventually, things will be back to normal, at least on the surface. Because I'm changing servers, my clioweb.org mail may not work during the rest of this week, so send any mail to me at jboggs AT gmu DOT edu.

Right now I've got a hacked version of my Minimology theme decorating the site, but I still have a new stylesheet waiting to let loose when the May 1 CSS Reboot comes to town. *[CHNM]: Center for History and New Media

Past/Forward

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 24 Apr 2006 12:31:43 EDT

The AAHC is currently having its annual conference. Sheila Brennan, Stephanie Hurter, and I have a virtual panel entitled "Past/Forward: Collecting, Teaching, and Writing History (in the Digital Universe)". If you have time, please visit the panel, read our presentations, and offer comments along the way. The conference goes from April 24-April 27, but our panel is open to the public and will be up long after the conference ends. *[AAHC]: American Association for History and Computing

Taking Games Seriously

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 21 Apr 2006 10:30:45 EDT

An announcement for "Taking Games Seriously: The Impact of Gaming Technology in the Humanities" an upcoming event in the DC Tech and Humanities Forum:

Please join Michelle Lucey-Roper (Federation for American Scientists) and Jason Rhody (National Endowment for the Humanities) for a discussion moderated by Mark Sample (George Mason University) on gaming and the humanities. Discussion will center on gaming and its implications for education; thinking about ways to exploit aspects of video game technology to create innovative learning spaces; and games as a possible conduit to online archives or museum collections.

Panelist: Michelle Lucey-Roper is the Learning Technologies Project Manager for the Discover Babylon Project and the Digital Promise Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in Washington, DC. She has created and managed several technology projects and research initiatives that helped to improve public access to primary source materials. While working towards her doctorate on the interaction of word and image, Lucey-Roper researched and designed curricula for a wide range of subject areas and created new information resources. Before joining FAS, she worked as a librarian, teacher and most recently at the Library of Congress as a research associate. She earned her B.A. at Trinity College, Hartford, CT; her M.A at King's College, London; and received a doctorate from Oxford University.

Panelist: Jason Rhody, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English at the University of Maryland, is currently writing his dissertation, entitled Game Fiction. He has taught courses and given conference presentations on new media, electronic literature, and narrative. He currently works on a web-based education initiative, EDSITEment (http://edsitement.neh.gov), for the National Endowment for the Humanities. He previously worked for the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (http://www.mith.umd.edu), an institute dedicated to using technology to enable humanities research and teaching. Jason writes about games and literature on his blog, Miscellany is the Largest Category (http://misc.wordherders.net).

Moderator: Mark Sample teaches and researches both contemporary American literature and New Media/Digital Culture, and he is always exploring how literary texts interact with, critique, and rework visual and media texts. His current research projects include a book manuscript on the early fiction of Don DeLillo and Toni Morrison, exploring their engagement with consumer culture, particularly how they use what Walter Benjamin calls "dialectical images" to reveal the latent violence of everyday things. Another project concerns the interplay between video games, the War on Terror, and the production of knowledge. Professor Sample received an M.A. in Communication, Culture, and Technology from Georgetown University (1998) and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (2004).

Filthy Lucre at Common-Place

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 19 Apr 2006 05:50:46 EDT

The April 2006 edition of Common-Place focuses on Money. My advisor, Mike O'Malley, looks at "Free Silver and the Constitution of Man."

What I've Been Doing (or Should Be Doing)

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 19 Apr 2006 05:13:35 EDT

Studying for my comprehensive exam
Finishing two book reviews
Finishing a conference presentation
Working with Josh on a new course management system using Wordpress and some stand-alone plugins for blogging educators.
Studying for my comprehensive exam
Preparing for the upcoming history carnival (keep sending in nominations!)
Writing a proposal for the Nebraska Digital Workshop
Studying for my comprehensive exam
Finishing my minor field statements
Sprucing up this site for the upcoming CSS Reboot
Studying for my comprehensive exam
Preparing for a course (History 120) I'm teaching this fall.

This has been, by far, the busiest semester I've had in my academic career, no thanks to myself. Working full-time at CHNM has been a significant adjustment. I feel very fortunate, though, because I honestly and genuinely love going to work every day. Everything you've heard about CHNM is absolutely true. A humanities student with an interest in web development and new media could not ask for a better place to work. If you haven't seen it yet, we just opened Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives with its first exhibit Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom. "Soviet Forced Labor Camps" is an online exhibit we created in partnership with the National Park Service, who has a traveling exhibit on the Soviet Gulag. More great stuff from CHNM is, as always, in the works.

For the Nebraska Digital Workshop, I'd like to propose something on microformats for historians. I've recently become interested in microformats, thanks to Josh and Tom and from reading the microformats site. I'd like to proposal several microformats that historians can use, for both primary sources and secondary literature (scholarship, teaching guides, etc.). This weaves into my general interest in how we can better mark-up history-related documents in general. The more I work with HTML and XHTML, the more I realize how limited the languages are when confronted with documents that don't necessarily fit modern publishing conventions. Heck, HTML and XHTML don't often fit modern publishing conventions. This makes me all-the-more determined to convince people that proper, semantic markup for documents is essential. I'm looking for a variety of documents, primary and secondary, as examples for my proposal, so if you know any good ones please send them along.

Additionally, I found out that my poster session proposal for the 2007 AHA conference was accepted. So, I'll be in Atlanta in January. I've got a few ideas brewing for that (thanks to Paula (who got me into this in the first place), but I was wondering if anyone out there has suggestions for making a great poster and doing a solid poster presentation. One thing I plan to do is make a video podcast of my poster presentation and put it on this site somewhere. Any other ideas?

In other news:

Dad recently turned 50!
I'm going to be an uncle! My brother Justin and his wife are have a baby!
George Mason University had its very first history PhD awarded. Congratulations Andrew!
Totally forgot to mention this: The very talented Allison O'Connor, another history PhD student at George Mason and colleague at CHNM, has a blog called EHearth. I share my office with Allison, and I've joked that since we started working together, I've learned a new Photoshop technique or tool at least once a week. Maybe not that often, but I've certainly learned a lot from her.
I plan to be lurking around a few sessions at the OAH conference at the end of this week. The session on alcoholism in U.S. history seems particularly interesting, but I'll mostly attend the sessions that focus on teaching, just to help prepare for my History 120 course.
Paula's taking a few of us to the Hagley Museum and Library in the middle of May to get acquainted with their collections. Should be fun!
Our webmaster, Amanda Shuman, will be leaving to pursue her PhD in Chinese history at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Congrats Amanda!
Stephanie has a totally awesome dissertation topic.

[XHTML]: Extensible Hypertext Markup Language [HTML]: Hypertext Markup Language [AHA]: American Historical Association [CHNM]: Center for History and New Media *[OAH]: Organization of American Historians

1906 San Francisco Earthquake

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 18 Apr 2006 03:42:46 EDT

San Francisco was struck by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake April 18, 1906.

Submissions for History Carnival

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 17 Apr 2006 03:52:10 EDT

The April 15 History Carnival is up at (a)musings of a grad student, sporting another fine collection of blog posts. ClioWeb will host the next History Carnival on May 1. Send your nominations to jeremy AT clioweb DOT org, or use the handy submission form at Blog Carnival.

19th-century Publications Online

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 06 Apr 2006 10:57:02 EDT

From Robert Merry's Museum (1841-1872).

It's Official

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 06 Apr 2006 04:45:00 EDT

I take my major field exam on May 24th, at 10AM. Only seven more weeks away. My preparation is going forward, slowly but surely. If you're wondering why I haven't posted much lately (or finished my Theme-A-Day week), that's one of many reasons why.

Another great history carnival was hosted by Patahistory, which I'm sure most of you have already checked out. The April 15th carnival is being held by (a)musings of a grad student, so send nominations to Rebecca at rgoetz[at]fas[dot]harvard[dot]edu or filling out a submission form. I embarassingly have about 1500 unread blog entries in my newsreader, which I'll hopefully get to read this weekend.

Theme Two: Letters

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 21 Mar 2006 18:08:39 EST

The second installment of my Theme-A-Day week is entitled "Letters." I bought a nice image of some hand-written letters on istockphoto and I've wanted to use the image in a design of some sort. So, here it is. Check it out on the demo site, or download the ZIP file.

Theme One: Minimology

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 20 Mar 2006 18:55:31 EST

To start of my own Theme-A-Day week, I present Minimology, a really simple minimalist design. Since this is the first theme I've ever put together solely for the purpose of sharing with the public, I'm looking forward to hearing how others like it, and especially if there are any bugs. I've tested the theme on the major browsers (Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera) for both Mac and PC, but let me know if you run into problems. Head over to the Demo Site to try out Minimology and download the ZIP file.

Go Patriots!

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 19 Mar 2006 13:24:59 EST

Coming up for air for a quick note: George Mason defeated North Carolina in the NCAA Men's Basketball tourney today! We're in the Sweet 16!

Next Week: Theme-A-Day Week

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 14 Mar 2006 04:53:49 EST

Inspired by Phu Ly's Theme A Day week for Wordpress, I decided to do my own. Was going to do it this week, but work and school projets take a higher priority right now. So hopefully next week I'll start my Theme-A-Day. LI've got two decent history-based themes, and one pretty simple theme. If you have any requests for the two remaining themes, pass them along.

Just Ordered...

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 11 Mar 2006 15:17:36 EST

...from Amazon:

CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd, Simon Collison, and Cameron Moll.
Blog Design Solutions by Andy Budd, et. al.
The JavaScript Anthology : 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks by James Edwards and Cameron Adams
The Great Stink by Clare Clark

Introducing “Historiographer”

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 09 Mar 2006 12:09:49 EST

I'm currently studying for my comprehensive exams, scheduled to be taken the week of May 22nd. To help me study, I've set up a simple web application at Ning, dryly titled U.S. History Major Field Reading List. Basically, its an application that lets me add a book from my reading list, pull the book's info from Amazon, then add comments and tags to that book "entry." I started this in an effort to help me group books into certain "themes" or historigraphical issues, using folksonomy to "tag" books with certain themes. I need to add a lot to it (I'm too busy reading!), but I thought "Hey, why not make this my own stand-alone application, broaden the features of it, and open it up to the public?" So, that's what I'm going to. Eventually.

My Ning application is open to anyone for comments, but I'd like a application that lets me, in specific fields, type in what I think are a book's thesis statement, historiographical issues, questions it addresses, methodology, et cetera, instead of lumping all of that stuff into one large comment field. Furthermore, I'd like others to add their own books and tags, and be able to look at what users across the board have input for a specific book. This online application/service will be called Historiographer. I've got a lot of different ideas for Historiographer, but I definitely won't be diving into it until after my comps. I just don't have the time to build the thing from scratch right now; way too many irons in the fire, more than should be there honestly. I've already got the domains purchased, though they're not pointing anywhere yet. Logo ideas are always brewing in my head. In the meantime, I thought I'd open up the discussion to you, good readers (particularly the history folk): What kind of features do you think Historiographer should have? What would you like to use it for? Is it a great idea, or totally stupid? I'm gonna build it anyways, but I'd really like to have some input from you as I'm putting Historigrapher to the drawing board. Here's your chance to influence how this app grows.

Outside the Textbook Conference

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 07 Mar 2006 11:29:26 EST

Outside the Textbook: Writing History for Everyone is a conference being held June 12, 2006, at Clark University (Worchester, Massachusetts). The focus of the conference primary includes local history, public history, history for children, and historical fiction. The event is sponsored by The Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and the University of Massachusetts Program in Public History.

Fonts by Time Period

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 07 Mar 2006 08:41:42 EST

A few of us at the Center are wondering: is there a site or other publication that lists fonts based on their relevance to a particular historical period or time frame? For example, we want to know if a particular font was used around 1920, or if another font was used in 1820. Basically, we want to determine if certain fonts are appropriate for particular time periods, geographic locations, and/or "contexts" (used in newspapers, billboards, magazines, ads, etc.).

PersonalDNA

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 06 Mar 2006 09:35:41 EST

One of the slickest user interfaces I've seen in a long time. PersonalDNA is a personality test, but not a typical personality test. Try it out, and you'll see what I mean.

Podcasting a History Course

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 02 Mar 2006 13:56:53 EST

Mills has decided to try podcasting a course on 19th-century Europe this summer.

Microsoft's iPod Packaging

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 28 Feb 2006 10:17:50 EST

The iPod packaging, if redesigned by Microsoft. This is hilarious. (Hat tip to Mike O'Malley.)

Serious Blogging?

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 22 Feb 2006 12:56:51 EST

Another ridiculous piece on how "seriousness" by academics ruins blogging at Inside Higher Ed, called "Serious Bloggers". More on this soon. (Hat tip to New Kid on the Hallway.)

Assasination of Malcolm X

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 22 Feb 2006 12:37:19 EST

Yesterday Slate posted photos of Malcolm X in rememberance of his assasination February 21, 1965. (Hat Tip to Chapati Mystery)

Down with Scantron

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 20 Feb 2006 16:45:38 EST

If you haven't already seen it, Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig's recent article in Chronicle of Higher Education,"No Computer Left Behind," is another must-read for history educators skeptical about how accurate information on the web is.

Upgraded...

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 19 Feb 2006 11:57:53 EST

...to Wordpress 2.0.1. This upgrade went much smoother than my attempt to upgrade to 2.0 a while back.

EMN Wins Award

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 17 Feb 2006 18:26:08 EST

A Fist Full of Euros has made official something I've known for a long time: Sharon's Early Modern Notes is the best Scholar/Expert blog. Congrats, Sharon!

Latest History Carnival

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 17 Feb 2006 18:16:45 EST

A few days ago, Philobiblion posted another nice edition to the History Carnival.

Principles of Freedom

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 17 Feb 2006 10:37:28 EST

Principles of Freedom is a nicely-designed site from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation that features the Declaration of Independence and the history surrounding its creation.

Learning Curve

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 17 Feb 2006 06:04:45 EST

The UK National Archives have a nice site called Learning Curve: Crime and Punishment, which provides classroom materials and primary sources on the historical contexts of committing crime, preventing crime, and punishing perpetrators from before 1450 to the 20th century. The design is a little clunky but easy to navigate. (Hat tip to Paperholic.)

Food History News

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 17 Feb 2006 05:51:12 EST

Like food? Like history? Then you might like Food History News.

High Priority

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 17 Feb 2006 05:44:17 EST

High Priority is a simple program that helps you manage your to-do lists in iCal.

Flash Tutorial for iPod Video

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 16 Feb 2006 11:24:43 EST

Lee Brimelow, who runs gotoAndLearn(), has just released a tutorial on scrubbers and slider bars for Flash, which can be watched on your iPod Video.

AHA Guide

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 16 Feb 2006 09:01:36 EST

The AHA has a new publication by John McClymer, The AHA Guide to Teaching and Learning with New Media, available online and in a print version. (Thanks, Rob). *[AHA]: American Historical Association

Upcoming Echo Workshop

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 14 Feb 2006 10:14:39 EST

The Echo project at CHNM is hosting another "Doing Digital History" workshop. Applications are due March 10. From the announcement:

Doing Digital History: An Introduction for Historians of Science, Technology, and Industry

June 12-16, 2006

The Center for History and New Media‚Äôs Echo project (http://echo.gmu.edu) invites scholars of the history of science, technology, and industry to our second workshop on the theory and practice of digital history. Participants will explore the ways that digital technologies can facilitate the research, teaching, writing and presentation of history; genres of online history; website infrastructure and design; document digitization; the process of identifying and building online history audiences; and issues of copyright and preservation. The workshop, which is co-sponsored by the American Historical Association and the National History Center, will be held at George Mason University‚Äôs Arlington campus, conveniently located in metropolitan Washington, DC. Thanks to support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, there will be no registration fee, and a limited number of fellowships are available to defray the costs of travel and lodging for graduate students and young scholars. As spaces are limited, please submit an application form by March 10, 2006 (available at http://chnm.gmu.edu/tools/surveys/1358/).

*[CHNM]: Center for History and New Media

Digital Preservation and Blogs

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 14 Feb 2006 07:53:01 EST

CHNM's own Josh Greenburg is part of a panel on digital preservation and blogs, organized by Carrie Bickner-Zeldman, at this year's South by Southwest Interactive festival. Should be a great panel.! *[CHNM]: Center for History and New Media

History's Digital Past, Present, and Future

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 14 Feb 2006 06:22:53 EST

Stephanie, Sheila, and I are participating in an online conference on digital history. As we prepare our presentations, we've put together a blog to share with everyone our thoughts leading up to the conference. Entitled "History's Digital Past, Present, and Future," we plan to discuss the ways in which the collecting, teaching, and publishing of historical knowledge online has changed over time. Arguing that one significant aspect of online history is its collaborative nature, we put together the blog in the spirit of collaboration, not only among ourselves but also with anyone else interested in participating. The blog is part note-collecting, part sounding board, and we hope that it can server as an example of the benefits of collaborative thinking and openness .

From our proposal:

Much of the History Web consists of sites dedicated to publishing content, collecting historical data, and conveying educational information, or some combination of the three. Our presentations critique past and present methods of accomplishing these three tasks and address future problems and possibilities afforded by new media.

This panel will be presented through a website that embodies the increasingly collaborative process of online history. Each presentation will be one "section" of the site, exploring its individual topic while encouraging participants to see the connections inherent in all three processes of teaching, publishing, and collecting history online. The panel is, in effect, collaborative. Additionally, (and in the spirit of learning, sharing, and participating) the panel will host a blog, on which the panelists will post ideas, links, and other commentary as they develop their projects. The blog will serve as a model for "making history online" by exemplifying the panel's themes of locating, collecting, and sharing materials, and will supplement the final presentations.

We hope to get lots of participation on the blog, so please pass along this "call for pparticipants" to anyone who may be interested. The conference is being held online, April 24-27.

Dream Anatomy

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 13 Feb 2006 15:36:08 EST

Dream Anatomy is an online exhibit by the National Library of Medicine covering the history of medical illustration of the human body. From the introduction:

The interior of our bodies is hidden to us. What happens beneath the skin is mysterious, fearful, amazing. In antiquity, the body's internal structure was the subject of speculation, fantasy, and some study, but there were few efforts to represent it in pictures. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century-and the cascade of print technologies that followed-helped to inspire a new spectacular science of anatomy, and new spectacular visions of the body. Anatomical imagery proliferated, detailed and informative but also whimsical, surreal, beautiful, and grotesque ‚Äî a dream anatomy that reveals as much about the outer world as it does the inner self.

Over the centuries anatomy has become a visual vocabulary of realism. We regard the anatomical body as our inner reality, a medium through which we imagine society, culture and the human condition.

Drawn mainly from the collections of the National Library of Medicine, Dream Anatomy shows off the anatomical imagination in some of its most astonishing incarnations, from 1500 to the present.

Some really interesting stuff, and a fairly nice visual design.

Quick Test

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 11 Feb 2006 14:51:12 EST

Quick test to see if everything's working. I had my web host upgrade some features on my account, which required a move to a new server.

Scribe 3 Beta

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 09 Feb 2006 21:15:52 EST

Elena has released Scribe 3 Beta for Mac OS X and Windows XP.

MITH Events

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 09 Feb 2006 09:26:42 EST

The Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) has a nice slate of speakers for the spring 2006 semester. *[MITH]: Maryland Institute for Technology in the HUmanities

Sheila on the Radio

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 09 Feb 2006 09:08:20 EST

Sheila Brennan, project director for the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank (HDMB), will be on KOLE 1340 AM (from south-east Texas) tomorrow at 3:15PM Central to discuss HDMB. Tune in!

Dan on Illinois Public Radio

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 09 Feb 2006 08:59:50 EST

Dan Cohen was a guest on an Illinois Public Radio show called Focus 580 last friday.

Mac Sadness

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 04 Feb 2006 05:24:39 EST

How I feel about my computer, described perfectly.Especially when it broke a year ago.

Virginia Forum

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 26 Jan 2006 08:32:07 EST

The schedule for the Virginia Forum is available. Roger Mellen, a fellow graduate student at GMU, is presenting his work on dissident print culture in colonial Virginia.

Simple Text Swap with Javascript

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 25 Jan 2006 08:10:25 EST

I wrote a really simple javascript for swapping the text of one element with the text in the title of a link. Here's the test page. I'll write up a "how-to" a little later. Let me know if its useful, or if it needs corrections or improvements.

DC 2.0 Conference

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 25 Jan 2006 06:01:49 EST

If you're in the Washington, DC area and are interested in what's happing in the world of Web 2.0, you might want to check out the DC 2.0 conference in March.

Everyone Their Own Preservationist?

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 25 Jan 2006 05:58:12 EST

Josh's recent (and really good) post examines the impact that Web 2.0 and the consequences of a "web as application" for digital preservationists. Ultimately, Josh is concerned that it has become increasingly difficult for digital preservationists to archive the "end user experience" of a web that has moved quickly away from static documents and more toward interactive applications.

I agree that, as Josh says, it is difficult to preserve the way bloggers display their Flickr photos in the sidebar, but that end user experience is just as difficult to preserve as any other end user experience with countless other media preserved for centuries. It is easy to preserve a colonial American pamphlet or newspaper criticizing George III or the Stamp Act, but its impossible to preserve how colonists experienced that newspaper or pamphlet. Sure, we can preserve the actual newspaper, the physical document itself, but that's only one part of the user experience. Other elements include where it was used, how it was used, how users "interacted" with the document, how it was shared or passed around, how it was read (outloud or to one's self).

Similarly, even though it is easy to preserve the physical document, it is more difficult for people to gain access to study that document. Archives are (rightly so) very cautious with who has access to their holdings. The average person off the street would have a difficult time looking directly at the actual, original papers of Thomas Jefferson or Ben Franklin. Thus, not only is it difficult to preserve how people in the past interacted with the document, it is also difficult for most people today to interact with the real, physical document itself.

It seems to me (and I mentioned this in one of my comments on his site) that Web 2.0 is breaking down the hierarchy that has traditionally accompanied archiving and preservation. Web 2.0 has encouraged individual users to become their own preservationists, and to share their mini "archives" with others. And, though it might be difficult to archive how users interacted with digital content, it is no more difficult than archiving the interaction with other media in the past.

15th Annual Bluegrass Symposium

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 20 Jan 2006 05:35:36 EST

The history graduate students at the University of Kentucky host their annual graduate student conference this April. The deadline for paper proposals is February 15. For more information, see the H-Net announcement.

James A. Barnes Club Conference

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 16 Jan 2006 07:39:18 EST

The deadline for submissions to the James A. Barnes Club Graduate Student Conference has been extended to January 31. More information is available at the H-Net announcement. The conference is being held at Temple University's Center City Campus, Philadelphia, on April 1.

Rob's 23rd History Carnival

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 15 Jan 2006 07:00:55 EST

Rob at Old is the New New has posted the 23rd History Carnival. A few CHNM bloggers made the cut (Tom, Dan, and Sheila)!

Electronic Music, 1870-1990

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 14 Jan 2006 11:15:55 EST

Electronic Musical Instrument 1870-1990

Commenting Problems...Again

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 13 Jan 2006 19:12:33 EST

Had some problems with commenting since the debacle with the upgrade to Wordpress 2.0. Let me know if you try to comment and have trouble. Emails to jeremy AT clioweb DOT org.

StoryField

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 13 Jan 2006 04:54:59 EST

"StoryField is a new desktop database solution for oral history and documentary process, content, resource and idea management." Developed in FileMaker Pro, compatible with Macintosh OS and Windows, and scheduled to appear sometime inin spring 2006.

Cultural Studies Association meeting

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 12 Jan 2006 17:13:19 EST

The CSA is having its 2006 meeting April 19-22 at the Arlington campus of George Mason University. Here's the conference program. *[CSA]: Cultural Studies Association

Macslack

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 12 Jan 2006 14:12:34 EST

For you Mac lovers out there, there's Macslack.

Philadelphia Photos

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 12 Jan 2006 14:06:57 EST

The photos from our trip to Philadelphia last weekend are up and ready for your viewing pleasure.

Loyola University History Conference

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 12 Jan 2006 11:30:20 EST

The History Graduate Student Association at Loyola University Chicago is hosting its second annual history graduate student conference. See details at their conference webpage.

Lego Fans

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 12 Jan 2006 07:11:06 EST

Lego turns to its fans to improve its latest product, Mindstorm kits.

New Blog: Digital History Hacks

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 12 Jan 2006 06:49:31 EST

Digital History Hacks is a blog just started last month by Dr. William J. Turkel of the University of Western Ontario. Digital History Hacks addresses the idea that "the web is an archive that is constantly changing and effectively infinite. What kind of research techniques can historians develop to make use of it?"

Historians and Web 2.0

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 11 Jan 2006 20:50:55 EST

The panel on history blogging at the AHA brought up some good discussion about the utility of blogging for historians. One question in particular addressed the place blogging had in larger technological trends and chages. Much has actually been discussed about this in the web developments world, especially with regard to the development of the much cited "Web 2.0" movement. Here I outline a few of these developments and hint at what implications they have for historians pondering the changes taking place on the Web. This post is partly a response to issues raised in that panel, and to Stephanie's recent post on "Re-envisioning History, New Media Style."

I've advocated on several occassions that one way we as history bloggers can make our ventures more legitimate (for lack of better words) is the encourage people to look beyond the medium in which we publish (books, articles, blogs, what have you) and focus solely on the content. What's really great about blogging (and about Web 2.0 in general) is that the focus is less on technology and more on state-of-mind and attitude. That includes the attitude that content is king, and that the content matters more than medium in which it is accessed. Web 2.0 is, as Tim O'Reilly states, more an approach and a mentality than any specific technology. It's a mentality that widens networks, disrupts hierarchy and strict control of information, and embraces cooperation and collaboration.

Blogging, one Web 2.0 technology that replaces the static personal homepage, is one technology among several that promotes community-building, collaboration, and fast exchange of information. Historians are a particularly solitary creatures, preferring to work individually on project than work together. But blogging includes several technologies that make community-building and information exchange not only possible, but required. Permalinks, trackbacks, pingbacks, and RSS all create the means to create connections across cyberspace. Permalinks established the means to link directly to individual "posts". Trackbacks and pingbacks made it possible, almost instantly, to see the people who have found your blog post and have written their own post in response to yours. Commenting on blog posts has allowed conversations to extend beyond blog posts into broader discussions. Finally, RSS feeds allow people to subscribe to a blog and access posts in a variety of ways decided by the users themselves.

Web 2.0 also seeks to change the way information is controlled. The Wiki and folksonomy in particular break down hierarchy and authority by providing relatively unlimited trust in users. Wikis allow anyone the ability to write and edit information, a virtual collaborative authoring environment. Folksonomy, or "tagging", replaces taxonomic systems of ordering inforation (think of the early years of Yahoo!) by allowing users to "tag" inforation with keywords. "Instead of using a centralized form of classification, users are encouraged to assign freely chosen keywords (called tags) to pieces of information or data...." Folksonomy relies on users to decide what information gets tags, and what tags are associated with that information. For instance, TagCloud is a service that allows users to create or upload a blogroll, and then a tag cloud of common keywords from the contents in those blogs is generated instantly. While Wikis are collaborative authoring environments, folksonomy is a collaborative way to order information.

Another significant aspect of Web 2.0 is the idea that web applications and information are not products to be bought and sold but services to be shared and enhanced. Many Web 2.0 services, including GoogleMaps, Ning, Flickr, and del.icio.us are provided free of charge and rely heavily on users to improve upon and share developments in technology and information. Access to the GoogleMaps API, for example, has allowed CHNM to create a tool on the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank that generates a map tied to the site's database. Put simply, "content is more important that its container."

Blogging can also be seen as a service to be shared instead of product to market. History blogging has done much to bridge divides between academics and enthusiasts and blog authors have done so free of charge. Many feel an obligation to share their research and ideas with the public, while others benefit from the exchange of ideas that come with cross-linking and commenting by blog readership. In the opinion of open-access publishing advocates, scholarly work is in many instances a public services, often supported by public funds, and should share their research with the public. Blogging provides the perfect mechanism for accomplishing this. Ungated, unfettered, and easily accessible.

Is blogging just one step in a larger movement that historians can take in adopting the Web 2.0 attitude? Is it possible for historians to make use of other techologies and approaches? Is it possible for us to think of our publishing more as a "service", free of charge and open to anyone who can connect to it? For blogging to truly have an impact on academia, it seems necessary that it encourage moves to embrace other technologies and mentalities inherent in the Web 2.0 world, technologies and approaches that break down barriers to access and redefine how information can be used. Blogging is just one tool in an entire world of technologies and services that make up Web 2.0. Historians can and should participate in these emerging technological trends. [API]: Application Program Interface [RSS]: Really Simple Syndication

Bar Codes

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 11 Jan 2006 14:41:11 EST

When I arrived at the AHA meeting and received my name badge, I wondered why it had a bar code. No one at the registration booth had any idea, which was a little disconcerting. Now, thanks to the detective work of Rick Shenkman, we have our answer:

About those badges we now have a little more information, though details remain murky. Readers will recall (yesterday's report, above) that the badges this year include a grocery store bar code. The puzzle was that no one seemed to be asking us to show our bar codes. It turns out that they are apparently useless little strips of black ink that signify ... nothing. But behind them lies a story that says a lot about modern America. It seems that the new company the AHA hired to distribute the badges dreamed up the idea of using the bar codes to help book exhibitors find out information about the members making purchases. The code was supposed to tell the book sellers who we are, where we work, etc. But when the plan was presented to the AHA officials rejected it. Why the bar code nonetheless remained firmly in place on the badges no one could say.

MacBook Pro Goodness

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 10 Jan 2006 11:56:42 EST

Mmmmmmm..... MacBook Pro. $2000. Oh well. By the time I can afford it, I'm sure Apple will come out with a newer, shinier, better one.

Collecting History of the Present

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 10 Jan 2006 09:57:33 EST

Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig will be on the Koju Nnamdi Show (on American University's WAMU) for Tech Tuesday today at noon to discuss "Collecting History of the Present". Podcasts, MP3s, and other formats available.

AHA Meeting Day 1

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 06 Jan 2006 12:18:10 EST

The History News Network is covering the 2006 AHA meeting in Philadelphia. A few Cliopatriarchs plan to be in attendance and will host a panel entitled "Were All the World a Blog: History Bloggers and History Blogging". I'm looking foward to meeting some of the people whose blogs I read...should be fun!

Wordpress 2.0 Released

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 01 Jan 2006 23:56:01 EST

Wordpress 2.0 was recently released. I plan to upgrade sometime this week.

Ben Franklin and Philadelphia

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 01 Jan 2006 23:48:08 EST

Stephanie at WORD...CHOICE has a nice list of things to do in Philadelphia related to Benjamin Franklin, especially for those of us headed there for the AHA conference this weekend. *[AHA]: American Historical Association

The System is Down

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 19 Dec 2005 11:51:59 EST

Del.icio.us had a power outage this week, so their bookmarking service is down. Ya don't realize how great a service is until it stops working. Good luck with the repairs!

History Carnival 22

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 18 Dec 2005 15:31:53 EST

Jonathan at Frog in a Well hosts the 22nd History Carnival (and the last one for 2005).

Bobby Fischer's Chess Materials for Sale

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 16 Dec 2005 10:17:53 EST

Bobby Fischer's life for sale ÇƒÏ on eBay...so far fetching a small sum of only $15,000.

Firefox Scholar in Chronicle of Higher Education

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 16 Dec 2005 09:51:50 EST

Firefox Scholar, a CHNM project developing a plugin for the Firefox browser, was mentioned in this weeks Chronicle of Higher Education. More information about Firefox Scholar can be found in CHNM's news release, or at Dan's blog.

Review of Soldiers of the Cross

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 15 Dec 2005 12:52:41 EST

My review of Soldiers of the Cross just came out in the February 2006 issue of the Civil War Times. (Review isn't online yet).

Bloggers at CHNM

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 14 Dec 2005 17:27:22 EST

Bloggers at CHNM lists staffers at the Center for History and New Media who maintain a weblog.

SAFE Online Exhibit

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 13 Dec 2005 15:26:14 EST

SAFE: Design Takes on Risk is an online exhibit about objects designed to protect people from stressful and harmful circumstances and "provide a sense of comfort and security." Via Kottke.

Death of Joe Scolnick

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 12 Dec 2005 22:08:57 EST

I transferred to UVa-Wise in August, 1998, and at the mini-orientation for transfer students advisors were assigned. Being a political science major, I drew Joe Scolnick, a tall, quirky political science professor who looked the part of a college professor perfectly. He wore tweed jackets every day, even in the summer, and drove a small, rusty car. He entered the classroom booming "Hello, Hello, Hello" before striking a huge grin that made his eyes crinkle and caused his head to tilt slightly. I found him a little odd at first, but it didn't take too long before I felt lucky to be Dr. Scolnick's advisee. Few students are fortunate enough to have an advisor with such a positive outlook on life and who are willing to get to know students and contribute to the university community as much as Dr. Scolnick. Lively lectures were at times augmented by what he called "digressions" about his days as a tennis player at UVa or as an office in the U.S. Navy.

Dr. Scolnick regularly taught four classes a semester. I took five total from him during my time at UVa-Wise, partly because there were only three professors in the Political Science department, but mostly because his classes were so great. My favorite was Pols 306: The American Presidency, taken as the impeachment of President Bill Clinton was underway. Lively discussion about history, the Constitution, politics, and news media complemented lectures about past presidencies and Richard Neustadt's thoughts about presidential power. Students were engaged with Dr. Scolnick, and Scolnick made it worth our while. There were some times that we actually stayed later after class (no, really!) to listen to lectures or engage Dr. Scolnick in some debate.

Dr. Scolnick passed away last Wednesday evening, sitting in his reading chair with a book in hand. His gifts to his university can't be measured by grades or the number of graduates who he mentored. His contribution to that small liberal arts college is immeasurable, and I am grateful to have known him. Thank you, Dr. Scolnick, for your advice to me personally and for your service and support to your university.

Here's a story from the Kingsport Times-News on Dr. Scolnick (registration free, but required).

Beloved UVa-Wise professor passes away at home

Author: STEPHEN IGO

WISE - One of the most beloved, distinctive voices to grace the campus of the University of Virginia's College at Wise has been silenced. But oh, what an echo remains.

When political science professor Joe Scolnick failed to show for his 10 a.m. class on Wednesday, concerned college officials dispatched campus police to his residence in Wise, located in an area behind the county courthouse. Town of Wise police were called to the residence, where his body was found seated in a chair. Scolnick apparently passed away Tuesday evening while reading a book.

The 65-year-old Scolnick was a campus icon at UVa-Wise. If students, faculty and staff weren't aware of his presence by sight, they could surely hear him coming. Since 1973 Scolnick's deep, booming voice was as familiar a fixture on campus as is the placid lake. The one undoubtedly provided a cosmic balance to the other.

"We will miss his inimitable voice and his fervent dedication to his students and the college," stated a college press release issued Wednesday.

"He loved fine art, SpongeBob cartoons, comic books and was just a real interesting character," said UVa-Wise Director of College Relations Jane Meade-Dean. "I just can't imagine the campus without him. He had a big, booming voice. You could hear him coming from a good distance away. That was just one of the things that endeared him to you."

Herself a UVa-Wise graduate, Meade-Dean took a couple of Scolnick's classes and recalls not only being academically challenged, but well-entertained.

"So many people who attended this college had at least one class with Joe Scolnick," she said. "He was just really well-loved."

When UVa-Wise Provost Gil Blackburn assumed his post two years ago, he didn't expect to find a fellow swabbie waiting to welcome him aboard the region's flagship of higher education.

"When I first came here we had a conversation and found out we were each in the Navy. And when we got to talking about where we were and on what ship and when and all that, we found out we were on the same ship, the flagship of the Atlantic fleet's amphibious force, the USS Taconic," Blackburn said.

Their service on the vessel overlapped by only about a month in 1963, plus Scolnick was a lieutenant junior grade communications officer on the staff of Vice Admiral Jack McCain, father of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., while Blackburn came aboard the Taconic as a third class petty officer (enlisted sailor) on the admiral's Tactical Air Group II staff.

Back then Scolnick and Blackburn were the proverbial ships passing in the night, on the same ship no less. Blackburn is still a bit floored about the odds of meeting a Taconic shipmate four-plus decades later on a little college campus far removed by years and about as far from the sea as one can get and still be in Virginia.

"We had a good rapport," Blackburn said. "Prior to that I didn't know anybody who had ever heard of the ship, let alone serve on it. I had two (USS Taconic caps) with the hull number and ship name on them, and I gave him one of the caps, and he really liked that."

Born in New York, Scolnick completed his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Virginia and doctorate in political science at the University of Kentucky. He was a visiting professor at the Air War College in 1988-89, and a regular participant in the International Studies Association and other groups related to American foreign policy, international relations and national security.

State Delegate Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, said he was on the other side of the political fence from Scolnick, but Scolnick didn't flunk him for it when Kilgore was an undergrad at the college.

"I tell you what, I thought a lot of Professor Scolnick, even though I didn't agree with him politically. He was great. He helped mold a lot of lives over the years," Kilgore said. "He was just a great guy. He was my adviser and took time out of his schedule to talk to me about law school and what classes to take. He was just a real good guy. He went out of his way to help students. Professor Scolnick liked to talk, and he could really talk. His heart was there (at UVa-Wise). I'm sure he could have gone to all kinds of different places to teach, but his heart belonged to UVa-Wise."

"It was a shock for all of us. I could mention some things, and anecdotes come to mind, but Professor Scolnick made the college his family and had been here for many years, so he developed a strong personal relationship with his students. He was a father figure. Because he had no children of his own, he considered his students his family," said Blackburn.

"He had a deep, commanding voice that was also compassionate. He was a crusty old gentleman in one sense, but he also had a heart of gold and everybody knew he was very sentimental about things important to him. And this institution and his students were right up there at the top of those."

Meade-Dean said Scolnick was teaching a pair of Political Science 101 classes this semester, another on international relations, and a fourth on legislative behavior and processes. She said Garrett Sheldon, chair of the college's social and behavioral sciences department, will meet with those students on Thursday and Friday to settle how to handle semester final exams next week.

And if, perchance, Scolnick's students hear a voice providing the answers next week, it won't likely come as a whisper. For it has been known to thunder in December.

Research Papers and Presentations by Google

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 10 Dec 2005 23:25:45 EST

Researchers Wonder: Where's Google's Contribution? -- Searchblog writer John Battelle looks at the frequency that Google gives papers and presentations at academic research conferences on search technology compared to Yahoo! and Microsoft. Interesting comments that come to Google's defense. (Hat Tip: Open Access News.)

Improved Photo Gallery

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 10 Dec 2005 11:54:26 EST

Thanks to Colin of Col's Weblog, my Photos section now orders my photos by when I uploaded them to Flickr.

Get Firefox 1.5

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 09 Dec 2005 11:06:43 EST

Firefox 1.5 was released a few weeks ago.

Nice CSS Image Map

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 08 Dec 2005 16:05:33 EST

Stu Nicholls at CSS Play has a nice CSS technique for an "image map for detailed information." I may try this with a few history projects I have in mind.

Typographic Style on the Web

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 08 Dec 2005 15:25:42 EST

The Elements of Typographic Style on the Web applies Robert BringhurstÇƒÙs book The Elements of Typographic Style to the web. A work in progress, but one to look out for.

Why Web Standards are Good

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 08 Dec 2005 15:19:47 EST

"Ten reasons to learn and use web standards" is a must-read for anyone building websites, including historians.

1890s Recordings

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 08 Dec 2005 09:47:51 EST

Recordings from the 1890s has four songs in mp3 and RealAudio formats.

First Video Game

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 08 Dec 2005 09:40:09 EST

The first video game, created by William Higinbotham while he worked at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1958.

Technical Images from WWII

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 08 Dec 2005 09:34:50 EST

Wartime Images has a collection of technical images of equipment used during the second World War.

Call For Papers: The Moving Image

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 07 Dec 2005 10:26:33 EST

Here's a call for papers for "The Moving Image," a symposium on visual culture at George Mason university, March 2, 2006.

Call for Papers The Moving Image A Visual Culture Symposium and Exhibition at George Mason University March 2, 2006

The Moving Image is a one-day symposium featuring panels of speakers/presentations, performance, a curated exhibition of artwork submitted specifically for the symposium, and a keynote speaker and reception. The symposium is sponsored by a number of departments and programs at the University.

Humans are fascinated by moving pictures, from mass media to fine art. The moving image both informs and explains who we are. We are interested in examining the moving image in a variety of cultural contexts. Submissions from a broad range of disciplinary approaches, periods and media are welcome. Faculty submissions of video and animated work (under 10 minutes) are also welcome. (Students with moving-image submissions should respond to the Call for Submissions to the accompanying Student Art Show.)

Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words to elgorman@msn.com. The deadline for this call for papers is January 10, 2006. Completed papers accepted for presentation are requested by February 10, 2006. Presentations, including visuals, should be limited to 20 minutes.

We hope you will forward this announcement to your listservs for faculty, students, and others who may be interested.

Lynne Constantine Associate Chair, Art and Visual Technology Assistant Professor, Art and Visual Technology Doctoral Candidate, Cultural Studies George Mason University lconstan@gmu.edu

Ellen Gorman Doctoral Student, Cultural Studies, George Mason University Instructor, Cultural Studies, Georgetown University elgorman@msn.com

Tracy McLoone Doctoral Candidate, Cultural Studies Instructor, New Century College and Honors Program George Mason University t_mcloone@yahoo.com

George Allen and Jeffersonian Conservative Principles

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 07 Dec 2005 08:17:42 EST

Spurred by the recent comment by Virginia senator George Allen that Republicans must continue to adhere to "common-sense Jeffersonian conservative principles" to be successful, the VA-HIST listserv lit up like a volcano. VA-HIST is the email listserv for Virginia history, run by the Library of Virginia. Some very interesting discussion, including Jefferson on slavery and religious freedom, most of which has yet to be resolved.

Born Losers Website

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 07 Dec 2005 08:09:47 EST

Scott Sandage has a website to supplement his book, Born Losers.

Wikipedia Changes Article-Editing Policy

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 07 Dec 2005 08:03:03 EST

Wikipedia changes rules for how its articles are edited.

Since Last Time

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 05 Dec 2005 22:39:16 EST

Big changes have been happening recently, which if things go well I'll post about soon. And no, the big changes have nothing to do with my work on minor field statements, major field readings, and web design projects, and even less to do with Virginia Tech losing another danged football game, to Florida State of all things. At least the Colts are undefeated.

The Thanksgiving holidays were swell. Jill and I visited our parents. I took a few pictures of Justin, my aunt, and myself hanging up some Christmas decorations. The food was great. My aunts, mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother-in-law are great cooks.

Meant to put this link up a while back. Mills Kelly, associate professor of history at George Mason and associate director at the Center for History and New Media, blogs at edwired. Among with research interests in eastern European history, Mills specializes in history pedagogy, including using new media in classrooms. His Clio Wired class has a blog.

Laura James at CLEWS put together a great history carnival for December 1 Jonathan Dresner at Frog in a Well is hosting the December 15 edition of the carnival. Email nominations to dresner [at] hawaii [dot] edu.

Regular posting (and blog reading!) will now resume.

Last "Christmas Truce" Veteran

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 22 Nov 2005 15:02:25 EST

The last known survivor of the 1914 "Christmas Truce" has passed away. Alfred Anderson was 109.

Boilerplate Claims Another Victim

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 15 Nov 2005 20:45:55 EST

"The Strange Case of the Spoofer Captured by a Spoof," a NY Times article on Chris Elliot, who wrote a book using Paul Guinan's character Boilerplate, a fictional 19th-century robot designed to replace human beings in war. Via Meagan.

Women in Science

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 15 Nov 2005 11:05:56 EST

A new entry at Wikipedia on Women in Science has recently been added. Plenty of room to add some useful information and resources.

Merrymeeting Archives

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 14 Nov 2005 10:42:19 EST

Merrymeeting Archives has some excellent nineteenth and early twentieth-century house plan books, in addition to other Victorian-era books, available for a small fee.

Ronald McDonald in the Rubble

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 13 Nov 2005 18:45:12 EST

A picture of a lonely Ronald McDonand in a trashed McDonald's resturaunt in Corbeil-Essonnes, just south of Paris. From the BBC.

Latest CSS Reboot

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 13 Nov 2005 13:11:37 EST

The fall 2005 gathering of the CSS Reboot is out.

Dollar Per Pixel

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 13 Nov 2005 13:11:22 EST

The Million Dollar Homepage, where someone is selling ad space at a dollar per pixel. The site has generated over $500,000.

Falbum Wordpress Plugin

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 13 Nov 2005 12:17:29 EST

Using the Falbum plugin for Wordpress you can now see my Flickr photos directly on ClioWeb. The plugin sorts photos by tags, albums, and recency. Still a few bugs to tweak, though.

Photographing Density

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 12 Nov 2005 17:48:58 EST

Architecture of Density by Michael Wolf looks at urban architecture in Hong Kong.

Educating Consumers

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 11 Nov 2005 12:14:10 EST

Early twentieth-century advertising often took as its goal the education of consumers. With regard to products involved in cleanliness, advertisements urged shoppers to learn more about how to properly cleanse themselves and their environment. In addition to selling products, companies often provided pamphlets and articles on the latest scientific breakthroughs on methods for better cleansing.

The Allen Manufacturing Co. advertising the "Allen Fountain Brush and Bath Appliances for Scientific Bathing." Besides stating that the brush and bathing system is cleansing "as no other manner of bathing" for both the "morning cold bath" and the "evening warm bath," Allen Manuafacting also provided a publication entitled "The Science of the Bath: A Treatise on the Proper Use of the Bath and its Relation to Health and Beauty" by Williard E. Allen. I haven't had luck finding the treatise any any library or archive.

The second page of the ad lists specific brushes and their prices. The ad asks consumers to defer to the expertise of scientists, physicians, and specialists, who all use the brush in their respective practices.

This ad for The Home Washer include a diagram of the washing machine "to enable the reader to form an accurate idea of the principle and construction of the machine, and its many advantages over all the others.

Included in the Home Washer pamphet were directions for using the machine to remove ink from carpets, wash linens, and extract stains from silks. Additionally, the pamphlet included recipies for making appropriate soap for the machine, and for preparing starch.

Approaches in advertising in the early twentieth century are vastly different from today. It wasn't enough for companines to simply offer a product. These early ads indicate that lots of information on more than just the products themselves was required to sell the product. Did consumers want this information? Or was it something promoted by companies? Do these ads indicate a shift in the consumer demographic, from one educated in basic home and bodily maintenance to one uncertain how these products fit in or could enhance their daily lives? In what ways did mass consumerism usher in this increased fear of ignorance with regard to cleanliness? It is apparent that companies sought to educate consumers not only about their products, but also how those products fit into a world of scientific cleanliness. Deference to company and scientific expertise is expected in these ads, but whether consumered did in fact defer to that expertise is another story.

Virginia Election Results

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 10 Nov 2005 14:41:26 EST

One thing that stands out to me is the fact that, even though 35,000 fewer votes were cast for Lieutenant Governor than for Governor, there were double the number of write-in votes for Lieutenant Governor than for Governors (As of 1:36pm, 11/10, 3816 write-in votes for Lieutenant Governor versus 1729 for Governor.) See the results. Any thoughts about why this might have occurred? Perhaps more people were generally dissatisfied with the candidates on the ballot?

UNCC Graduate History Conference

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 10 Nov 2005 09:23:37 EST

The graduate student in the Department of History at UNC-Charlotte have put out a call for papers for their annual graduate history conference, held on March 17-28, 2006. The deadline for abstracts is January 13, 2006.

Latest Carnivalesque

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 08 Nov 2005 20:51:39 EST

As usual, Sharon has put together another rockin' Carnivalesque. Take a look!

Virginia Election Results

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 08 Nov 2005 20:36:28 EST

Keep track of Virginia's unofficial election results at this Commonwealth of Virginia website.

Suicides

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 08 Nov 2005 15:34:15 EST

The Sad Tally, a map of suicides on of the Golden Gate Bridge since 1937. Via Kottke.

Forum on Technology and the Humanities

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 08 Nov 2005 09:12:42 EST

The fall 2005 Washington DC Area Forum on Technology and the Humanities is entitled "Massive Digitization Programs and Their Long-Term Implications: Google Print, the Open Content Alliance, and Related Developments." The panelists are Clifford Lynch, Executive Director of the Coalition for Networked Information, and Jonathan Band, a Washington DC attorney and intellectual property advocate. The forum will be held on Monday, November 28 from 4:00-6:00PM at the Arlington Campus of George Mason University.

Little Cleaning Up

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 08 Nov 2005 02:50:44 EST

Just a little late-fall site cleaning. Among other things, I've added my Flickr feed to the sidebar, and moved my blogroll to Bloglines. More small updates to come soon.

More History on the Web

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 03 Nov 2005 22:58:00 EST

Evolution of the Skyscraper, a diagram comparing skyscrapers since 1908.

The Civil Defense Museum has a page on fallout shelter signs.

Making Sense of Marcel Duchamp. Not sure if that's possible, but this site helps a little.

New York Changing is a website that juxtaposts photos of New York from the 1930s with photos from today. Interesting to see what has changed and what hasn't.

2005 American Studies Association Meeting

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 02 Nov 2005 21:33:39 EST

Going to the American Studies Association meeting in Washington, D.C. this year? Here are a few of the sessions I might attend.

Friday, November 3rd

10:00AM: "American Maps, American Culture: The Cartographic Fixing of Identity, Knowledge and Power," "The Good Life in the Cold War," or "Comparative Methodologies in Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture"

12:00PM: "Visual Emotion: Private Feelings in Public Spaces"

2:00PM: "Locating Self, Nation, and Race in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Periodical's 'World'"

Saturday, November 4th

8:00AM: "Obliging Fictions: Mapping Moral Responsibility in the Nineteenth Century," "Modern Views: Regulating Monument, Theatre and Print in the United States, 1870-1920"

10:00AM: "Nineteenth-Century Medical Cultures"

4:00PM: "Intimate Traffic: Private Personhood and Public Persona in the Nineteenth Century"

Sunday, November 5th

8:00AM: "Spaces of Transgression," "History in the Gilded Age"

10:00AM: "Segregation and Urban Space,"

Check out all of the sessions at the conference webpage

Coming to Our Senses

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 02 Nov 2005 21:00:34 EST

The Draper Graduate Student Conference on Early American Studies is taking place November 10-12 at the University of Connecticut. The theme for the conference is "coming to our senses" and focuses on the history of the senses.

November 1 History Carnival

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 01 Nov 2005 18:25:03 EST

Check out the latest history carnival at (a)musings of a grad student.

Women in World History Forum

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 01 Nov 2005 18:11:44 EST

The email forum for November at Women and World History will cover Women in Africa and is moderated by Jean Allman and Marjorie Bingham. Last month's forum focused on women in world history broadly, and had some interesting discussions about source materials and teaching about women and world history.

History of Monday Night Football

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 31 Oct 2005 22:11:07 EST

Getting ready to watch Monday Night Football, my wife Jill was wondering when the first MNF game was televised. So, I consulted that Delphic oracle known as Google and found out: September 21, 1970, and the Cleveland Browns beat the New York Jets 31-21.

The Cliopatria Awards

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 31 Oct 2005 08:18:00 EST

Ralph and Co. have created an award for the best in history blogging for 2005. Read the post introducing the competition at Cliopatria, then head over to the Cliopatria Awards blog for more details on specific awards and to make a nomination.

Native Americans in Early 20th-Century Advertising

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 30 Oct 2005 09:08:34 EST

One thing that interests me about early 20th-century advertising in the U.S. is how ideas and imagery of Native Americans are used to inscribe authenticity and legitimacy in products. Take this 1915 ad for Seneca cameras I found at an antique store:

When Seneca meets Seneca

This Seneca Indian Chief, Wy-ten-ac (Quick Eye), with his years of training, cannot get as accurate an impression of the things he sees as can any Boy Scout with the Seneca Scout Camera.

Click image to enlarge.

The layout of the ad itself presents an transition from a traditional view of perceiving the world to a modern view. The Seneca chief, at the far left of the ad, appears to be looking at something, but what? Because the object of the chief's gaze is ambiguous, the act of looking, of seeing, becomes the focus of the ad's viewer. Following the thick line below the chief, the viewer then sees a box or booklet for Seneca Cameras, with another Native American image on the cover. Continuing to follow the line, the viewer's eye then runs into two cameras from the Seneca Camera "tribe", until finally ending at a young Boy Scout using a Seneca camera. Again, the focus of the boy's gaze is unknown, but here again the act of looking is important. Both subjects, the Seneca chief and the Boy Scout, are in the act of seeing. Although the perspective of the ad is off, it's possible that the Seneca chief and the Boy Scout are looking at each other, each observing the other in an attempt to get a "accurate impression". The transition in the ad, from the chief, to the camera's packaging, to the cameras themselves, to the boy using the camera, connects the modern way of seeing the world as the traditional, native way. Yet, the ad proposes that users of Seneca cameras will better the methods of the Seneca chief and give anyone the power to improve upon this Native power.

The ad also poses new relationships among human beings and technology. Even the Seneca chief, with his "quick eye" and "years of training" is unable to get an "accurate" or "sure" impression of his environment. Oh, but the Boy Scout can! Simply using this piece of techology, this camera, the boy can get "an intensely interesting record of happenings and events." The ad is an example of how American moved, according to Miles Orvell, from a culture of imitation to a culture of authenticity. Whereas technology in the nineteenth century was seen as a tool for creating imitations, technology in the early twentieth century was seen to help create authentic and accurate items.1 The ad rests on the idea of Native American "authenticity" in the act of perceiving the world, and creates through the camera a more accurate, and thus more authentic, impression of the world.

1Miles Orvell, The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture, 1880-1940. (1989)

Social History in the Mountains Conference

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 28 Oct 2005 10:49:48 EDT

"Western Carolina University invites submissions of proposals for panels and individual papers for its first Social History in the Mountains: Bridging the divide in Historical Methods to be held March 18, 2006." See the H-Net announcement for more details.

Google Maps and Roman Ruins

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 28 Oct 2005 08:32:59 EDT

From Nature, analysis of Google Maps and Google Earth reveals the ruins of a Roman villa. From Epistemographer

Sewer History

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 26 Oct 2005 14:19:44 EDT

The History of Sanitary Sewers has some interesting stuff. The site uses materials initially collected by Jon Schladweiler, the Historian of the Arizona Water & Pollution Control Association, covering over 5500 years. The site includes images, documents, articles, and links.

2006 Policy History Conference

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 24 Oct 2005 20:39:47 EDT

The Journal of Policy History is holding its 2006 conference in Charlottesville, Virginia, on June 1-4.

First Carnival of the Feminists

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 24 Oct 2005 08:17:10 EDT

Natalie at Philobiblon hosts the very first Carnival of the Feminists. Great list of reading, so check it out.

9000-Year-Old Brew

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 20 Oct 2005 20:31:33 EDT

Discover.com reports on Stone Age Beer. Via Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Arguing About an Icon

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 20 Oct 2005 20:00:29 EDT

Ya gotta love web and graphic designers. Read a bunch of 'em arguing at Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 developer's blog about the orange icon. To me, the argument against putting the letters "RSS" in a feed icon is wrong. It's condescending toward users and leads to using icons that fail to convey what the icon stands for.

"Your Name needs" Meme

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 20 Oct 2005 14:03:38 EDT

From Culture Cat, a meme that gets you to search for "[your first name] needs" in Google to see what comes up. Here's some for "Jeremy needs."

Jeremy needs a committed family able to give him the attention, affection, and firm but kind discipline...
When Jeremy needs answers to questions he usually visits his local library...
Jeremy needs to synchronize the flow of content...with the companyÇƒÙs rapid product release cycles.
Jeremy needs to get out of the reception fast but John wants more time with Claire.
Jeremy needs a working name for his compiler...
Jeremy needs to loose his Big Ego as well. ...
Jeremy needs to be more like his peers.

Sheila's Photos of Port Arthur

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 20 Oct 2005 13:53:18 EDT

Sheila has posted some more photos of Port Arthur after Hurricane Rita.

Acephalous's History Carnival

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 18 Oct 2005 21:17:49 EDT

Forgot to put this up: Acephalous's History Carnival. A few days old, but still some great reads!

Wikablog

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 18 Oct 2005 18:03:34 EDT

Wikablog is a wiki about weblogs. Via Sharon.

Nielsen on Weblog Usability

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 18 Oct 2005 12:34:24 EDT

Jakob Nielsen's Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes posits 10 potential design flaws in weblogs. Some of it is useful, some of it is useless. Sharon has a thoughtful response to the article.

One point Nielsen makes that I disagree with is the notion that weblogs should be specialized. Nielsen writes:

If you publish on many different topics, you're less likely to attract a loyal audience of high-value users. Busy people might visit a blog to read an entry about a topic that interests them. They're unlikely to return, however, if their target topic appears only sporadically among a massive range of postings on other topics. The only people who read everything are those with too much time on their hands (a low-value demographic).

The more focused your content, the more focused your readers. That, again, makes you more influential within your niche. Specialized sites rule the Web, so aim tightly.

If you have the urge to speak out on, say, both American foreign policy and the business strategy of Internet telephony, establish two blogs. You can always interlink them when appropriate.

While this may not be a bad strategy to use, I disagree that this is the best practice. Look at the history blogosphere, including Mode for Caleb, Early Modern Notes, Archaeoastronomy, Philobiblon among others. What great is that these people not have different interests among each other, they publish about different things on their blogs. Blogging is as much an exercise in establishing a public voice and identity as it is a means of publication. To establish that voice and identity, it's often useful to publish on a variety of things because, I hope, we're not cogs fit into our little niches. There are times to specialize, and times to generalize, but I don't think we should base this on the opinion of one guy. This ultimately should be based on your interests and your audience. I don't want to write about just history, or just 19th-century cultural history, or about new media, or web design. I want to write about all of those things, because all of those things make up who I am, and what I do.

On a different note, it would be nice if Neilsen offered an RSS feed for site updates, because I am not signing up for another email newsletter. It's amusing to me that the guru of web usability uses something as unusable (and, in my opinion, outdated) as email updates.

X-Maps

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 05 Oct 2005 09:57:04 EDT

X-Maps has some interesting GoogleMaps, include ones that indicated facilities in the U.S. that released more than 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide in 2004.

Cultural Studies Association Call for Papers

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 05 Oct 2005 08:32:53 EDT

The CSA is having its fourth annual conference April 19-22, 2006 at the Arlington campus of George Mason University. Here is the call for papers, with a deadline of October 15.

Academic Feeds Blog

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 04 Oct 2005 21:54:46 EDT

Academic Feeds "broadcasts academic talks about technology, culture and media using podcasting and Free/Libre/Open Source Software." Some interesting talks are available...definitely something useful for anyone interested in technology and culture.

Top Three Google Search Strings

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 04 Oct 2005 15:46:08 EDT

"Google Anniversary", "how to hack a website" and "hack website". While the "google anniversary" search lists my post on Dan's 9/11 Anniversary Google map (first, by the way), the last two list my post on the HACK website I created (that's Society for History and Computer Knowledge). The people trying to figure out how to hack a website must surely be disappointed when they read my post. I just hope they don't hack my website.

Managing Editor at CHNM

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 04 Oct 2005 15:27:24 EDT

The Center for History and New Media has a job opening for a Managing Editor for Papers of the War Department, 1784-1800. If interested, check out the full position description and requirements.

Sepoy's Initiative

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 28 Sep 2005 10:39:40 EDT

Sepoy at Chapati Mystery has proposed an online South Asian Sourcebook.

Think about it: A single, maintained, curated resourse site where you can find source materials for your courses on South Asia and where you can send your students to find resources. All of us scan/photocopy texts that we give as handouts all the times. This would create an archive of such material that is usuable by all involved.

Sepoy has offered to get everything set up, all he needs now are some contributors. Anyone who teaches South Asian history want to help? Send Sepoy a note.

Two Models for the History of the Book

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 27 Sep 2005 20:09:25 EDT

Facetation has an interesting post on two models for the history of the book. Via Josh.

Epistemographer Goes Wordpress

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 27 Sep 2005 19:51:40 EDT

I've been stuck in my RSS reader too long to notice that Josh has moved his blog Epistemographer to Wordpress. Nice layout too!

Web Developer Podguides

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 27 Sep 2005 19:48:08 EDT

Jeremy Keith's reference section to DOM Scripting and WestCiv's Stylemaster Podguide, both available for download to put in your iPod's Notes folder. Ah, now when I'm riding the bike at the gym I can read about DOM scripting and CSS in addition to my notes on history books (which I do already, and it's kinda handy).

Fall of the Berlin Wall Images

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 27 Sep 2005 13:40:37 EDT

The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989 by Frederik Ramm provides some great images of that event. A Day Tour with selected images is also available.

The Guantanamobile Project

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 27 Sep 2005 11:27:59 EDT

Elena Razlogova, former webmaster at CHNM and now an assistant professor of History at Concordia University in Montreal, and Lisa Lynch, assistant professor of Media Studes at Catholic University, have co-authored a nice article at Vectors entitled The Guantanamobile Project. Here's their Author's Statement:

Our contribution to the Mobility issue of Vectors, The Guantanamobile Project, is both an interactive document of a topical event ÇƒÓ the detention of terror suspects at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba ÇƒÓ and a consideration of the what we might call the Çƒ?uneven mobilityÇƒ? of different kinds of citizens in todayÇƒÙs globally interconnected world. Our interviews with lawyers, activists, and family members of the detainees draw attention to the legal and physical immobility of the detainees, some confined at Guantanamo since late 2001. And a second set of interviews conducted during the summer of 2004 with Americans in the Midwest and South demonstrate the difficulty of Çƒ?mobilizingÇƒ? U.S. citizens to become concerned about the situation in Guantanamo, since concern for the detainees required expanding often fixed notions of justice and human rights across the boundaries of nationality, race, and religion.

The article is taken from their larger Guantanamobile Project. They traveled to various cities in the U.S in an effort to "inform and collect public opinion about the U.S. detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." Along with project updates, the larger site features a "news watch" section that links to current news stories about U.S. prisoner detention in Guantanamo Bay. Video of interviews will be available soon in the Interviews section. The Learn section provides a brief history of the camp and detention activity at Guantanamo.

Multicolumn Text with CSS

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 27 Sep 2005 09:00:17 EDT

"Introducing the CSS3 Multi-Column Module" and "CSS Swag: Multicolumn Lists" both give some nice examples on how to make multi-column sections of text, while

History of Science and Technology Resources

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 27 Sep 2005 08:29:43 EDT

The Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering, and Technology has some great historical resources online in their digital library including online exhibits and digital collections. Via Copernicus Sashimi.

History Classroom Blogs

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 26 Sep 2005 14:25:58 EDT

Paula Petrik has three classes this semester using weblogs as part of their assignments. Go visit the student blogs in History 120: American Survey, History 389: History of Animation, and History 616: American West, and leave them some comments if you feel so inclined.

BibliOdyssey

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 26 Sep 2005 14:21:02 EDT

Some really nice historical images at BibliOdyssey. Via Sharon.

Meagan's Blog

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 24 Sep 2005 22:10:14 EDT

Also meant to link to this earlier this semester, but another fellow PhD student at Mason, Meagan Hess, has a blog.

Stephanie's Blog, word...choice

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 24 Sep 2005 15:37:21 EDT

Stephanie Hurter, a fellow PhD history student and creative director at the Center for History and New Media has started a blog called word ... choice.

Endnoting Printed Web Pages

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 24 Sep 2005 12:51:24 EDT

In "Improving Link Display for Print," Aaron Gustafson provides a good way to make hyperlinks in a web page's text appear as endnotes when the page is printed. The endnote shows the entire URL for the webpage. It would be nice if it formatted the endnote in Chicago style or other academic formatting by including the title, author, date created, date visited, and other information.

Grad Student Blogging Survey

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 23 Sep 2005 21:53:17 EDT

Rebecca Goetz at (a)musings of a grad student is conducting a survey of graduate student blogging in light of the Ivan Tribble mess. Help her (and other graduate students) out by completing her survey.

UC Press Journals offer RSS

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 23 Sep 2005 09:12:03 EDT

Rob Townsend alerted me to something new at Caliber, the University of California Press's online home for journals. UC online journals now have RSS feeds, most of which feature an abstract of articles in the journals. Registration to view journal articles is required, but free. The full text of the articles is available in PDF format.

Alcohol and Drugs History Society Blog

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 18 Sep 2005 17:52:19 EDT

Just found this today. Alcohol and Drugs History Society blog, which also serves as "the online home of the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs," a journal published by the ADHS. Volumes 18 and 19 are available for download as PDF.

Odeo Podcasting Widget

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 18 Sep 2005 09:11:27 EDT

The Odeo Player Widget, a nifty little Dashboard widget for Mac OS X "Tiger".

Multimedia Artist at George Mason University

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 18 Sep 2005 08:19:12 EDT

Randall Packer, a pioneering artist in new media, is speaking at George Mason University this Monday, September 19. See a sample of his work at his website, ZAKROS, or his book, Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality (2002). The presentation will be in Student Union Building I, Rooms B and C, at 7:20PM.

Refresh! Conference and Webstreaming

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 18 Sep 2005 08:05:01 EDT

REFRESH!, the First International Conference on the Histories of MediaArt, Science, and Technology, is webstreaming their keynote addresses. Visit the site for more info.

Latest History Carnival

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 15 Sep 2005 11:13:29 EDT

Awesome carnival by Orak at Respectful Insolence. Go check it out.

Google Bombing

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 12 Sep 2005 16:25:06 EDT

In the October 2005 issue of First Monday, Clifford Tatum examines the "online protest technique" known as "Google bombing" in his article "Deconstructing Google Bombs."

History Audiobooks and Audio-based Journal Articles

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 12 Sep 2005 13:43:14 EDT

I've never listened to an audiobook, let alone buy one, but I'm tempted after browsing through the rather modest History selection in the iTunes store. A few names are there that you'd expect: James McPherson, Joseph J. Ellis, William McCulloch. But a few names were on there that I didn't expect: Howard Zinn, James Loewen, Gordon Wood, Simon Schama. I don't know the costs of offering audio versions of other publications like scholarly articles, but it would seem pretty cool given the growing popularity of podcasting and offering audio content other than music. Do you think it would be worth it to, say, the Organization of American Historians to offer a downloadable audio version of their quarterly journal? Do any journals, history or otherwise, offer audio versions of articles?

History Carnival 16

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 11 Sep 2005 22:12:26 EDT

Orac at Respectful Insolence needs some carnival nomination, so be sure to send them to oracknows AT gmail DOT com.

9/11 Anniversary Google Map

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 11 Sep 2005 20:26:32 EDT

Dan Cohen, the Director of Research Projects at CHNM, has put together a Google Map of New York at approximately 9:00AM on September 11, 2001.

For the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we have selected photographs and stories from Ground Zero in New York, and overlaid them on an interactive map. Clicking on blue markers (photos) or red markers (stories) shows details from the September 11 Digital Archive.

The map includes points that, when clicked, draw images and stories from the September 11 Digital Archive. See the images below:

Footnote Plugin for Wordpress

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 11 Sep 2005 13:45:07 EDT

Sw'as has a Wordpress plugin that helps put footnotes into posts.

Just Write, for Pete's Sake

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 10 Sep 2005 20:11:30 EDT

Paula just sent me a link to Words on Paper, a piece at Inside Higher Ed. I should heed to Bialkowski's advice.

Sandage on the History of Failure

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 10 Sep 2005 13:58:02 EDT

Scott Sandage, Associate Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University, discusses his latest book _Born Losers: A History of Failure in America_in a podcast available at Odeo. The book is excellent, so I'm looking forward to listening to the interview.

New Printer

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 10 Sep 2005 13:42:41 EDT

I'm looking around for a new printer, specifically one I can connect to and print through a wireless network. Any recommentation on what to buy, or what to avoid?

Footnoting on the Web

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 09 Sep 2005 18:32:40 EDT

A few months ago John Gruber at Daring Fireball wrote a post on his implementation of footnotes on his site. Joe Clark and a few other chimed in. Gruber responded with "Note on Notes". In Gruber's defense, it's quite unnecessary to do something truly innovative with a footnote. The issue for me is not how we code footnotes; Until there's an XHTML spec that specifically addresses footnoting, web developers will argue at each other indefinitely over the techincal aspects of it. In my opinion, the important questions are why we want to use footnotes on the web, and what we actually put in the footnotes.

Of course, the problems associated with footnoting on the web have not been lost on some designers. Paula Petrik has an excellent tutorial on different methods for implementing footnotes on the web. Besides outlining various strategies for coding the notes, Paula expresses the reason why footnotes are useful on the web:

First, superscripting serves as a visual marker; it signals to the reader that the material presented in the preceding paragraph, block quotation, sentence, or inline quotation requires attribution or documents the basis for assertion. These concepts form the bedrock of scholarship and their typographical display should reflect that importance. Raising the reference mark above a line of text serves this purpose by setting the attribution or documentation apart.

Second, superscripting serves as quick, visual shorthand. Because the eye travels from one superscript to the next in the body of the text, a reader can easily locate a signpost on the evidentiary trail. Placing a reference mark inline forces the reader to hunt through the text for the scholarly apparatus.

Third, superscripting on the web preserves a print standard for material that will ultimately be printed. Most scholars in the humanities prefer to print their material and avoid downloading files when possible. Including superscripting in the screen version saves both the reader and designer a step or two.

The problem for me is not how we present footnotes, but what we put in footnotes. This, I think, has not been addressed in any significant manner. (Of course, if it has, please pass the reference on to me). In print, footnotes are used two ways: 1) To cite reference material, or to give credit for particular ideas, 2) to extend the argument of a particular passage, which gives the reader more information without breaking up the flow of the main text. Both instances are easy to implement on the web, but how well do they really aid the reader?

One problem arising out of citing reference material is how to use hyperlinking in the contents of footnotes. Most blog posts, for example, are riddled with links to other blog posts and web pages. Yet introducing footnotes adds a new element of hyperlinking (and footnotes are, in essence, hyperlinks, whether in online or in print, but that's an argument for another day). Do we want to refrain from hyperlinking to other materials directly in the text of the document and put the links in footnotes? Do we leave hyperlinks to online resources out of the footnotes, and use links in the main text to refer to them? Whatever path is chosen, it should be used consistently, for the sake of the reader. This problem is especially acute when online and print sources are cited. It's bad practice, I think, to link directly to an online source in the text while relegating print sources to the footnotes. It's more useful (and more intutiative for readers) to see all of the cited material in the footnotes. Yet this significantly downplays the power of hyperlinking. I think footnoting in blog posts would be nice for the second use I outline above; That is, to extend the argument of a particular statement without interrupting the flow of the main text. But using footnotes to reference sources seems problematic, as far as consistency is concerned. Any thoughts?

First Photograph

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 09 Sep 2005 11:35:54 EDT

The World's First Photo, taken by Joseph Niepce in France, 1826. Via Kottke.

Miniposts Plugin

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 09 Sep 2005 11:32:44 EDT

The miniposts plugin is back in use.

ClioWeb's Visitors.

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 09 Sep 2005 11:30:40 EDT

I just downloaded and installed WP-ShortStat, a nice Wordpress plugin that displays visitor statistics for my blog. Since 1:44am this morning I've had 119 unique visitors, and I'm shocked to see that browser use the most is Internet Explorer 5.5 for Windows! I certainly didn't design for that browser, though I'll have to find a computer with it installed so I can see what it looks like (broken all to pieces I'm sure). I hope that number goes down real fast, but it makes me wonder who's reading my blog, and why they haven't updated to IE 6.

History Carnival 15

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 01 Sep 2005 10:04:06 EDT

It's that time again...the History Carnival! We've got a great crop of posts this time, so enjoy!

Fun and Games

Sepoy at Chapati Mystery provides us with an interesting account of dice and board games in Of Dice and Men

Sheila at Relaxing on the Bayou wrote Early Visual Media, which critiques a nice site on, you guessed it, early visual media, specifically from the 17th and 18th centuries

Pratie Place has a great post called Switched-on Bach, which takes a look at the development of the synthesizer, which was invented by Robert Moog in the 1920s.

Twentieth-Century Imagery

I don't speak French (I really don't speak English well, but that's a different story), but Pita from Rhone Alpes, France has three blogs that feature some fascinating images:

The vast majority of the posts feature images only, so you don't need to know French to appreciate them (the larger scans are really nice). But if anyone wants to translate specific posts and point them out to me I'd appreciate it!

The Vices and Virtues of the Department Store

Natalie Bennett at Philobiblon suspect that The Man to Ultimately Blame for Wal-Mart was William Whiteley, a 19th-century London department store owner. I sympathize, Natalie.

In contrast, Anthony Buccino at Uncle Tonoose takes a trip back to his childhood in Busy as Bamberger's on a Saturday Morning. The picture on Anthony's post is great.

Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern History

Jim Davilia at PaleoJudaica recounts the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

At Giornale Nuovo (Ilove this site's logo), A True Account of What HappenÇƒÙd in the Kingdom of Sweden provides a stimulating introduction to Joseph Glanvill's True Account of What HappenÇƒÙd in the Kingdom of Sweden In the Years 1669, 1670, and upwards: In Relation to some Persons that were accused for Witches; and Tryed and Executed By the KingÇƒÙs Command

Richard Nokes at Unlocked Wordhoard writes The Oddity of Privacy, which asks about the origins of privacy.

Michael NcNeil at Impearls writes The Invention of Nothing, which explores the origins of the number zero.

At Locusts & Honey, William Adolphe Bouguereau, 1825-1905 commemorates the death of Burguereau.

Philobiblon has another great post on A Forgotten Humanitarian named Sir Benjamin Hammett and his efforts to alter "the Sentence of burning Women."

The Horrors of "Cleansing"

J. Otto Pohl at Otto's Random Thoughts provides a gripping post on Creating a Whites Only Soviet Far East, which recounts the 21 August 1937 ethnic cleansing initiated by the Soviets against Koreans in far eastern Soviet regions.

Lest We Forget: Los Desaparecidos of Argentina 1976-1983 is an account of the atrocities committed by Argentinian president Jorge Rafael Videla against dissenters.

Death and Violence

In Death Where is Thy Sting?, Barista provides a intriguing account of funeral practices in Britain.

Sharon at Early Modern Notes gives us a detailed account of her summer research work in Thinking about Duels and Violent Gentlemen.

Historical Method

At Spinning Clio, Marc Comtios gives us a five-part series entitled Introduction to Historical Method.

In Late night poderings of a graduate student, Sameer at Historio-blogography provides us with an interesting "brain dump". Sylwester Ratowt at Copernicus Sashimi responds to Sameer with Cognitive History.

Reviews

Grumpy Old Bookman gives us a nice book review in his post John Carey: The Intellectuals and the Masses.

Next Time:

The next host will be on September 15. Orac at Respectful Insolence will play host. Email submission to orac_usa AT hotmail DOT com, and be sure to use "history carnival" in the subject heading.

Truth Laid Bear

History on the Web

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 29 Aug 2005 09:06:51 EDT

Forgotten NY -- Some really great images of fogotten places in New York City. See especially the sections on street scenes, old advertising, and plastered 1950s posters.

That Certain Smile -- The Google cache version of an article in Le Monde diplomatique. (I didn't realize Google could cache the full-text of articles that are available by subscription only.) Lots to disagree with (which I'll write about later), but interesting to think about.

Mac OS Through the Years -- A graphic walk down memory lane for any Mac lovers. My aunt had a Classic II that ran System 7 (I think). It still works.

View of Glasgow and the Clyde -- Some nice photographs from 1911.

The Baseball Music Project

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 26 Aug 2005 22:41:06 EDT

I ran across this gem of a website while browsing CSS-Mania. The Baseball Music Projectis a group of musicians who are promoting songs about baseball written from the 1850s to the 1900s. From the "About Us" section:

Founded in 2004 by a group of music professionals with a nearly uncontainable love and passion for both baseball and music, The Baseball Music Project is dedicated to fostering greater awareness of the cultural lineage and historical significance of music written about baseball, through concerts, recordings, and related outreach events and projects.

The Orchestra Program features such hits as "The Umpire is a Most Unhappy Man," "The Baseball Polka," "Casey at the Bat," and "Slide, Kelly, Slide." The site's graphics are wonderful, the code is solid, and the project itself seems really interesting. The group will begin performing in 2006 in conjunction with "major symphony orchestras and concert halls throughout the USA".

Buggy Firefox

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 25 Aug 2005 22:14:05 EDT

I recently upgraded to version 1.0.6 of Mozilla Firefox, and ever since the thing's been acting funky. The main problem has been that Firefox crunches text in links, often times running the link text into the rest of the text page. See the two images on the right. The image on the right is a screenshot of Unmatched Style, a good CSS showcase site. Notice how all the text in the links run together? I've noticed this has been taking place on almost all sites I visit in Firefox. I love Firefox, but this is driving me nuts. Has anyone else noticed this, and is there a fix for it?

One Year

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 25 Aug 2005 21:55:53 EDT

I've been a little busy lately, so I forgot that ClioWeb turned a year old on August 17. It all started with this inspiring post.

Don't forget: ClioWeb is hosting the 15th History Carnival, so keep sending in your submissions.

Women and Kodaks in the 1920s

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 22 Aug 2005 19:30:56 EDT

Kristine Brorson at Historiological Notes pointed out a nice article entitled Girls' Gadgets of the 1920's & 30's, which features Kodak cameras marketed to women in the 1920s and 1930s. A larger website featuring a number of early 20th-century cameras is at Gloriously Colorful Kodaks.

On the same subject, Duke University Libraries has a nice database, called Emergence of Advertising in America, which has a section on Kodak Advertising. One of my favorite ads is the "Anywhere--Everywhere" ad, below, which Kodak ran in 1920. Mike O'Malley uses this ad in one of his History 120 modules, Understanding Advertising. Marketing cameras to women based on their design seems interesting, especially in light of my post yesterday on gender and web design.

Keep Em Coming

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 22 Aug 2005 16:10:58 EDT

I've had a few really nice entries submitted to the 15th History Carnival, which ClioWeb is hosting on September 1st. Keep sending them to me by email at jboggs AT gmu DOT edu, with "History Carnival" in the subject line.

Gender and Web Aesthetics

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 21 Aug 2005 10:42:51 EDT

Airbag Industries recently posted about a University of Glamorgan presss release announcing the results of a study on how gender influences web aesthetic preferences.

"We started off by looking at the personal websites created by 60 university students, 30 male and 30 female, to discover whether there were any major design differences. We looked at factors such as language, visuals, and navigation - the differences were immediately apparent," explained Gloria Moss. "We compared the sites on 23 factors and differences emerged on just over half of these. This is a massive number".

Personal websites of university students differ greatly in scope and content than business or educational websites. I'm not sure if a study of how students reacting to other student-designed websites really reveals anything. But I do think this is an important study, especially for a medium in which "74%" of websites "were produced by a man or a predominantly male team while just 7% were designed by a female or female team." The press release meanders between arguments for more female web designers (which there absolutely should be) and more feminine design. And, from the way I read the release, the feminine design part is on the border between smart and sexist. Smart in that women make up a large (if not majority) of web visitors and contributors, so it's good to appeal to them. Sexist, in that it's almost like saying, "Yeah, lets put some light colors and curves in for the ladies." See the next quote:

Where visuals are concerned, males favour the use of straight lines (as opposed to rounded forms), few colours in the typeface and background, and formal typography. As for language, they favour the use of formal or expert language with few abbreviations and are more likely to promote themselves and their abilities heavily.

But is saying that men prefer "formal or expert language with few abbreviations" mean that women don't? It will be helpful when/if we get to read the actual study instead of the press release, but to me it seems more hurtful than helpful.The press release doesn't actually say what women preferred; most commentary on the release so far have assumed that women like the opposite of the things in the quote. And this study apparently doesn't take into consideration what kind of information the site tries to convey. This study might be useful; I'm really not sure yet.

What should we really do with this information? Should we make separate, changeable stylesheets for male and female visitors? Should we think more about designing for a broader audience? Or should we design based on the content I'm asking this not only as a web designer but also as an historian who wants web-based history to appeal to a variety of vistiors. How much does gender identity affect your perception of a history website? Is Women and World History a more "feminine" site, and is History 120 a more "masculine" site? (I designed History 120, and Paula Petrik designed Women and World History.) Does subject matter play a role in how web-based history is presented?

Update: Academic Coach noted the study last Monday. Natalie at Phobiblion featured the Coach's post on her Friday Femme Fatales No. 19.

History Carnival 14

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 14 Aug 2005 21:40:03 EDT

Natalie Bennett at Phobiblion has put together a great carnival. Go check it out and thank Natalie for being a great host!

I'll be hosting the next carnival on September 1, so take notice of any good history blogging in the next few weeks and send a note (jboggs AT gmu DOT edu) to make nominations.

All We Need is Love

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 09 Aug 2005 18:56:48 EDT

The HNN redesign is slowly but surely getting the wrinkles ironed out. It's one thing to have the site working on a local server, and quite another to make it live. Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback, and for the suggestions to make the site more usable.

The last month I feel like I've had my eyes fixed on a computer screen constantly, so it's really nice to come home to a hot meal and a nice message. I can't say enough how thoughtful and caring Jill is to me. Today I came home to a nice dinner with a sweet message. Jill's really cool. I love her very much.

This summer I've been feeling a lot like Sharon does: Starting a lot of posts and never finishing them. It's bad in Wordpress because the "save" button is right beside the "publish" button. Lately I've been hesitant to click "publish," opting instead to click "save" so I can go back to the post and add things when (or more like if) I get better ideas. I really shouldn't make this so hard.

Tonight I'm going to spend most of my time with Jill and with a book I've been wanting to read. (A book, can you imagine! A real book! With pages! Made of ... paper!). *[HNN]: History News Network

HNN Redesign

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 08 Aug 2005 10:53:47 EDT

A few of you already know that my biggest summer project has been the redesign of the History News Network. Good news: It's done, and should go live today or tomorrow.

I've been working on the redesign for a better part of a month. HNN is a massive site, with a pretty intricate publishing system, so it's been a challenge moving the site away from a table-based design to a CSS based design. Little will change as far as using the site: addresses of blogs and departments have remained the same, the commenting system has remained the same. The primary goal of the redesign was graphic consistency, usability, and accessibility through web standards.

Everyone keep their fingers crossed, and when the redesign does go live and you see something that isn't working, please email me at jboggs AT gmu DOT edu, or contact me through IM (my id is jboggs22).

UPDATE: HNN is live!

Hobbits in Kentucky

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 02 Aug 2005 15:52:03 EDT

John Holbo's post Sung to the tune of "My Old Kentucky Home" discusses an essay by Guy Davenport on Tolkien and Kentucky:

The closest I have ever gotten to the secret and inner Tolkien was in a casual conversation on a snowy day in Shelbyville, Kentucky. I forget how in the world we came to talk about Tolkien at all, but I began plying questions as soon as I knew that I was talking to a man who had been at Oxford as a classmate of Ronald TolkienÇƒÙs. He was a history teacher, Allen Barnett. He had never read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. Indeed, he was astonished and pleased to know that his friend of so many years ago had made a name for himself as a writer.

"Imagine that! You know, he used to have the most extraordinary interest in the people here in Kentucky. He could never get enough of my tales of Kentucky folk. He used to make me repeat family names like Barefoot and Boffin and Baggins and good country names like that."

And out the window I could see tobacco barns. The charming anachronism of the hobbitsÇƒÙ pipes suddenly made sense in a new way.

Ralph Luker also quotes another passage from Davenport's essay:

Practically all the names of Tolkien's hobbits are listed in my Lexington phone book, and those that aren't can be found over in Shelbyville. Like as not, they grow and cure pipe-weed for a living. Talk with them, and their turns of phrase are pure hobbit: 'I hear tell,' 'right agin,' 'so Mr. Frodo is his first and second cousin, once removed either way,' 'this very month as is.' These are English locutions, of course, but ones that are heard oftener now in Kentucky than in England.

I despaired of trying to tell Barnett what his talk of Kentucky folk became in Tolkien's imagination. I urged him to read The Lord of the Rings but as our paths have never crossed again, I don't know that he did. Nor if he knew that he created by an Oxford fire and in walks along the Cherwell and Isis the Bagginses, Boffins, Tooks, Brandybucks, Grubbs, Burrowses, Goodbodies, and Proudfoots (or Proudfeet, as a branch of the family will have it) who were, we are told, the special study of Gandalf the Grey, the only wizard who was interested in their bashful and countrified ways.

In Hobbits in Kentucky the Elfin Ethicist suggests looking at early 2oth-century census records. The Ethicist also looks at last names in WhitePages.com with few results to corroborate Davenport's story. Amusingly, he found that Sam W. Gamgee lives in New Jersey and Meriadoc Brandybuck lives in Key West. I found that B. Baggins lives in Buckingham, Virginia.

I knew a guy at Morehead State University (in Morehead, Kentucky) whose last name was Boffins and a girl whose last name was Grubb. I seem to recall some Bagginses who live in Wise County, Virginia, right on the Kentucky border, but I could be wrong about this (none show up on WhitePages.com). Though these locations are a little farther east than central Kentucky (Morehead is actually an hour and a half east of Lexington), its still quite possible. I remember about 15 years ago an older man back home said "eleventy-first" instead of "one-hundred eleven" and I thought he was quite odd. I'm not sure if he had read Lord of the Rings (I hadn't at the time). He probably had and was joking around, but you never know. I would be interested in the speech and dialect connections, but this might be a little harder to research.

History of the Senses

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 31 Jul 2005 22:12:57 EDT

I meant to post this a few months ago but left it sitting in my drafts box. Chicago Public Radio has a interesting series of programs on the history of the senses. From the website:

The senses--hearing, taste, smell, touch, and sight--guide us through our daily interactions in the world. The way our senses operate is often described in biological terms. But the senses have a social history as well. Ideas about how the senses function and how they serve us, have evolved over time and shape the way we interpret the information our senses collect. What forces--social, technological, cultural--affect the way we think about our senses? Over five consecutive Tuesdays, Odyssey examines each of the senses. Each program in the series highlights one sense and explores some of the meanings we apply to it.

The May 31 show on smell is my favorite so far. William Cohen and Mark Smith are guests. Smith has written and edited a few books on sound in history, including Listening to Nineteenth-Century America. Cohen has recently edited a collection of essays entitled Filth: Dirt, Disgust, and Modern Life, which is quite good.

What I don't like is that they're in RealAudio format. It's fine to listen to on the computer, but I want to convert them to MP3 and listen to them on my iPod. Any suggestions on how best to convert RealAudio into MP3?

20 July 1969

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 20 Jul 2005 15:33:54 EDT

On this date in 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to walk on the moon. As a small celebration, here are a few nice links about the astronauts and the mission:

The Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Journal is a NASA history site. It includes transcripts of communication between the astronauts and NASA officials are available, as well as RealAudio, MPEG, and other movies from the mission. For those of us who missed the first step when it was broadcast, you can see it in the One Small Step section of the journal.
The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center also has a site (rather generically) entitled Apollo 11, which includes photos from the mission.
The National Air and Space Museum online exhibit on Apollo 11.
The Wikipedia entry on Apollo 11 seems like a solid resource for information on the mission, as is the Encyclopedia Aeronautica entry.
And last, but certainly not least, Google has created Google Moon in honor of the first manned moon landing. Uses the Google Maps technology. If you zoom in close enough, you can see what the moon is really made of too!

Eugenics Archive

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 17 Jul 2005 19:26:42 EDT

EugenicsArchive.Org, created by the Dolan DNA Learning Center, boasts over 2200 items in its online archive and virtual exhibit. Ranging from the full text of Charles Davenport's treatise, Eugenics: The Science of Human Improvement by Better Breeding, to detailed images of student notes and field work, the items in EugenicsArchive.Org reveal the cold scientific idealism and undeniable prejudice of eugenics. While the site's weakness lie in the limited usability and poor design of its virtual exhibits, the site's primary strength lies in the archiving and access to primary source material.

The ten virtual exhibits can be viewed in a text-only HTML version or a Flash-driven version. While the Flash version has the potential to offer a rich experience, it falls quite short in usability and utility. The default size of the popup windows (for Firefox on my Mac) creates small, almost illegible text. Because of the inability to control the font size in your browser, the only way to change the font-size is to increase the popup window size. It's a step that, while not difficult, can be tedious for a user. The HTML versions are a better choice with regards to usability. Both versions are essentially the same essay, but the Flash version includes images while the HTML version does not. It seems strange that the site's creators did not include the same images in the HTML version (or, at the very least, links to the images) as they did in the Flash version. They would be easy to include either by footnote or by direct link to the documents in the archive. Once you get past these usability hurdles, the essays themselves are, for the most part, quite good. I think they could do a much better job integrating the primary source material into the essays. Including 3-4 images per section is trifling compared to the hundreds of documents available on the site.

The site's archive can be used in three ways: by keyword search, by image number search, and by topic. There are 31 topics to browse, including Immigration, agriculture genetics, Mendelian heredity, and Poverty and Degeneracy . Each topic contains a brief (200-word) description of that topic and a list of thumbnail images that, when clicked, open in a new window to reveal a larger image of the document. The individual document window contains source information, date of the document being shown, and copyright information. In nice fashion, the site's developers have included "text-only" versions of images of letters, books, and other text-based documents. Because the site uses Javascript to generate a pop-up window to display the details of the archive documents, it's slightly annoying to find the URL of the document to link directly to it and to cite it in any footnote or other form. Again, using Control+Click (Mac) or right-click (Windowns) will allow users to copy the link's address and then paste it into a new browser window.

Educators and researchers familiar enough with the history of eugenics would do well with this site. The site offers a potentially rich learning experience for students, with structured guidance from an instructor in finding and critically reading the source material, techniques which the site does not address. The site's design and usability is questionable, but the materials available on the site make a visit very worthwhile.

Rosenzweig on Digital Archives

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 16 Jul 2005 19:01:57 EDT

Roy Rosenzweig discusses digital archives in a Chronicle of Higher Education article.

Sample MiniPost

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 16 Jul 2005 18:09:17 EDT

Miniposts Plugin -- from Morganically Grown.

No Re-Enactment at Yorktown

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 16 Jul 2005 18:03:46 EDT

From the June 9 Richmond Times-Dispatch:

NORFOLK -- If the Battle of Yorktown were held today, it would have to be moved. The National Park Service doesn't permit even mock battles on its land, so an organizer of a re-enactment for the 225th anniversary says the group has to look for another site.

Jeff Lambert, of the First Virginia Regiment of the Continental Line, said his group had been working with the park service for two years on a program involving 3,000 re-enactors for October 2006. The group wanted to stage something similar to its 1981 bicentennial celebration on the battlefield, which included three battle re-enactments as well as an encampment and living-history interpretations.

However, park service rules changed in 1986, spokesman Mike Litterst said.

Encampments are allowed, along with weapons-firing demonstrations. But mock battles involving exchange of fire, hand-to-hand combat and casualties being carried off the field are not permitted, he said.

The policy changed for a couple of reasons, Litterst said.

"There's a safety issue," he said, but also a philosophical question.

"We're preserving battlefields to honor the memory of men who died there," Litterst said. "Is it disrespectful to have somebody pretend to die, then get up and go home at the end of the day?"

Lambert said he understood the park service was in a difficult position.

"Rules are there for a reason, but there's also room for reason," he said. "I think the 225th is a pretty good reason to have a celebration."

Lambert found it interesting that the battleground was open for a rally by members of an American Nazi party under the First Amendment a couple of weeks ago but would not be available to re-enact the battle that led to the nation's independence from Britain.

"Without winning the war we wouldn't have free speech," he said.

Lambert said the First Virginia Regiment now was negotiating to hold its re-enactment on private land in Gloucester County.

The group was willing to have an encampment and demonstrations at Yorktown if battle re-enactments could be held on property owned by James City County near the site of another Revolutionary War battle -- the Battle of Greensprings. But those talks broke down, Lambert said.

"We decided to part company and go someplace where re-enactors can do what they do," he said.

Litterst said the park service, too, is moving on. Officials are talking to some other re-enactment groups.

The First Virginia Regiment's proposal wouldn't quite fit with the history of Yorktown anyway, he said.

The Battle of Yorktown was an artillery battle, Litterst said, so most of it involved cannon fire rather than infantry combat.

Litterst said two to three groups of re-enactors hold encampments at Yorktown every year, and he praised their contributions.

"What they do is of tremendous educational value to visitors," he said.

I've tried a search for the American Nazi party gathering the article refers to with no luck...does anyone have information?

Using MarsEdit

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 16 Jul 2005 14:09:04 EDT

Just trying out MarsEdit from Ranchero. It seems a nice little application for posting to more than one blog (if you happen to have more than one).

Oxford Journals to Launch Humanities Archive

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 12 Jul 2005 17:26:11 EDT

Yesterday Oxford Journals announced that it has launched its Humanities Archive of past journals, papers, and other humanities publications. From an H-Net announcement:

With its earliest material dating from 1829, the Humanities Archive contains over 300,000 articles, including major papers in history, music, religion, philosophy, literary studies, and linguistics, from Volume 1 Issue 1 of each title to the end of 1995. Journals included in the project include Essays in Criticism, English Historical Review, Past & Present, and the Journal of Theological Studies.

The project forms part of Oxford JournalsÇƒÙ strategy to increase and improve access to scholarly information, by ensuring permanent electronic accessibility to journal content.

"With electronic information now commonplace, readers increasingly expect to find all journal content online, whether it is todayÇƒÙs cutting-edge research or concepts from the more distant past. This massive digitization process addresses this growing need for older contentÇƒÙ, said Richard Gedye, Sales and Marketing Director, Oxford Journals. He continued: ÇƒÚOur aim is two-fold: to increase the availability of important knowledge that was once previously hard to access and in danger of becoming lost; and to connect far more quickly with the people who need to read it."

The Humanities Archive is available for purchase or on subscription from July 1, 2005.

It might be a nice archive, though I'm not sure how they're going to accomplish their two goals of increasing availability and more quickly connecting people with the information if it's subscription based. Not sure if my university will get access to it even though it already subscribes to the Oxford Journals online. If not, I wonder if they'll fork over the $38,000 to get access to it.

Here's the Oxford Humanities Archive homepage.

Download History Audio Content on Odeo

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 12 Jul 2005 00:14:07 EDT

Odeo is an online service where you can find free audio content on just about anything. Searching for "history" gets over 950 results, including:

History of Feminism on the channel Aural Traditions.
History of the Fouth of July on KQED's Forum.
History of Blues Music.
History of the Brain from Berkeley Groks Science Radio Program.

Odeo also has fifteen channels with the tag "history."

Flow: A Media Studies Journal

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 11 Jul 2005 15:27:02 EDT

The latest addition to my growing list of online journals is Flow. From the about page:

Flow is an online journal of television and media studies launched in October 2004. Flow's mission is to provide a space where researchers, teachers, students, and the public can read about and discuss the changing landscape of contemporary media at the speed that media moves. Flow is coordinated and edited by graduate students in the Department of Radio-Television-Film.

Some interesting articles, in the current issue and in the past issue. The articles seem a little more informal than most journal articles, but more formal than blog posts. As quoted in the blockquote above, the editors refer to Flow as an online journal, but on the homepage their also refer to it as a "critical forum." I'm not sure if these are exactly the same thing. The organization, however, is really nice, as is the layout and typography. The logo is kinda cool, tool.

CB2Bib Desktop Citation Program

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 10 Jul 2005 19:37:42 EDT

From the Modspaces website, "the cb2Bib is a tool for rapidly extracting unformatted, or unstandardized biblographic references from email alerts, journal Web pages, and PDF files." Kinda like CiteULike, from what I gather. It seems like a nice application, if I could only get it to work. I've been trying to install cb2Bib but haven't had much success. The problem isn't with the cb2Bib software, but the installation of the Qt 3.2.0 from Trolltech, which is a "comprehensive C++ application development framework." I'm not sure what exactly it does in relation to cb2Bib, but I do know that cb2Bib won't work without it, and I can't get it to install. If anyone has used this and can offer some help, feel free to comment or email me at jboggs AT gmu DOT edu. I might try to install it on my Windows box, but I'd rather try it out on my Mac because, if I can't get it to work on my Mac I probably won't use it.

Commentary on Open Season

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 08 Jul 2005 20:39:42 EDT

I put together Open Season as my final project for Paula's Hist 697 class in spring 2004. I hadn't given it much thought until I noticed on a Technorati search that a few people outside the U.S. have recently commented on the site. Check it out:

WWII Ù«Ñ??¡±≥¬?ΩÑ?¥Ñ«‡Ñ«„¬ËÁ ÛïÑ…ÛÑ…≠Ñ…ÎÑ«®Ñ…≥Ñ…ƒ at Hugo Strikes Back, which is in Japanese I think. Actually, I'll admit ignorance. I have no idea what language it's in.
Cartel Anti-Japons at Icasne!, which I believe is in Portugese or Spanish.
Octopus Japonicus at Comomola. Like the Hugo Strikes Back! post, I'm not sure exactly what language it's in.

Any assistance in translating these posts would be greatly appreciated. Babelfish doesn't seem to get it right. Or if there are any good website translators out there feel free to pass them along.

And for those George Mason history students who take Paula's class, be warned: People will find the site you make if you keep it up long enough. I've been meaning to do some work on Open Season but haven't had the time.

Polyphonous Pasts

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 29 Jun 2005 15:05:03 EDT

I had set up a blog for Kevin Shupe on the ClioWeb server a while back and had forgotten about it, until Sheila noticed.

Presenting Polyphonous Pasts, a weblog that explores the idea of polyphonous pasts, or the idea that "multiple unresolved narratives can be woven together to produce a historical view that is more self-reflective." Good luck, Kevin, and welcome to the blogosphere.

World War II Memorial, Part 2

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 28 Jun 2005 18:43:50 EDT

One of many sculpted scenes that decorated the walls of the World War II memorial.

Archiving Spam Email

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 25 Jun 2005 09:17:09 EDT

Spam. I hate it. The canned meat and the email variety. The one thing I love about Mac OSX's Mail application is how well you can train it to sort our spam email. But a post at The Old New Thing (almost two years ago) and the discovery of a SPAM Archive by someone named Bruce has made me wonder about the historical value of spam email, blog comments, and trackbacks, and what steps (if any) are being taken to archive it. Reading Susan Strasser's Waste and Want has heightened my attention to disposability in our culture. The Internet seems a medium based on disposability, especially disposable information, whether it's spam email, blog comments, or popup ads. There have been some concern from historians about the ephemeral nature of legitimate email, but little if any concern about the even more transient nature of spam. I'm not even sure that it's worth worrying about, but it has the potential to raise some interesting questions about what we save and value, what we throw away as trash spam, and what we even consider to be trash.

In the spirit of curiosity, here are a few spam archives that I found through that all-knowing power named Google:

Why Spam is Bad -- Paul Wouters personal spam statistics and archive from 1997 to 2004. Woulters's spam went from 541 emails to 95405 emails in 2004.
SpamArchive.org -- This group asks visitors to donate their spam for research for development of anti-spam measures.
Dolphinwave.org/spam/ -- This person archived their spam emails alphabetically based on the sender. Emails are in .txt files.
Stupid Spam -- Toastedspam.com has a searchable list of spam email from 2002-present.

Historical Diaries in Weblog Format

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 23 Jun 2005 18:34:35 EDT

World War II Memorial

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 21 Jun 2005 11:53:20 EDT

This is a shot looking up through the top of the Pacific tower.

CSS Footnotes

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 20 Jun 2005 12:45:23 EDT

Paula's CSS tutorial on footnotes has made me think of some other ways to implement footnotes using CSS. I've tried to streamline Paula's version by styling only the <a> by applying a class="note". Instead of putting <a> inside <span class="refnote"> (as Paula does)or <sup>, we can simply style the <a>. See the CSS below:

` body {

font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;
font-size: 76%;
color: #333;
width: 800px;
}

a.note {

vertical-align:super;
font-size: 0.8em;
line-height:0;
padding: 3px 5px;
background-color: #ccc;
color: #333;
text-decoration:none;
margin: 0 0.20em;
}

a.note:hover {

background-color: #ffc;
color: #900;
}

p {

line-height: 2em;
font-weight: 1em;
}

See the example.

This seems to work fine on the following browsers: Windows - Opera 8, IE 6, Firefox; Mac - Safari, Firefox, IE5. Feel free to let me know if there are problems with other broswers.

June 20 Links

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 20 Jun 2005 08:53:30 EDT

Abandoned -- A photo gallery of abandoned buildings, industrial sites, and equipment in Russia. Reminds me of the abandoned coal mines and equipment, and old houses and barns in eastern Kentucky and southwest Virginia.

Counterspace -- A website dedicated to typography and its history. Nice shockwave timeline of the history of mark making and its development as a form of communication.

Historic Cities: Maps & Documents -- Contains maps of cities in the Mediterranean region from the 1480s to the 1800s. The site is browsable by year, city, country, or by the person who made the maps.

Ephemera Now -- Nicely designed site with old ads and other epherera from the 1930s-1950s. Some really great images.

Buzztracker Widget

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 20 Jun 2005 08:31:06 EDT

Buzztracker is a world news site that uses software to map " frequencies and relationships between locations in the Google world news directory." Check it out.

You can also download their nifty Dashboard Widget for Mac OS X "Tiger"

Saturday's Nationals Game

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 12 Jun 2005 13:33:01 EDT

Presenting Reaching Readers

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 07 Jun 2005 18:07:45 EDT

After a few hours wrangling with Wordpress, Register.com, and my own web host, Reaching Readers is online and ready for consumption.

Jill still needs to write an "About Me" page, but she does have a "Favorite Books" page that I think will be updated every now and then. The pages feature in Wordpress is pretty cool...I hadn't played with it until I made Jill's blog. The blog itself will, I think, chronicle her thoughts as she reads all the Newberry Medal-winning books. If you have any thoughts or expertise on the subject, you should either drop a comment here at ClioWeb or stop by her blog and leave a comment. You can also email Jill at jillboggs AT gmail DOT com, changing the AT and DOT to "@" and "." respectively.

Mapping Cyberspace

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 04 Jun 2005 11:06:45 EDT

Design Observer had an interesting post last week on different ways people have beem mapping cyberspace and computer use. Design Observer observes:

Of course, it is the internet that has changed our perception of space, precisely because the sheer volume of interconnectivity is beyond our imagination, whether it be language-based, data-based, or community-based. Add black holes and photographs of asteroidal moons around Jupiter, and our world seems increasingly expansive. Yet, if we cannot map it, how can we understand it?

This image (click the thumbnail to enlarge) is a map of someone mouse movement for a week. The mouse cursor traveled an estimated 5.5 miles. Other maps include the popular tag maps (like del.icio.us or Flickr use) and this interesting map of email communication at the New York Times. One commentor also linked to Wordcount, which works like a heat map of the most popular words in the English language. Wordcount gets its data from the British National Corpus.

Sharon's Latest History Carnival

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 04 Jun 2005 08:52:14 EDT

I'm embarassed that I'm just now getting around to reading it (sorry Sharon!), but so far it's awesome. Go take a look, if you haven't already. I'm just getting around to reading it this morning, but it looks impressive. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the latest carnival.

"God, I love archival research. You could never make up the stuff you actually find." -- Eric Muller.

"If Gen. [X] finds anybody selling mischievous matters within the sphere of his authority, he might give him a good thrashing or put him in the stocks, but he cannot reach the editors who make money in New York, or Chicago, or Louisville by pandering to the taste of certain cliques." -- William T. Sherman, in a letter transcribed by Pipsqueak.

"Graduate and student, advisor and advisee, tenured faculty and adjunct, administrator and staff, in a word, professor and professed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of the university at large, or in the cancellation of the offending classes." -- Eb at No Great Matter rewrites the Communist Manifesto for today's university.

And everyone should congratulate Sheila for getting mentioned on the carnival for her post on History Museums on the Web.

New Spam-Fighting Plugin

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 04 Jun 2005 08:24:11 EDT

Spam Karma 2.0 looks like a good replacement for Kitty's Spaminator. I've been having a little trouble with Kitty's plugin, even though Sharon was kind enough to send me the latest version. Bill C.'s comment on my Memorial Day post was marked as spam, and Bill was subsequentially blacklisted by the Spaminator. Since I love Bill's comments, I had to act quickly.

The Spam Karma 2.0 admin page seems pretty sweet, though I'm not sure what half of it does yet. Hopefully it will do a better job of sorting spam from valid comments. Not that Kitty's Spaminator was bad at this. The only problem I had with it was taking someone off the blacklist, like I had to do in Bill's case.

Weekend Plans

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 03 Jun 2005 22:57:17 EDT

I up and went and bought Ragged Dick by Horatio Alger, and I'm planning to read it tomorrow. Mike suggested I read it since I'm interested in nineteenth-century urban life, discussion of individual improvement, and all that. We read George Foster's New York by Gaslight a few months ago, and it was...interesting. And we can't forget that weird little book McTeague by Frank Norris, which we also read this past spring. We'll see how the Alger book goes this weekend.

I also have to get back into exercising regularly. I'll admit it: I've gained over fifty pounds since I started graduate school, and I've been losing and gaining it back over the last few years. I'm not going to kid myself, or you, by saying that grad school takes up too much of my time. Even though it does take up a considerable ammount of time, I firmly believe that people make time to do what they want to do and, well, I haven't wanted to work out enough to make the time. Part of the problem is that I don't have vanity as a motivating factor because, let's face it, that's the primary motivating factor for most people who exercise. Not that it's bad or anything. Hey, it used to be my motivation, but no more. Now it has to be my health. I visited the doctor today, and I'm in good health except for my cholesterol (too much fake* chinese food). I exercised today, but it's hard to stay motivated when I don't have an iPod to listen to and when the only thing on TV at the gym is the Young and the Restless.

I'm also going to set up a weblog for Jill. She wants to read each of the Newberry Medal winners and discuss them on a blog, among other things. We're still working on a good domain name, so if you have any suggestions throw them our way. I've been exploring the idea of making a blog for me and Jill, but we agreed that we're both a little too boring for that.

I'll probably end up doing none of the other things I planned to do and spend all weekend tweaking a Wordpress install and making some graphics in Photoshop for Jill's site.

Next Week: News from the ECHO project's Doing Digital History Workshop, which looks to be lots of fun for presenters and participants alike.

Books Harmful to Jeremy, Part 1

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 03 Jun 2005 10:43:33 EDT

After seeing the quick responses to Human Events's Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries, Ralph Luker wisely steps back and ponders the implications of a "harmful" book. "If this is only a list of "harmful books" and we agree that there are such things ÇƒÏ if this is not a list of books to be banned ÇƒÏ then our criticism of the list should be criticism of particular choices, not of the enterprise, itself."

Since there are far smarter people out there than I who can assess the ammount of harm a book can do to society as a whole (which seems to be the goal of Luker's and the Human Events list), I'm going to do something a little more modest and self-reflective. I'm going to make a list of the the books that have harmed me the most, emotionally, physically, and intellectually. This will be published in a series of probably five books (a post for each), though I may add more books as my graduate studies continue.

Today's harmful (to Jeremy) book: Historians' Fallacies by David Hackett Fischer

Is it possible, given Fischer's insane list of fallacies that historians have and can commit, to write a history that would satisfy Fischer? While I'm sympathetic with Fischer's goals for the book, this isn't the kind of book that gets a first-year grad student to look forward to years of graduate study and the eventual dissertation. I had to read it my first year at Virginia Tech, and the message I got from this book (and from my historical methods class in general) is that not only is the job market for academic historians dismal, but you also have to write history without making any of these fallacies. The first few months after being exposed to this, my enthusiasm for history and for academia plummeted to personal lows. I was so eager and excited, coming from my undergraduate studies, to begin graduate school and become an academic historian. Reading Fischer's book, I began to wonder what the heck I was doing in grad school and if I could possibly write anything worthwhile and free of fallacy. The problem with the book for me, at the time, was that Fischer would focus on a specific fallacy like "the fallacy of indiscriminate pluralism" (p. 175), list a specific work of history that committed that fallacy, and offer no way to avoid that fallacy. The whole tone of the book seemed to be "OK, here are all these fallacies historians commit. Avoid them at all cost. And don't ask me how to avoid them."

I've meant to go back and read Historians' Fallacies, but have avoided it because I have lots of other books to read or I think "I have better things to read than that dismal little book." It's a bad thing to think, and I should read it again with a more open-minded approach. I'm sure I missed a lot of things when I first read it four years ago, but at the time it really did me more harm than good.

What about you, good reader? Have you had a similar or different experience with Fischer's Historians' Fallacies?

Memorial Day Weekend

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 02 Jun 2005 09:25:27 EDT

Jill and I visited our respective parents last weekend, both to celebrate Memorial Day and to celebrate my brother's 24th birthday, which was on May 28. We arrive in Big Stone Gap a little before midnight last friday, after a 7-hour drive from Fairfax. The drive wasn't too bad, considering it took over an hour to get from Fairfax to Manassas, which are only eight miles apart. I-66 on a friday evening is not fun. Needless to say, I was driving while Jill took a nap. I don't mind, since she taught a bunch of sixth-graders on a day before a holiday weekend.

Saturday evening I rode four-wheelers with my dad and a few of his friends from work. It was pretty awesome, even though I know little about four-wheelers and possess perhaps one-tenth of the courage that my riding companions had when going up or down really steep hills. Only one person flipped their four-wheeler. Here are some pictures from the ride. I didn't take too many because I was busy keeping up with everyone.

We started on a surface mine near my parents' house. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but my dad works as a heavy equipment operator on a surface mine (called "strip jobs" at home, but I don't use that term because people I know in northern Virginia have never heard of it). I think he used to work at this mine, but has since moved farther south and west of this site.

Here's a picture of a gradually reclaimed area of the surface mine. It was a fairly clear day with little humidity, so you can get a great view of the mountains miles away. I remember feeling a little disconcerted at first when I moved further east because the land gets more flat. I was so used to having huge hills and mountains all around me.

And another shot of the mountains. We're much further west now...we were actually in Kentucky when I took this shot. The Virginia-Kentucky line is about a mile from my parents' house, so we crossed over the line several times on our ride. I think we rode about 40 miles total on Saturday. The area in this shot is called Black Mountain. There are a number of trails and make-shift shelters in the area. We actually met another guy parked at a shelter who seemed rather high and inebriated. This is a shot looking west.

It was strange riding out in the middle of nowhere because I've grown so used to a busy environment over the past few years. Here there were no people, no cars, no noise (save for our four-wheelers, which were quite noisy), no lights. We stayed out riding until 2am (which was much longer than I anticipated, but fun nonetheless), and every now and then we'd stop and sit in the dark. I had forgotten how dense with stars the night sky is. You can't see many stars in Fairfax because of all the street lights and car headlights. On Black Mountain there are no lights at all, and the stars fill the sky like freckles.

On sunday I helped my aunt set up a presentation on a computer, picked up my wife and went back to my parents' house for a cook-out to celebrate.

Like me, Justin doesn't like to have his picture taken. Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for me), I had the camera. My favorite shots of Justin are the ones when he won't turn around. Like this one.

We had plenty of bottled water for the event. My uncle Voyne (my grandmother's brother) is still amazed that they bottle water AND SELL IT and that PEOPLE ACTUALLY BUY IT. I remember he also laughed at the can of air I bought to clean my keyboard with. Canned air, can you imagine! I don't think he's ever bought a bottle of water, and I don't blame him. It is a rather funny concept. I buy it anyways, and obviously my parents buy it too.

Justin, Amber, Jill, and I played tennis later that evening. Not being very good tennis players, half of our shots went out of bounds or over the fence that enclosed the court. We had fun though, in a two-set match we tied 1-1. Amber wanted to play a third set to determine the winner, but the rest of us were satisfied with a tie. Everyone wins.

On monday Jill and I went to her parents house for yet more food. Donnie, my father-in-law, grilled some of the best steak I've had in a long time. And, of couse, my mother-in-law Sandy cooks everything really well. See for yourself:

I wish everyone could have one slice of this chocolate pie, because it was awesome. I had to take some home with me. Around 2pm Jill and I packed up and made our way back to Fairfax, getting home around 8:30pm. The only bad thing that happened is that I left my iPod at my parents house, and unless they mail it to me I won't have it until July 4 when we go back.

Cocoalicious

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 25 May 2005 22:35:16 EDT

If any of you use del.icio.us (I do. Take a look at my bookmarks), then you should check out Cocoalicious. Cocoalicious is a free, open source interface to list and view your bookmarks. I already subscribe to a few other del.icio.us feeds, so I hope to see an option in future releases of Cocoalicious that would allow me to see other del.icio.us feeds that I subscribe to. Right now I look at them in my Sage news reader, a Firefox extension. Great little application. Hat tip to Josh for Cocoalicious.

To Do: Summer 2005

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 24 May 2005 17:52:36 EDT

The spring semester has finally passed, and now I'm moving on to things to come and things that I should have done previously. I'm sure I'll have to add to this, but this is what I have on my plate for this summer so far, in order of importance:

Six different projects for CHNM (more on that later).
My minor field statement for my History and New Media minor.
My field statment for my U.S. cultural history minor.
Preliminary dissertation research -- mostly secondary source reviews and some initial primary source searching.
Study for my major field exam with my partners in crime.
Finish review of Michelle Mitchell's Righteous Propagation for the North Carolina Historical Review.
Finish review of Lisa Lindquist Dorr's White Women, Rape, and the Power of Race in Virginia, 1900-1960 for the H-Net list H-SAWH (Women's and Gender history in the U.S. South).
Site redesign (more streamlining than anything). The code underneath this site is a real mess. And the CSS. Oh boy. I shudder to think how bloated it is.
Learn more PHP/MySQL.
Work on my history e-journal database. Have to learn more PHP first (see previous).
Submission for the CSS ZenGarden.

Not too much, but I'll certainly be busy.

RSS Versus Design

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 24 May 2005 10:04:22 EDT

A recent discussion over at Whitespace has me thinking a little more about an inherent tension I see in web design weblogs: RSS feeds versus pleasing graphic design on sites. One one hand, the technology allows us to create beautiful, pleasing sites that integrate graphics and information. On the other hand, it seems that people, more often than not, choose not to visit a site and instead "read" the weblog through RSS feeds such as NetNewsWire, Firefox's Sage plugin (which I use) or some other reader. Is there a way to balance the two? Is it worth the effort to create a visually appealing website when visitors will more than likely read the content through an RSS feed?

This reminds me somewhat of how historians write. There's always a tension between writing history to "get to the point," so to speak, and writing an enjoyable, literary text. I mentioned over at Caleb's site that I've never had a professor tell me to read a book cover to cover in sequence. Rather, I've been taught in numerous class how not to do that, but instead how to skim a book for important points and the holy grail of academic history: the thesis statement. Going even further, I've been taught how to write like that as well.

It ultimately depends on the goals of the reader, and the writer/designer. Do I want to simply get the information quickly (RSS feeds), or do I want to enjoy the "literary" and the art of a quality web design? Likewise, do I want to get the information quickly in a journal article or book (read the intro and conclusion, skim the chapter intros, et cetera), or do I want to enjoy the "literary" aspects of a quality history book (read cover to cover, pages in sequence, et cetera)? Is it possible to have both? I think so, but it seems to occur rarely. It's a tension I've been dealing with in my work as a web designer and as a historian, and I'm sure it's not going away any time soon.

So, out of curiosity, how do you, good reader, choose to read the content on this site? Do you use a news reader to get the RSS feeds, or do you visit this site directly? And, more importantly, how do you read other sites that that you read more often than ClioWeb?

Recently Arrived Books

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 22 May 2005 17:39:58 EDT

Some books that I ordered from Amazon.com

Susan Strasser, Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash
Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America
Lawrence Glickman, eds., Consumer Society in American History: A Reader
Daniel Horowitz, The Morality of Spending: Attitudes Toward the Consumer Society in America, 1875-1940
Suellen Hoy, Chasing Dirt: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness

Lots of good reading for the next few weeks. I'm including these books in my minor field survey on U.S. cultural history. I'm almost finished with a really good book by Michael Zakim, entitled Ready-Made Democracy: A History of Men's Dress in the American Republic, 1760-1860, which I plan to review in a post sometime this week.

A Fresh Reinstall

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 22 May 2005 11:02:44 EDT

After trying to figure out why some comments on my site failed to show up on my blog, I decided a new install of Wordpress might do the trick. We'll see how that goes, but for now I have to edit some of the code to get things looking like they used to. Watch for poorly behaving PHP and CSS, each with its own set of problems.

Blog Mates

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 16 May 2005 21:44:36 EDT

First it was James and his blog. Then it was Orals Fixation. Now Sheila Brennan is blogging under a subdomain of ClioWeb. Sheila is also a PhD student in history at GMU, and she's working on "material culture, memory, and history museums" over the summer.

It's awesome to be sharing some server space with some really bright people. Hopefully their blogging will nudge me into writing a little more. In any case, jump over to their blogs if you get tired of seeing the colors on this site changing every five minutes.

Orals Fixation

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 16 May 2005 10:53:51 EDT

James broke the news to me this morning that our groupblog, Orals Fixation, has been added to the Cliopatria blogroll. I've been meaning to introduce it to everyone, but I seem to be a little too late since someone at Cliopatria found it.

James Halabuk, Stephanie Hurter, and I started Orals Fixation as a blog that serves as a sounding board or "thinking out loud" forum as we study for our major field oral exam in U.S. history. James, Stephanie, and I are taking our exams in the next few months. James is the administrator of the blog.

We're doing the brunt of our group study sessions over the summer, so plan to stop by the blog to see what we're up to and offer any advice you might have for some nervous but optimistic history PhD students.

James has a Weblog

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 14 May 2005 15:03:38 EDT

My buddy James Halabuk, also a history PhD student at George Mason, has started a blog called Just So You Know. His first post, TV as RorschachÇƒ? expands on his believe "that you could tell a lot about somemone by looking at their record collection (update: iPod playlist), knowing what they watch on television or at the movies, or by looking at their bookshelves." Indeed, my friend. In that spirit, here are a few of my favorites:

Movies

Memento -- Basically about a guy trying to avenge the murder of his wife, but the guy suffers from short-term memory loss. Meaning he forgets things fifteen minutes after they happen.

Snatch -- Probably the only Guy Ritchie-directed movie I like, and it's one of those rare movies starring Brad Pitt that I like.

The Matrix Trilogy -- I didn't like the third movie as much as the first two, but a great set of movies. The anime series is also great.

Books

Joseph Heller's Catch-22 -- I have a place in my heart for Yossarian, the main character.

Nancy Cohen's Murder of Helen Jewett -- In quite possibly the most entertaining, most well-researched history monograph that I've ever read, Cohen investigates the sensationalized murder of a New York prostitute in the nineteenth century.

TV Shows

America's Funniest Home Videos -- Yup, I watch it every chance I get. There's nothing funnier to me than people acting totally foolish and clueless.

Seinfeld -- I tend to identify with George. There's always some really important detail that I miss that makes something go wrong during my day, or some assumption I have that is completely wrong.

Band of Brothers -- It's really a miniseries instead of a TV show, but that's one reason why I like it. Based on Stephen Ambrose's book of the same title.

Emergency Teeth Picking

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 14 May 2005 10:02:30 EDT

I'm reading Henry Willis's Etiquette, and the Usages of Society (New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, Publishers, 1866) as part of my dissertation research, and one passage is particularly interesting:

Do not pick your teeth at table, except in an emergency; as however satisfactory a practice it may be to yourself, to witness it is not at all pleasant. (29)

I can't imagine what kind of emergency Willis is talking about. In all seriousness, though, what would be an acceptable emergency that would allow one to ignore the rules of etiquette and pick one's teeth? If there are such emergencies, did any actually occur? Does anyone have any ideas or examples?

Review of Digital Medievalist

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 12 May 2005 16:51:11 EDT

Digitalmedievalist.org (http://digitalmedievalist.org/journal.cfm).

Digitalmedievalist.org, a community for "medievalists working with digital media" provides news and resources to scholars, students, and the general public about medieval studies. Their free-to-read journal features seven articles that address some aspect of the current state of medieval history on the web. Two articles in particular provide good reading for anyone interested in history and new media. Peter Robinson's Current issues in making digital editions of medieval textsor, do electronic scholarly editions have a future? makes an assessment of the current state of making digital scholarly editionsprimarily scholarly editions of medieval primary sources such as The Canterbury Tales or_Beowulf_. Robinson argues that while tools for publishing electronic editions are much more difficult to understand, tools for publishing print editions are getting easier to use. Kathryn Wymer's Why Universal Accessibility Should Matter to the Digital Medievalist provides a solid introduction to the necesssity of accessible, usable design for digital history projects. Other articles focus on specific digital projects, such as Hoyt N. Duggan's article A Progress Report on the Piers Plowman Electronic Archive, or the use of digital tools in examining specific historical questions, as Kevin Kiernan does in The source of the Napier fragment of Alfred's Boethius.

Each article in the journal has a similar structure. Traditional superscripted footnotes hyperlink to anchored citations at the bottom of each article. Each paragraph of the articles is numbered, which takes the place of pages in print articles and makes referencing specific passages in the articles somewhat easier. A logical next-step would be to make the pagagraph numbers anchored links, so that linking to specific paragraphs is more efficient.

While the Digial Medievalist mimics some of the features already present in online journals, the organization itself also utilizes two distinctive tools that have not been used: RSS feeds and a Wiki. The RSS feed provides up-to-date news on the Digital Medievalist organization, news in the field of medieval history and literature, and conference and journal call-for-papers. The RSS posts about the Digitalmedievalist journal itself do not include the full text of available articles are limited only to a succinct table of contents of the articles with links to each article. The wiki currently focuses on various terms and acronyms relevant to digital media (e.g. XML, TEI, DTD, SGML). Given the topics of articles in the inaugural issue, the wiki's focus on technical terms seems appropriate, though I hope that the Digital Medievalist expands the use of their wiki to include terms, people, places, and events that are relevant to medieval history. A wiki that includes technical and historical terms would help Digital Medievalist in their quest to bring medieval studies and new media closer together and help their readership master two fields important to the Digital Medievalist organization.

A small criticism: The designers of the website might take Kathryn Wymer's suggestion that "poor choices in the use of color and other graphic elements fail to take into account readers who are colorblind or have other visual impairments" when they decided how to style visited links in the journal's contents. When one clicks on an article, then goes back to the journal contents page, the article's title link looks much like the rest of the text, with no indication of a link. Simply keeping the titled underlined, like standard links, would help.

The first issue of Digital Medievalist is a great start. I look forward to seeing how the project develops further. *[RSS]: Really Simple Syndication

May 9 Links

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 09 May 2005 15:52:27 EDT

San Francisco/History/Time/Place -- An open index of topics related to the history of San Francisco. Somewhat similar to a Wiki, but not exactly.

Speaking of wikis, check out the Wikibooks, "a collection of open-content textbooks that anyone can edit." On the History bookshelf, there are texts on Global Human histories, National histories, and Specialized histories, among others. Not sure if any professors will be assigning these textbooks for classes instead of print texts, but it seems like an interesting read nonetheless.

Virtual Vaudeville -- Featured in the inagural issue of the journal Vectors, Virtual Vaudeville takes you through a recreated vaudeville performance in 1895. The site looks sharp, but you need Shockwave to view the multimedia features of the site. I'm not sure about the historical utility of the site yet.

A History of the Graphic User Interface (GUI) -- "Like many developments in the history of computing, some of the ideas for a GUI computer were thought of long before the technology was even available to build such a machine. One of the first people to express these ideas was Vannevar Bush. In the early 1930s he first wrote of a device he called the "Memex," which he envisioned as looking like a desk with two touch screen graphical displays, a keyboard, and a scanner attached to it."

The PAPER is Done

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 09 May 2005 15:29:53 EDT

I turned my doctoral research seminar paper in today. As I've expressed previously, I don't plan to pursue the topic for my dissertation. But I think it's a good paper, and I plan to work on it a little more and either publish in here on my site or send it to a journal. The paper, entitled "In Close Proximity: Race, Naturalism, and Law in Virginia, 1900s-1920s," explores the inherent contradictions seeing white supremacy as a fact of nature and having to codify and enforce that superiority through law.

In the meantime, I'm working on a review of the electronic journal DigitalMedievalist.org (not to be confused with Digital Medievalist: Scela), which appears to have some good things going on. Other potential reviews of websites, books, movies, and articles are in the works. Hopefully I'll have the DigitalMedievalist review up by tomorrow.

History Links

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 05 May 2005 15:55:05 EDT

How to Perform Strong Man Stunts -- Published in 1956. My favorite lines: "These stunts will make you the life of the party, as well as greatly admired. At the same time, the fun you enjoy from these performances will build your body stronger and peppier, giving you a never-ending thrill in your increasing might and muscle."

They Still Draw Pictures -- The University of California at San Diego's Special Collections site on children's drawings from the Spanish Civil War. I'll probably review this site further after I look at it more closely.

Trousers tell why Napoleon Died -- From the BBC news.

The women's petition against coffee (1674) -- Not sure if this is a real document or a forgery...does anyone else know? It's amusing either way.

Happy Birthday Jill

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 04 May 2005 13:49:43 EDT

Today is my wife Jill's birthday. So, along with the big chocolate chip cookie and presents I'm giving her I thought I'd share with the world how special and wonderful my wife is.

Jill teaches sixth grade in Fairfax, and has been teaching for six years now. Each year she gives 110% to her students and her colleagues. I've never met a teacher so concerned about the well-being of students. She expresses compassion and professionalism in everything she does as a teacher. Those that know Jill are probably aware of her unbelievable work ethic. On a typical day, she works twelve to fourteen hours, running her classroom, in meetings, then after school working on lessons and assignments for the following day or week. Parents whose students are in Jill's class have no idea how lucky their kids are. Her dedication is inspiring, and I can only hope to be half the teacher that she is.

I've pretty much dragged her across the state of Virginia as I pursued my graduate degrees, and while moving and changing scenes has been sometimes difficult she's always supported and encouraged me. I truly feel that I couldn't go on as well as I do without her. I want to be like her in so many ways, but most of all I want to have her sense of dedication, her honesty, and her love for life. Jill always picks me up when I stumble and she has loved me unconditionally since we met nearly five years ago.

So today I'll give her some presents in some fruitless attempt to convey materially the appreciation and love I feel for her in my heart. Thank you, Jill, for sharing your life with me. Happy birthday, and I love you.

-- Jerm

Tinkering Under the Hood

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 03 May 2005 22:39:42 EDT

I got the itch again to tweak some things on my site. I've mentioned my interest in tagging my posts in previous entries, and I finally found a great Wordpress plug-in that makes it simple: Jerome's Keywords. So for the last hour or so I've been trying to figure out how to get rid of all the categories I had and focus on tagging my posts. So, one summer project is going back through all of my previous posts and tagging them.

I still think that categories are useful, but I'm using them in a slightly different way. Instead of having categories on topics, I have four basic categories on the type or format of the post: Editorials, Research, Reviews, and Personal. Editorials will be posts on current events, news, et cetera. Research posts will be on, you guessed it, research. I plan for these to be "thinking out loud" kind of posts as I embark on my dissertation research (and other projects) this summer. My Reviews posts will be serious attempts at reviewing books, movies, journal articles, and websites. And, since blogging inevitably involves some kind of personal rant, I have a Personal category.

Anymore I convince myself that making changes to how my site works will motivate me to actually ADD CONTENT to the site, kinda like how I think that rearranging my desk or other workspace will give me a fresh start. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We'll see what happens in the next few weeks. Reading through my posts I get the impression that I'm wandering aimlessly, that my blog doesn't have a definite purpose or make a contribution to the blogosphere. I hope that by giving my posts more clearly defined purposes (reviews, editiorials, research notes) that I can get a better sense of what I want to write. Thus, the title of this post"Tinkering Under the Hood"alludes not only to the structural changes of my site but also to the "tinkering" that I'm doing inside my brain.

Some Conferences

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 03 May 2005 08:06:15 EDT

The American Studies Graduate Students' Committee at the University of Austin, Texas is hosting a conference entitled "Defining 'American' Values." Here's the call for papers.

The Virginia Forum, which will take place in April 2006, hopes to confront the lack of venues available for discussion on all aspects of Virginia history. I plan to submit a paper to this conference, either on a history of "clean-up" weeks in Virginia's cities or a shortened version of my doctoral research seminar paper.

Dissertation Topics

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 27 Apr 2005 15:20:17 EDT

Now that the semester is winding down I've been exploring some potential topics for my dissertation. All of them will, more than likely, focus on nineteenth-century U.S., and none of them (as far as I know) will discuss segregation law. I've been doing work on segregation law for about two years now, and while I still think more work can be done on the history of segregation, I'm a little eager to branch out (even slightly). Part of my hesitation to move away from segregation history is a matter of comfort: I'm familiar with the historiography on race and segregation, so doing a different topic requires that I move somewhat out of my comfort zone. But I need to move out of my comfort zone.

My first idea, and the one I'm leaning toward most, is doing something on the history of privacy. Tom Ewing, a history professor from Virginia Tech, suggested that I look into it, and the readings that I've been doing as part of my cultural history minor have been relevant to the topic.

Another idea for my dissertation is a historical analysis of cleanliness and filth in the nineteenth century. I noticed that as I found early twentieth-century newspaper articles espousing the virtues of pure white blood, I also found beside those articles advertisements for medicines that would "purify and cleanse the blood." It seemed an interesting and paradoxical juxtaposition of natural white purity and medical, scientific means of purifying the body. I think a look at ideas of purity would be one aspect of many that made up America's infatuation with cleanliness and filth.

I'd also like to do some work on the emergence of the celebrity in the nineteenth century. I've always been interested in the way people become celebrities and how people promote or publicize themselves as celebrities, so it seemed like an interesting topic to pursue.

Of course, I'll probably end up exploring all of these topics in one way or another in my dissertation, whichever one I finally decide to do. A history of privacy would benefit from a discussion on how a celebrity's private life was used to promote a play or book. Similarly, one could make the argument that "privacy" in the nineteenth century emerged as a way to hide yet legitimate "dirty" taboo, or transgressive behavior.

I still have to do a lot of exploratory research before deciding on a final topic, but I feel confident in having a few choices. I've started readings lists on all of these topics, but if you have any suggestions for readingprimary and/or secondary sourcesfeel free to throw them my way.

Great Carnival, and Other News

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 16 Apr 2005 10:10:55 EDT

Jonathan Dresner has composed a great History carnival this time around. Go check it out. Putting the submissions into conference panels is especially nice.

A draft of THE PAPER is due this Thursday. Dr. Zagarri liked my introduction, so that's boosted my confidence in the project. Once I finish the project I plan to put the paper somewhere on the site, perhaps in an effort to practice what I preach. We'll see how that goes.

History in the News

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 09 Apr 2005 16:12:38 EDT

"One Hundred Years of Uncertainty" -- Opinion piece about Albert Einstein's "miracle year," in which he wrote four influential papers.
"Confederate Heritage Group Upset with Alabama Governor" -- For stating that slavery was a cause of the Civil War. A cause, not the cause. I can respect some arguments that claim that slavery was one among several causes of the war, but to dismiss it altogether is ridiculous. The disputed section, according to the CNN story, read "Our recognition of Confederate history also recognizes that slavery was one of the causes of the war, an issue in the war, was ended by the war, and slavery is hereby condemned..."
"Japan History Text Angers E-Asia"

Google Maps

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 08 Apr 2005 16:39:46 EDT

Pretty cool.

Now, look at where I currently live:

Now, look at where I grew up.

Update

Josh pointed me to a Flickr site where Google Maps images have been tagged with memory map.

Blogs as Scholarship, Part 2

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 07 Apr 2005 21:11:40 EDT

One of the highlights of the April 2005 edition of the AHA Perspectives is Roy Rosenzweig's "Should Historical Scholarship Be Free?". Roy argues that because most historical scholarship at the university level is conducted using public money (in some form or another), that scholarship should be made free to the public, thus decreasing what John Willinsky calls the "secondary digital divide" between scholars and the public. Roy correctly identifies a hypocritical tendency among historians who dismiss much of the internet as trash yet do little to create free, accessible, quality history content on the Internet. Moreover, Roy explains that gating information actually costs more than making information free.

I've mentioned in a few posts that blogs could be useful as a form of scholarly communication. Bloggers frequently have conversations on their respective blogs, and can extend their conversations through the comments. Services similar to Technorati can help us determine how many times a blog entry or author gets linked, thus helping to measure the impact a particular author and his/her work has had. Free, open access combined with sophisticated searching and tagging can help "authors gain greater visibility, a bigger audience, and more impact.". Incoming links, authority, and relevance can all be measured (though not without some caveats), but only if the information is free and easily disseminated.

Blogging can serve as a kind of "self-archiving," a strategy that Roy discusses in his article. It can also take the form of public book writing, as Josh Greenburg has discussed. The point of both of these strategies (and any other that might be used with blogging) is that, as I've offered before, blogging can easily serve as a medium for serious scholarship if we choose to use it that way. While I agree with the points of Unfogged and Miriam Elizabeth Bernstein, the counterargument I would make is that it's not the blogging medium itself that lacks scholarly qualities but the way we, as authors, choose to use the blog medium. Even in this post I've chosen to write a rather quick, reactionary post. But the great thing about blogging is that we can choose to do both reactionary posts and longer, more thoughtful essays. *[AHA]: American Historical Association

A Few Updates

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 05 Apr 2005 00:36:01 EDT

In case you hadn't noticed, the right sidebar is up on the main page of my site. I kinda missed it, so I brought it back. I plan to make a few improvements with the links on the side, so stay tuned.

You'll also notice that the sidebar goes away on the inner pages, like the Blogging category (or any category), or posts from any month in the archives. This is all thanks to the Conditional Tags that come with Wordpress 1.5. I basically have a separate stylesheet that "hides" the sidebar with CSS; the content itself doesn't actually go away. I'm not sure if this is the best approach, so I'll be playing around with it over the next few days.

While we're talking about Wordpress, I've been curious about tagging my weblog entries instead of categories, like MtDewVirus has been doing. That's still a little ways down on my To-Do list, but I'm looking into it. It seems to be a logical progression considering that tagging information seems to be the way to go.

Updates

04/05/05. 9:45 am: Apparently this isn't working in Firefox. I'm fixing it now.

04/05/05, 10:15 am: I switched back to a sidebar-less site, until I get this figured out.

04/05/05, 3:15 pm: I dunno why, but the site is fixed now. I deleted the files on my server and transfered archived copies back onto the server. New rule for Jeremy: When editing my site, use a test folder or some copy other than the primary file on the site. I should write these rules down somewhere, because writing them down will OBVIOUSLY make me follow them. (Sure, sure, I hear you say.)

Interesting Graduate Student Conference

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 04 Apr 2005 14:37:03 EDT

Graduate students at the University of Connecticut are hosting a graduate student conference entitled "Coming to Our Senses: Rediscovering Early America." The full call for papers is below:

James L. and Shirley A. Draper Graduate Student Conference on Early American Studies

November 10-12, 2005

Call for Papers

Early America not only looks different but smells, feels, sounds and tastes different thanks to a burgeoning new literature on the history of the senses. Recent works demonstrate the significance of the senses for society and culture, as has the scholarship of our distinguished keynote speaker Rhys Isaac, author of The Transformation of Virginia and the recent Landon CarterÇƒÙs Uneasy Kingdom. Reflecting this developing interest in how the senses mediate perceptions of selfhood and the environment, the University of Connecticut History Department and the American Antiquarian Society invite graduate students to submit paper proposals for the inaugural James L. and Shirley A. Draper Graduate Student Conference on Early American Studies, to be held in Storrs, Connecticut, and Worcester, Massachusetts. This conference welcomes related research and encourages interdisciplinary approaches dealing with the areas now comprising the United States, the Americas and the Atlantic World from the sixteenth through early nineteenth centuries. Paper topics might include but are not limited to:

The role of the senses in shaping perceptions of humanity, the encounters between diverse people in the Americas

Sensuality, sexuality and gendered conceptions of sensation

Cultural aspects of sense history, including foodways, fashion, music, speech and other soundways

Sensory perspectives on religious, spiritual and other transformative experiences

Metaphors of sensory experience as depicted in language, print, text and visual images

Sensory dimensions of material culture, consumption and aesthetic notions of taste and style

Submission Guidelines:

All submissions must be received by April 30, 2005, and notifications of acceptance will be made by June 1, 2005. Interested graduate students should submit a 200- to 300-word abstract and a brief C.V. Please submit materials electronically in Word format and include Çƒ?Draper Conference on Early American StudiesÇƒ? in the subject line.

Please send proposals or comments to:

Patrick G. Blythe (patrick.blythe AT uconn DOT edu)

If I had time, I would submit a paper on perceptions of filth and cleanliness (my new favorite research topic). I still might, given how progress on THE PAPER goes this week. Nevertheless, it seems like a great conference, so pass the word to whoever might be interested.

In other news: Alison Landsberg, who's done some terrific work on prosthetic memory, has agreed to be my second reader for my Cultural History and Theory minor field. Now I just have to write the minor field statement. I'm way behind on my New Media minor field, so I need to get on that as well.

Update

Here's a link to the Call for Papers at H-Net

April 2005 Common-Place

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 02 Apr 2005 13:12:42 EST

In case you haven't already seen it, the newest edition of Common-Place is up. A few good articles are below:

"History Made Me Liberal" by Jeffrey L. Pasley -- My favorite lines: "What is the world coming to when political scientists start rating presidents? Next the historians will start telling the kids that the Indians were here first or something."
"Legal History and the Material Culture of the Law" by Michael Hoeflich -- A review of Martha J. McNamara's From Tavern to Courthouse: Architecture & Ritual in American Law, 1685-1860.
"Family Values: Lessons in Material Culture" by Martha Brogan -- A great article about discovery and family history.

History Carnival 5

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 01 Apr 2005 15:04:05 EST

I'm grateful to host the fifth edition of the History Carnival, but also very nervous at the prospect of organizing one after so many great carnivals. I certainly have a renewed respect for all of the past carnival hosts. So, without further delay, on to the Carnival!

Primary sources. They're the heart and soul of history. I'm fortunate to have had exposure to the study of primary sources in my high school and undergraduate education, but Melinama at Pratie Place observes that "in long-ago high school history classes, we weren't exposed to primary sources. Did they think we couldn't handle them? We didn't read the entertainingly crabby letters written by Jefferson and Adams, we read bland textbook recaps." Melinama lets us know why she loves primary sources, and why they're should be an important part of history education, in Where Did This Come From? Part 2. Eb at Delayed Reaction reminds us that "the value of reading documents not just for what they (intentionally) say about a particular topic but also for what clues they (unintentionally) provide about the larger context of everyday life in which they were created." Eb's post American Languages looks at an advertisement for Uncle Tom's Cabin and asks questions about the history of language.

While we're on the theme of language and words, check out the great post at Chapati Mystery by Sepoy, Word of the Day: Termagant. You might also be interested in how a seventeenth-century bishop named John Wilkins tried "to provide a structured classification for every possible noun" in Bishop Wilkins' Ark, a post by misteraitch at Giornale Nuovo. misteraitch has some great images of Bishop Wilkins' Essay Towards a Reach Character, and Philosophical Language, published in 1688.

In Creation of Canadian Identity (Part 1), Pete at Before Dawn begins what promises to be a great mini-series on the historical development of Canadian identity.

John Emerson at Idiocentrism wrote The coming of the Age of Iron, a review of Wertime and Muhly, eds. The Coming of the Age of Iron (1980) and The End of the Bronze Age by Robert Drews.

At Brian's Study Breaks, Brian Ulrich keeps us up-to-date about his research on the Second Ibadhi Imamate.

Several bloggers have been concerned with the problems and possibilities of what Jonathan Dresner has called "attempts to systematize that qualitative epistemology we call history." Rana at Frogs and Ravens takes a look at Turner's Frontier Thesis in The F-Word (and no, it's not feudalism this time). Jonathan at Frog in a Well explores the use of historical analogy in a discussion of Renaissance Japan.

In a similar thread, Bede's Journal discusses the idea that All History is Fiction. Hugo Holbling at Studi Galileiani responds to Bede's post with Rhetoric and the Scientific Revolution.

While Another Damned Medievalist highlighted a few posts about womens history, a few more that wrapped up Women's History Month deserve some attention. Yvonne DeVita at Blogcritics discusses Amelia Bloomer and women's dress in Women in History: Seneca Falls. Sharon Howard at Early Modern Notes has posted on Alice Clark and her Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (1919) in Alice Clark, Working Women's Historian, and the what and why of women's and gender history in Women's History and Gender History: What and Why?.

Finally, lets take a look at the use of texts in history. Rhine River posts about using Tacitus in the classroom in a post entitled Tacitus. In Teaching Texts, Caleb McDaniel reminds us that at the same time historians must teach students about the context in which texts were produced, we should also be mindful of the importance of how texts work. Caleb's post is a response to Little Professor's post Questions Still Unanswered.

Have fun reading the posts, and look forward to the sixth History Carnival, which will be hosted by Jonathan Dresner at Cliopatria on April 15. Send submissions to dresner AT hawaii DOT edu.

Updates

I forgot to add another of Hugo Holbling's posts. Galileo and the Bible discusses changes in the way the Catholic Church interpreted the Bible, who was allowed to "meaningfully interpret the Bible," and the impact this would have on Galileo's work. Hugo's post is an excerpt of a larger article.

Updates and History Carnival Notice

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 31 Mar 2005 12:10:09 EST

Things have been slow around ClioWeb for a while since I've been doing research for my doctoral research seminar paper. From here until the end of the semester I will lovingly refer to that project as THE PAPER. I have a few ideas about the paper brewing in my head that I'm planning to share in the next week or two, so prepare to be even more bored than you were without having to read any posts on here.

The next edition of the History Carnival will go on as planned tomorrow. So keep the recommendations coming in, and look for the post tomorrow.

History 300 Student Weblogs

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 28 Mar 2005 10:08:11 EST

While I'm taking about Paula, her Historical Methods class (Hist 300) uses weblogs. There are some great posts among the students. Here's a list:

If you have time, read a few of the blogs and provide some comments. The class focuses on children's history, and the students have some great research projects in mind.

Paula Petrik's Presentation at the OAH

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 28 Mar 2005 09:19:00 EST

Paula Petrik is giving a presentation at the 2005 OAH meeting. Her presentation is entitled "Picture This! Images, Visualization, and Design in History", and she has a blog with polls on a variety of history websites. She'd like to have more poll data, so I've reprinted her request for participants below:

Simply put, I need more folks to take a few polls; it takes all of two minutes. Readers simply need to look and vote. The polls and intro can be found here:

http://www.archiva.net/oah/index.htm.

If readers have additional time, they might wish to make a comment or two on the panel blog about the examples. The blog can be found here:

http://historytalk.typepad.com/picturethis/.

Readers might even wish to read the blog comments; some of them are very funny and insightful. Readers need not comment on all of them but, if they would write a sentence or two on the examples of their choosing, I would appreciate it. But they need not feel obliged to comment.

Thank you,

Paula

So, if you have a few minutes to spare (or even if you don't), take a look at what Paula's put together, answer the polls, and take a look around the blog. It should be a great presentation, so if you get a chance you should also stop by her session at the OAH this year.

*[OAH]: Organization of American Historians

Curiosities from my Del.icio.us Account

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 22 Mar 2005 08:42:42 EST

I love del.icio.us. It's a great way to find interesting sites and share them. I've only tagged a few sites so far, which you can see on my account. I thought I'd share a few on my account.

Girl Cooties -- An analysis by Debra Doyle.
Writing for Google -- Interesting post from Daring Fireball.
Historical Event Markup ~~Language~~ and Linking Project -- A project using XML to allow strong connections among history-related material on the internet. *[XML]: eXtensible Markup Language

History Carnival: Call for Submissions

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 22 Mar 2005 08:40:49 EST

I've already received a few, but feel free to send in some more. When you send something, please type something in the Subject line that refers to the History Carnival, like "History Carnival Suggestion", so I'll know it's not spam for viagra or online poker. I'll pick my brain to come up with something catchy for April Fool's, but don't expect much. If you have any ideas, feel free to throw them my way.

Aged Techniques with Photoshop

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 08 Mar 2005 11:29:19 EST

I found some good Photoshop tutorials for creating "aged" or "worn" looks. See below:

Basic Background.
Marble Backgrounds. Using the basic background tutorial, this page shows you how to make a cracked marble background.
Old-Style Cloud Effects -- My favorite among these. The finish project is really cool.
That Wiked Worn Look: The Series -- Great set of tutorials from Cameron Moll.

I'm planning to use a few of these techniques as I'm designing my CSS Zen Garden submission that I'm modeling on a WPA poster. I'm tentatively calling it "Tilling the Soil".

Links on the Past and the Future

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 07 Mar 2005 19:41:14 EST

" A Negro League of Their Own: Union Station Exhibit Pays Homage to Black Baseball Players."

"Fossil find could be first bipedal human ancestor.".

"The Forgotten First Step Toward Freedom.".

The Internet Revolution has Little to do with Technology. -- Steve Garrity on how the internet is a participatory medium, one that requires some thought and input on the user's end. "...when you look at some of the fundamental ideas behind the web, a system where the power lies at the ends and there is no real centralization, it is easy to see how this could affect your general mindset." Another quote: "They have access to the producers of much of the media they consume. In many cases the word consume is inadequate to describe the activity and participate may be a better term." I still wonder how much people actually participate on the web, but the differentiation between participation and consumption is something I'd like to explore in more depth.

New York Public Library Digital Gallery. -- Great site with lots of good content. Among my favorite sections are "Classic 6:" New York City Apartment Building Living, 1880s-1910s.

"Reading Cereal Boxes: Pre-packaging History and Indigenous Identities," in Americana.

RSS Feeds for Online Journals

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 07 Mar 2005 12:12:05 EST

Oxford Journals Online does something pretty cool with their journals: RSS feeds. Specific journals, like The English Historical Review, American Literary History, and French History have RSS feeds for their current issue and for past issues.

Even though this is a great idea, there are two problems with the feeds. First, to access the journals, you need to be a subscriber (and the subscription isn't free), or get access through a subscribing institution. George Mason is a subscriber to Oxford Journals Online, which allows me to access the RSS feeds. Two, the feeds only give you the title of the articles, not the full text of the articles or even an abstract of the articles. This may be a problem on my end; I openly profess ignorance about how RSS feeds work.

The idea to have RSS feeds, however, is great. Most online journals, history or not, really aren't that easy to find and access. And the onslaught of information that comes at us on the web makes it harder to keep up with what's new. RSS feeds allow us to see when sites are updated and look at a glance to see if anything new is interesting. RSS feeds are essential to keep up with the number of blogs I read. If online journals want to compete with weblogs for attention (they are, at this point, far behind), then they need to keep up with the latest developments in web publishing. RSS feeds would be a huge help, if done correctly, for journals.

History in the News

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 06 Mar 2005 21:18:31 EST

"Historian Claims Nazis Did Nuclear Tests". Via Kottke.

"Putting God Back Into American History," by David Kirkpatrick. New York Times (registration required but free). Via Spinning Clio.

The Way We Were: Coming of Age in Postwar Washington, a review of Barbara Holland's When All the World Was Young. Washington Post (registration is free but required).

The Fabric of Our Lives, a review by Ira Berlin of Stephen Yafa's Big Cotton: How a Humble Fiber Created Fortunes, Wrecked Civilizations, and Put America on the Map. Washington Post (registration is free but required). I saw this book in Borders this weekend and wanted to sit down to read it. It seems to fit into the same thread as other books that use one object or product to frame their account of history. Take Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, or Salt: A World History, both by Mark Kurlansky. I read Cod a few years back, and thought was alright.

Good Historical Fonts

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 28 Feb 2005 23:11:09 EST

P22 Type Foundry recently announced a new series of fonts, Staunton Scripts, part of the Sherwood Type Collection. P22 already has some great fonts ideal for history websites, and this collection adds a few more. Here are a few of my favorites:

1722 Roman -- "An historical font based on early 18th century printing, with the visual effect of uneven inking and indifferent presswork on handmade paper. Ideal for evoking the period. Effective in continuous text setting or in display sizes."

Chatham -- "Chatham is part of the "Staunton Script Family" of fonts designed by Ted Staunton for his historic novel centered around a family bible and the handwritten annotation through 7 generations."

Grenville.

Roanoke Script -- "A hand-written script inspired by 18th century forms. The visual effect is of a steel nib pen writing on uncalendered paper."

Virginian.

I'm always looking for more fonts, so let me know if you have any favorites.

Problem with Comments

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 28 Feb 2005 11:36:28 EST

A little PHP bug that I'm currently trying to fix. Comments will be back up soon, I hope.

Images of the Crowd during the French Revolution

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 26 Feb 2005 21:30:41 EST

The February 2005 issue of the American Historical Review includes an article by Jack Censer and Lynn Hunt that discusses their latest online project, Imaging the French Revolution. The project is a collaboration of several historians who specialize in the French Revolution and visual culture

Dr. Censer and Dr. Hunt have already put together a digital project on the French Revolution called Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, an educational resource that contains images, songs, maps, and secondary historical commentary. Imaging the French Revolution, however, is a venture into online collaborative scholarship, an effort not only to make revolutionary images accessible to the public, but also to see how different historians interpret the same sample of images and post their interpretations in one project.

The Image Tool is really cool. Here site visitors can select any of the images available on the site and examine them with a variety of tools. Users can zoom in on the images to examine fine details. The Image Tool also gives users the ability to change the opacity of the image, make the image transparent, and layer different images to see similarities and differences in the images.

I'm not certain how the Online Discussion took place. Was it by email? Instant messaging? This is actually the part of the site I find most interesting, where the real "collaboration" comes out. In fact, the Essays section actually says that the historians involved "[profitted] from these discussions" and used the discussions to modify the essays before actually publishing them on the site. Like weblogging, the individual historian retained his/her individual identity, but profitted from sharing their findings and being open to comments. The only difference, of course, is that unlike with weblogs posts, the public only gets to see the finished project after all the commenting and sharing is done.

I've got a few thoughts on this site, on the nature of online scholarship, the role of weblogging, and collaboration that I need to work out in future posts. In the meantime take some time to look around Imaging the French Revolution.

Daily Links: American Memory Collections

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 26 Feb 2005 10:00:53 EST

I'm going to try something a little different today. The links below are to various collections in the new American Memory site at the Library of Congress. American Memory has always provided good access to a variety of historical resources, but the switch to a better design has made the experience with American Memory easier and more enjoyable. They still have lots of work to do to integrate all the collections into the new design, which you'll see if you click on a few of the links below. To that end, here are a few of my favorite collections in American Memory.

Is Kottke Similar to Public Radio?

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 25 Feb 2005 14:17:32 EST

<sheep>Baahh!</sheep>

"There's no focus here. Donate, and you have no idea (and neither does he, based on what I've seen in his descriptions) what you're going to get. You are to donate because you love him, believe in him. And that's just self-aggrandizement at it's finest." -- From Making Money Online, a post by Angie McKaig.

"I really dig Kottke's term "micropatron" as a way of labeling this phenomenon - it both harkens back to the older, pre-consumption model for are funding and points toward the more distributed nature enabled by the Internet."Buying vs. Tipping in action...(or, Kottke's new gig), a post by Josh Greenburg at his blog Epistemographer.

"We don't reward stupidity here" -- Comment by smackfu at Metafilter.

Like the rest of the the blogging world, I'm intrigued by Kottke's move to quit his day job and focus on his blog, asking Kottke readers to support his endeavor with small donations. As can be expected from such a high-profile blogger as Kottke, his move has sparked a lot of discussion. Comments range from the skeptical to the intrigued, the supportative to the condescending.

I'd like to think of donating to Kottke as similar to donating to public radio. I'll be glad to donate to Kottke, just like I'm glad to donate to public radio and the History News Network. But in the back of my head I do feel some expectation of "more" from Kottke, but I'm not sure what that "more" should be. I'm curious to see how this story develops.

Daily Links

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 25 Feb 2005 12:35:41 EST

The History Channel: No Women Allowed -- Jason Kottke on the lack of women narrators on the History Channel.

The Appalling Indifference to the History of Free Blacks -- By Anita L. Wills.

Online Classical -- A nice-looking design, and lots of content on classical music.

"In D.C., Downloading the Party" -- iPods enable visitors to a DC club to DJ. Via Washington Post (Registration required).

It's Here -- Dave Shea's spill about his new book The Zen of CSS Design. I can't wait to get my copy.

Announcing Wordpress 1.5 -- I've already downloaded and upgraded my install. It's working great. If you're looking around for blog managment system, definitely consider Wordpress.

10 x 10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time. *[DC]: District of Columbia

Daily Photo: My Office

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 24 Feb 2005 21:57:32 EST

It's not much, but I like it. As you can see I'm a little messy.

And, on the shelf across from my desk is my primary bookshelf that contains the books to which I refer most often.

The rest of my books are in boxes in the closet.

Daily Links

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 24 Feb 2005 12:29:41 EST

Dissertation Haiku -- Writing is madness, I tell you. Madness. Maybe it's because I can't write. Control-A and Delete...Control-Z...Control-A and Delete...Control-Z...

Women Working, 1870-1930 -- A new site from the Open Collections Program at Harvard Libraries.

The Carnival of Bad History -- I hope I don't get nominated for it.

Student Blogs for Creating History in New Media -- Paula Petrik teaches a class on history and new media at Mason, and students have blogs where they discuss class assignments and post work. Check out the blogs, and give the students some feedback if you have time.

Top 100 Gadgetts of All Time.

The January 2005 issue of Common Place. The design of this site is sharp, and the content is solid. One of my favorite online history journals.

So You Want to be in Pictures? Tips for the Talking Head -- Carol Berkin discusses how historians should deal with participating in documentary television and film productions.

Announcing a New Category: Daily Links

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 24 Feb 2005 11:56:30 EST

Instead of having interesting outside links on the right side of my weblog, I'm going to start doing what others are doing. I'm putting my outside links in my blog, as an entry in and of itself. I've been tired of the sidebar for a while and, like Dan at SimpleBits, the workarounds for using the title attribute for descriptions of links got kinda weird. Besides, putting the links in a post themselves makes them more prominent, and indirectly motivates me to actually find and read other stuff out there.

Taking Notes: Is There a Better Way? Part 2

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 17 Feb 2005 20:02:56 EST

The past few months have been spend lost in the archives and in dozens--nay, hundreds-- of scholarly monographs and articles in some vain attempt to to establish not only a historiographical and theoretical framework for my work on fear/anxiety and segregation, but also to prepare myself for that seemingly insurmountable hurdle: The Major Field Exam. In the midst of all this personal chaos, I've started to develop a fairly solid (for me anyways) methods for taking notes on secondary sources using the super-cool program Scribe, created by Elena Razlogova.

Scribe allows you to make electronic note cards on a variety of sources, which comes in handy for many different subfields in history. For secondary sources, especially books, I've found it helpful to have three main "types" of cards:

General Card

This card is a catch-all for the entire book, stating concisely the main thesis/argument of the book, the theoretical framework, the historigraphical place or contribution of the book, and the books structure, with brief summaries of each chapter.

Chapter Card

Here I treat the chapter like a mini "book" by going into more detail about the chapter's main question or thesis. I also discuss the organization of the chapter, and specifically state what I think are the most important pros and cons of each chapter.

Points Card

The points card is, as you may have guessed, for specific "points" that the author makes, whether about a particular source, an author's idea that I like (or dislike), or anything specific in the book that I think deserves its own card. I have three basic sections for this card: 1. An exact quote from the book that I find interesting; 2. A paraphrase of the quote, in my own words, so I make sure I understand the quote; 3. My thoughts on the quote (likes/dislikes, ways I can do something similar, et cetera).

Two really great features of Scribe is the ability to apply "keywords" to cards, allowing you to search and display cards based on certain keyword that you've attributed to the card, and the ability to "link" cards together. Thus, I can have a Points Card on, say, Eric Lott's use of cultural hegemony in Love and Theft and link it to a points card I have on Antonio Gramsci's discussion of hegemony as it relates to his ideas on Marxism. Moreover, I can have a number of cards all related in some fashion to "hegemony", and I can make a keyword--hegemony--and put it in all the cards. Then, I can search the keywords and pull up a list of those cards I've specified as related to hegemony.

While this may not work for some people, it seems to be working for me (which is, I guess, the most important part). Having a web design background, hyperlinking makes sense to me, and the lack of a physical card doesn't bother me much. More than this, it's the types of cards that have helped me the most, especially in preparing for my major field exams. I can take a quick look at the General card to get an overview of the book and its relation to other works in the field. I can link cards together, making it easier to join "schools of thought" or historigraphical approaches or anything else that I think important to link. In short, this method is helping me grapple with the increasing about of literature I'm expected to know and helping me organize my research for my dissertation.

History and Geography of Fear

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 23 Jan 2005 20:25:33 EST

A while back I posted about my interests in segregation law and culture, and briefly discussed a map I found. Upon further reflection on the map, and on my recent reading in the history of emotion, I've become very interested in exploring the history and geography of fear as it applied to the culture of segregation.

I'm taking a readings course this semester with Mike O'Malley, entitled "Race, Nationalism, and Fear of the 'Other'," which will not only fulfill my course requirements for my U.S. Cultural History minor field, it will also help broaden my understanding of cultural history and theory as it applies to my interest in race and the history of fear. For this week we're reading Richard Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics, which, from my intitial brief skim of the contents, seems really cool. We're also reading Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America this week. Once I've read both books more closely, I'll make some further obervations here. I had planned to create a new class weblog for the readings course, but since Mike would be the only audience I decided against that.

Wiping off the Dust

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 15 Jan 2005 16:34:35 EST

Yeah, it's been a while, but I think I worked harder over this break than I did this past semester. Most of my time has been spent writing some entries for an upcoming history encyclopedia and two chapters for a new edition of the History Highway, a book edited by Dennis Trinkle and Scott Merriman. Oh yeah, I also visited my family and my wife's family. I'm also glad to have a wireless mouse and keyboard (presents from my brother and aunt, respectively) hooked up to my G5 iMac.

If you haven't already seen it, go look at some of the blog posts that made Sharon's History Carnival #1. It's stuff like this that makes weblogging so cool, and it certainly motivates me to write better entries in my own blog. Thanks, Sharon!

I also finally made the new design of the Western Civilization Webography Project live this past week. If you teach Western Civilization and would like to sign up your class to use the site, contact Dr. Mills Kelly (tkelly7@gmu.edu) for more information.

One more thing. Dr. Paula Petrik and graduate students Kirklin Bateman, Sheila Brennan, and Douglas Mudd, all at George Mason University, created the Electronic Researcher last spring. The January 2005 issue of Perspectives, the AHA's newsmagazine, features an article by the group on their project. It's a great starting point for anyone using electronic tools (cameras, scanners, printers, image editing software and techniques) to collect research materials. *[AHA]: American Historical Association

The Holidays

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 22 Dec 2004 19:41:15 EST

I'll be away until January 2, visiting my parents and my wife's parents. I'll miss my iMac very much, but I'll have my trust old iBook with me. I'd rather avoid the internet than log on using dial-up, though I'm sure my longing for Dooce, Early Modern Notes, SimpleBits, and Homestar Runner will inevitably persuade me to plug the trusty phone line in my iBook's modem.

In any event, I wish everyone a wonderful holiday and a happy new year!

Constitutionality of War

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 15 Dec 2004 17:09:25 EST

There's an interesting thread taking place over at H-Pol, the H-Net listserv for US political history, called the "Constitutionality of War." Discussions like this tend to get pretty heated, but the debate sofar seems civil and engaging. One of the statements in this debate has stood out and has been on my thoughts all day. Brian Dirck, an associate professor at Anderson University, argues that "the formal declaration of war by Congress is dead. We haven't seen it for fifty years, and we likely will never see it again." And, despite his support for the current war in Iraq, Dr. Dirck is rightly uncomfortable with this development. While I hesitate to make as broad a prediction as Dr. Dirck, I do agree that the developments of the last 50 years make the prediction a frightening possibility. I certainly hope not.

Eric Foner on Reconstruction Amendments

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 14 Dec 2004 22:23:01 EST

Over at History Now, Eric Foner has written a nice piece on social history and the Reconstruction Amendments. The piece is not as in-depth as much of his work is on the subject, but it's a concise explanation of how the U.S. Constitution and its amendments have a rich social and cultural history surrounding them.

I've been thinking about doing a project on the ways in which Americans have viewed the Constitution as a symbolic construct instead of a written document explaining the organization and powers of government in the United States. It seems that people have attributed things to the Constituiton that are not contained in them, and invoke the document as a symbol in its entiriety. Moreover, most Americans seem to attribute broad ideological constructs to the Constitution instead of debating the specific contents within the document. Take Amardeep Singh's observations about a recent newspaper article, for example. Americans also invoke catch-phrases like "freedom of speech" or "freedom of religion" frequently without really studying the Constitution and the social/cultural history behind its development. Foner's piece advocates, though not to the degree that I suggest here, that people look more closely at the history behind the document.

Imagining History from the 1870 U.S. Census

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 14 Dec 2004 19:52:34 EST

Rummaging through some old notes in my quest to get organized, I stumbled across a photocopy of an 1870 Census record of Christiansburg, Virginia. I found it while doing work for my undergraduate Historical Methods course. The census list, of course, was hand-written at the time, and while the person(s) who did the census for this particular town were meticulous in filling out the categories properly, the entry for one family, the Rose family, struck me as very interesting, and quite funny. Under the category "occupation", the census-taker, instead of listing occupations for the individual family members, wrote this across all the family's field:

These people live in a cabin like hogs almost naked and without furniture or clothing and perfectly ignorant.

Because southwest Virginia in 1870 was poor (and, compared to the rest of the state, still poor), this isn't suprising. What suprised me at the time was that, despite a number of people in the area having as their occupation "nothing," this was the only family for which the census-taker wrote a more "descriptive" statement. It marks a brief point at which the personality or the experience of the census-taker, and the lives of the subjects, comes out in the census itself, and makes a seemingly impersonal bureaucratic resource more "human" in some way.

I can imagine the encounter from the way the census-taker wrote the information. Unlike most of the other families, the census-taker did not write the members of the Rose family in order by age. I would speculate that he couldn't get that information from them, either because he couldn't understand what they were saying or that they themselves didn't know their own ages. Three of family members' ages were marked out and rewritten, perhaps suggesting that the census-taker or the family members couldn't decide on the exact age. If the census-taker estimated their ages, then it makes sense that they are out of order. This was a family of ten people, and I can imagine them coming in and out of the census-takers view, making the process of putting them in order more difficult. It also seems that the census-taker's handwriting is much more sloppy in the final few family member entries, suggesting to me that the census-taker was stressed or annoyed or otherwise wanting the episode to end as quickly as possible.

Of course I'm speculating on most (if not all) of this. I certainly wouldn't publish this kind of analysis in a book or article, for I would surely be criticized for it. But it does seem useful to imagine how an event or encounter occurred based on some insights and speculations. We discussed this a little in our Documentary class, mostly in relation to Simon Schama. Paula suggested, and I agreed, that speculating about the past is a productive way to ask new questions and think about the past in a different way. I've always found it difficult to use census material, but imagining its subjects in the way I imagined the encounter with the Rose family gives the census a new perspective. It's a useful tool for seeing how communities lived, what kind of people lived near each other, what kinds of jobs they had, et cetera. It's much harder, however, to build human lives out of those relatively brief entries. Every time I look at the census (and lately I've been looking often), I'm always struck by how little I will actually ever know about the lives so monotonously categorized in the census. It's always fun to find out more about those lives, whether in little snippets found within the Census itself or, as is usually the case, in other sources. Since finding that photocopy I've been imagining the conversation the census-taker had with that family.

Daily Photo: Another Picture of Beezer

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 13 Dec 2004 20:27:47 EST

I love my brother. He's just a cool guy. And, he takes funny pictures. Here's one of him riding in a car, on the way to a Dave Matthews Band concert.

Latest News

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 09 Dec 2004 10:46:34 EST

Since I've been absent from my blog for about two week I thought I'd provide a brief look back at what's been going on.

I've been sick since this past Monday. I think I'm almost over it now, but this morning I sneezed so hard that I strained a muscle in my neck. I didn't like doing that.

The Echo redesign is almost ready to go live. I'll put a link to the redesign once it's up and running. I did a little design work on it, very little compared to all the hard (and absolutely fantastic) work that Josh Greenberg, Joan Fragazy, and Rikk Mulligan, among others, have done. My little icons and meager icons for the site are nothing compared to what they've done. Great job!

I promise I'm almost done with the Webography site. It's just little things, like styling tables, moving the PHP around to fit the design, and making the pages as close to being XHTML and CSS valid as humanly possible.

With my Documentary final project almost finished, I'll be able to spend more time on my research for my Doctoral Research Seminar coming in the spring. The final version of my documentary goes live this coming Wednesday, so stay tuned.

Along with my blog writing, my blog reading has been on standby for a few weeks. Some of the highlights I've missed, but I'm sure you've already seen:

Caleb's "Notes for a Philosophy of Teaching" has had me thinking about my own philosophy on teaching. More on that soon...I promise.
Sharon at Early Modern Notes discusses Paula Petrik's student blogs in History 120.
Jason Kottke discusses RSS Advertising.
Eric Meyer has a new version of S5, version 1.1b1. There have been so many changes to this since I last checked in that I'll need to go back through all the version to see what's been happening, but it's a great project. One of my long-term goals is to create online presentations for all of my (future) lectures, freely available online. S5 will help me do it.
Speak Up takes a look at all the ways Ken Jennings penned his name on Jeopardy! during his tenure.

Then, of course, I need to read today's offerings.

[XHTML]: eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language [PHP]: Hypertext Pre-Processor *[CSS]: Cascading Style Sheets

Taking Notes: Is There a Better Way?

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 07 Dec 2004 20:57:56 EST

This probably the longest I've gone without posting since I first started this blog, but I'm not suprised since, as is usually the case at the end of the semester, my workload has increased. I don't attribute it to the structure of my classes or my duties at CHNM, but more to my rather unorganized way of doing things. Between battling off a case of the flu (or something) and working on a few projects, I've come to realize how unorganized I am. The case study for today: Taking notes.

I'm not sure how everyone else takes notes, but I seem to adopt new strategies every week or so for note taking, whether I'm taking notes for a project at work, a research project, a class discussion, or a potential weblog post. I admit to taking copious ammounts of notes on just about everything, but the sad thing is that I have absolutely no idea what to do with them when I'm done. I take notes on everything: 5x8 notebooks, note cards, legal pads, Microsoft Word, Scribe (which, if you haven't heard of it, is a great program), regular spiral-bound notebooks, envelopes, napkins. After I've written something down I spend a lot of time hunting down that little morsel of insight; I spend more time finding the note than I do using the note. I even wrote down an idea I had on the sleeve around my Starbucks coffee cup. Needless to say that I threw that idea away with my finished mocha.

This makes me very nervous as a graduate student, as I'm coming close to my major field exams and my dissertation research. It's something I know I can overcome if I just knew how to do it. I'm curious if anyone has any advice or strategies for sticking to one method of keeping notes organized and easy to find (and thus use).

*[CHNM]: Center for History and New Media

Webography Redesign

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 23 Nov 2004 00:38:13 EST

Among the other things I've been doing is the redesign of the Western Civilization Webography project. While it will be a little while longer before the new site goes live, here's a little sneak-preview of what's to come.

Update: For some reason the rest of this didn't get published with my original post. My install of Wordpress has been acting a little funky lately.

For those of you not familiar with the Webography project, it was started by Dr. T. Mills Kelly, associate professor of history and art history at GMU and associate director of the Center for History and New Media. Basically, the site is a collection of student and teacher reviews of websites that cover Western Civilization history. A number of Western Civ classes in the United States and other parts of the world have used the site as part of their coursework. It's a useful tool for students and educators alike. *[GMU]: George Mason University

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 23 Nov 2004 00:26:22 EST

I'm coming up for a bit of air as I'm working on my minor field research, my documentary, two different conference papers, two chapters for a book, and work. I'm a big U-2 fan, and it's rare that I find good covers of their songs. But this one is great. And, its available for download here:

"Sunday Bloody Sunday" by RX.

The songs uses George W. Bush's voice somehow to sing the song. The best line is near the end of the song:

anyone who wants more details on my agenda can find them online

the web address is not very imaginative but its easy to remember

thepartyparty.com.

CGE Photo Album

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 18 Nov 2004 15:03:05 EST

After trying several different methods, I've finally found a good solution for the photo album for GMU's Center for Global Education. A small list of available albums is on the Center's album page. More pictures will be up in the near future but, in the meantime, I'd love some feedback on what people think about its organization and usability. *[GMU]: George Mason University

Landscape of History E-Journals

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 17 Nov 2004 10:28:00 EST

For part of my New Media minor field statement, I'm going to survey the current state of history e-journals, using the History Journals Guide on E-Journals here as a starting point. There are a lot of journals listed, so I first plan to narrow the field (for the purposes of my examination) to journals available in English (since, like most ignorant Americans, that's the only language I know), then come up with a few other ways to narrow the number down to something more manageable. Of course, there are lots of other e-journals available, some that are open access, some that are not. Devising a way to sample journals that I'll examine has proven problematic for me because I'm sure I'll miss something. Narrowing the number of journals can, it seems, cause a few not-so-insignificant problems with my study, so I've been reluctant to do so.

One method I had considered would be to examine only journals that are still active. Thus, I wouldn't include The Journals for Multimedia History in my study, since its last publication year was 2000. My reluctance is omitting the JMMH stems from my opinion that quite a few articles in that journal are good and deserve to be included in my study of digital history scholarship. Plus, it seems that inactivity is in itself an important component of my study.

I've also considered narrowing the list to "actual" journals. For example, I would not include H-Net in my study, even though the History Journals Guide to E-Journals lists it. I don't consider H-Net a journal, but I'm finding it difficult to "define" e-jounal in this light.

I'm putting together a database that will be available on my site for anyone interested in the study. In the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions on how I can "sample" these e-journals, feel free to comment. *[JMMH]: Journal for Multimedia History

Complaint about Wikipedia

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 16 Nov 2004 22:19:24 EST

Amardeep Singh points to an article by Robert McHenry warning us about the potential dangers of Wikipedia. While I share some of McHenry's concerns about Wikipedia, I hardly think that the "user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom." McHenry uses the uncertainty of Alexander Hamilton's year of birth to protest the utility of the Wikipedia, among other things.

My advice to Mr. McHenry: Edit the Alexander Hamilton entry yourself, fix the errors you see, add relevant information, and help future readers in their search for accurate information.

Daily Photo: Beezer

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 11 Nov 2004 23:50:59 EST

Here's a picture of my younger brother, Justin, on a hike near Blacksburg, Virginia. For some reason I like this picture a lot. It's slightly blurred because, at that point on the hike, my camera's battery was running down, so the shutter speed was slow.

Controversial History?

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 11 Nov 2004 16:42:33 EST

James Horton, the OAH president, discusses in his recent newsletter article the dilemma that educators and public historians face when presenting what he calls "controversial history" to the public. The story that Dr. Horton highlightts about the teacher in Texas is especially sad; The teacher, after moving to a new school, felt extreme pressure from her students' parents to de-emphasize slavery as the cause of the Civil War. Now, I've never been keen on assigning any one cause to any historical event, but attempts to overshadow the impact that slavery had on the Civil War accomplish nothing. People are just kidding themselves (and their kids) if they try to dilute the importance of slavery as the strongest reason for the emergence of the Civil War. Emphasizing the importance of slavery, for example, isn't "controversial" in any way; it's an integral part of the story. Leaving it out, in my opinion, is more controversial, and more detrimental to our understanding of U.S. history. *[OAH]: Organization of American Historians

Daily Photo: McAfee Knob

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 10 Nov 2004 23:18:35 EST

A view from McAfee Knob, near Roanoke, Virginia in early spring. It was cloudy day, and it actually rained on the hike back down, so this was one of those rare times when Jill and I were the only ones at McAfee Knob.

Academic Peer Review and Digital Scholarship

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 10 Nov 2004 15:18:00 EST

I've been playing around with some ideas about peer review and how new media has affected its impact and processes. I plan to write a conference paper on this for the AAHC conference in April 2005 at Roosevelt University.

One of the things I'm interested in is the way that post-publication peer review processes, especially those in electronic media, provide different ways for reviewing (and, in turn, legitimizing or de-legitimizing) works of scholarship. Especially in history, pre-publication peer review is seen as a filter, a reassurance for the reader that the work they are reading is at some level "legitimate." While this notion has its values, past examples, most notably the Bellesiles controversy, have shows that the pre-publication peer-review process is not without problems. Interestingly, the post-publication peer review processes were the ones that shed light on the errors in Bellesiles's work.

Currently, the debate in history and other humanities fields focuses solely on the technology itself (especially its vices) instead of seeing the value of the ideas published in online scholarship. Most recent debates about the uses of blogs as a mode for scholarly publication have focused only on the technology, not the ideas and arguments published. Of course, I agree that most if not all of the blogs currently available lack the organization and coherence that we attribute to traditional scholarship, but this is not because the technology makes it impossible; It's because we choose not to write in that manner.

It seems reasonable to think that once we see post-publication peer review as an effective and appropriate "filter" that we can better utilize digital media for publishing scholarship, and perhaps further explore the useful but modestly-used digital medium.

Just some quick, rather disorganized thoughts I've had floating around in my head. Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated. *[AAHC]: American Association for History and Computing

Open-Access v. Subscription-Based Access

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 10 Nov 2004 12:58:03 EST

I found an article on America: History and Life (requires subscription) that I wanted. There were three links to the article. One took me to Ingenta, where the article would cost me about $23. Another link took me to Taylor and Francis, where I could download the article for free.

Which do you think I chose?

Update: I realized after I posted that GMU subscribes to Taylor and Francis, so it might not actually be free for non-GMU users. So, this probably wasn't the best example of Open-access versus subscription-based access. If fact, I know it wasn't. Nevertheless, because I honor the idea that blog entries must remain published after the fact, I keep my oversight online and available to all who wish to criticize. [GMU]: George Mason University [GMU]: George Mason University

Another Four Years

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 03 Nov 2004 22:07:19 EST

Storyboard

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 03 Nov 2004 21:23:49 EST

I've posted my storyboard for Digital History Documentary here. I'm sure my final documentary will look nothing like what my storyboard describes. At least I hope so. The storyboard doesn't convey a lot of the ideas I have for my documentary, ideas that I can only convey in the documentary itself.

Of all the things I've learned in the documentary class, the most important lesson is that there are numerous ways of telling a story, different "languages" that we as historians can use: visual, aural, verbal. I think our profession is growing increasingly open to using different media as primary source material, but is slow in accepting different media as a method for telling a story or making an argument. I attribute this mostly to the fact that, as graduate students, few historians are not trained to appreciate and understand a variety of media. Using the visual, aural, and verbal in concert to make a compelling story has been one of the most difficult aspects of the course, but also the most enjoyable.

Short Documentary Assignment

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 29 Oct 2004 23:21:28 EDT

I've embedded my assignment in my Documentary class blog. Here's the permalink.

It's not much and, like my class post says, the sound is a little distorted in some areas of the film. I'm not sure why this happened. I'm currently working on a revised version of the short doc, one with better sound and transitions from one image to the next. I agree with Paula that there's too much darkness between some images, which breaks up the flow of the film.

Goals for ClioWeb

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 29 Oct 2004 23:09:04 EDT

A post by Sharon Howard at Early Modern Notes has had me thinking a lot this week about my goals for this site. More than anything, Sharon has made me realize that I might have more than a few readers, so I somehow need to write about things a little more interesting than "blogtinkery...in rather obsessive detail..."

Looking back on my posts, I agree that most of them are about "blogtinkery" than anything else..well, maybe not blogtinkery but certainly more about technology and design than history. I attribute this (mostly) to the fact that my graduate work this semester has focused solely on my New Media minor. I'm taking two classes for that minor: a minor field readings class on digital history scholarship, and Digital History Documentary. I've admittedly read more books, articles, and other publications about digital video editing, weblogging, web semantics, open-access publishing, and internet theory than I have about history.

To be honest, I'm a little nervous about this fact. I'm doing readings course in my Cultural History and Theory minor field in the spring, and I feel I need to prepare a reading list for that. Mike O'Malley is directing the readings course, and we're going to focus on the history and culture of race in nineteenth and twentieth-century U.S. I'm also taking the Doctoral Research Seminar, in which I'm going to write about the role of emotion, especially fear, in early twentieth-century segregation law and culture. I'm afraid I'm not doing enough research (and thinking) in these other aspects of my academic interests.

In short, I hope I'm not doing my readers a disservice (or losing the few readers I have) by limiting my posts topically. There's more to me than "blogtinkery", and I need to show my readers this. I appreciate the fact that Sharon, whose Early Modern Notes is absolutely fantastic, would even consider adding a link on her site to ClioWeb, and I thank her for indirectly getting me to think about my goals for this site.

Freedomicate

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 29 Oct 2004 22:19:34 EDT

Andy Foulds created a great game called Wordify, in which you can enter a word to see how George W. Bush might make a new word out of it. For fun, I put in the word "freedom." Here are a few of my favorite results:

Freedomicate
super-freedomically
freedomitically
freedominate

My results for "terror":

terroritically
terroricate
terrorification

HACK Website

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 26 Oct 2004 12:35:13 EDT

I've put together a simple website for HACK, the Society for History and Computer Knowledge. This site will include news, information about HACK and its members, and information about HACK-sponsored events. We'll put a calendar of events up soon, and we're also considering installing a weblog on the site. More to come later.

Yes, I'm Still Alive, but Barely

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 20 Oct 2004 16:02:58 EDT

I've been swamped with school and work. My work on my New Media minor field readings is going very slowly. For the past month I've been considering the importance of open-access publishing for historical scholarship on the web. I've read quite a bit of work by John Willinsky and John Unsworth, among others, and have been struggling to decide how best to incorporate the arguments of Lawrence Lessig into my field statement. I plan to write more about OA in the near future, after I get my (very) rough draft of my section on OA from my advisor. I'm sure it will be heavily marked with ink.

On a different note, my short documentary assignment is finished and posted on my class weblog. I composed a short documentary on the role of popular culture and the decision to intern Japanese aliens and U.S. citizens of Japanese descent during World War II. There are a few audio problems I couldn't seem to resolve, but I'll consider them carefully while I'm working on my bigger project for the class. *[OA]: Open Access

Masthead Evolution

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 07 Oct 2004 15:05:42 EDT

For what it's worth, ClioWeb has gone through a few logos in the past several months. Here I showcase each one in order from first to current, and discuss what I like and don't like about each.

Here's the first one, a simple box with a pixelated quill on the left and "ClioWeb" on the right. I had a vague idea about how to use the quill as a theme for the site, but the idea never materialized. The font I used here is called Silkscreen, a font made by Jason Kottke. As you'll notice throughout the current evolution of ClioWeb's logo, I've kept Silkscreen in some fashion. I like the font, and the quill, but not the font and the quill together. I also wasn't a fan of the rather dark colors.

The second ClioWeb logo was sans quill. Basically, it uses the Silkscreen font like the first logo, but it also adds the tagline "History. New Media. Design." I liked the simplicity of the logo, but I didn't like how I used Silkscreen for all the type. It seemed too, I dunno, boring. Instead of the quill, I used 6 squares to draw a semi-upside down "W". I don't know why, but I did. I don't think it works. That's why I canned it.

ClioWeb's third logo ditched Silkscreen for the primary text, but kept the font for the tagline. I also made "Clio" a light orange, and "Web" a dark grey. I liked the contrast in colors, but I couldn't find a good font for the "ClioWeb" text. Here I'm using a serif font, the name of which I cannot remember. I kept Silkscreen for the tagline. I like the contrast in the fonts.

Finally, we have the current logo. For the main text I used a font called Fairfax Station, created by Nick Curtis and available for free at fontfreak.com. The tagline uses Silkscreen, but its colored with a bright orange (#cc6600). This contrasts well with the main text's dark grey color, which is #575757. Finally, I added a small logo, a bring orange box (#cc6600) with a large white "C" written in Silkscreen. To compare the two uses of Silkscreen here, I wrote the tagline at a font-size of 8px, and the large "C" at 64px.

I like the contrasts in colors and in fonts on this logo. I also like how it "dips" into the compass image just a little (4px to be exact). I may end up switching from Fairfax Station to some other serif or slab-serif font, if I can find one that I like. But I'm satisfied with this for now.

Tinkering

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 02 Oct 2004 23:35:11 EDT

I'm extremely unsatisfied with my masthead and navigation for this site. I'll be tinkering with it for the next few days. I'm contemplating tabs for the navigation. Right now I have a pseudo-tab thing for the #sitenav. Basically, each link in the #sitenav div has a background matching the main page's background on the hover state, and has a permanent white background on the selected link.

Photolog for ClioWeb

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 27 Sep 2004 21:51:48 EDT

I've been working on a few different photolog systems, and I think I've found a fairly useful one (for my purposes anyways). It uses a slightly modified version of the PHP Slide Show from zinkwazi.com. Basically, this script calls images from a directory or folder instead of putting them in a database like MySQL. Right now I only have one album called Dragon's Tooth with two pictures of a hike Jill and I took to Dragon's Tooth, an awesome outcropping of rocks near the Appalachian Trail in the Roanoke, VA area.

What's really nice about this script is that I can simply put new images in the individual album's folder and it will automatically add a link to that new image. Essentially, the directory for my photoalbums will look like this:

In the photolog folder there is a folder titled inc, which stands for "includes". In the inc folder there is a file called album.php. This file contains the scripts for the albums. I then have an index.php page for each individual album, which I place in the respective album folders. I "include" the album.php using the include() PHP function. The index.html file is identical in each individual album, but it calls up the photos located alongside it in the album folder.

I'm sure there's a much better way to do a photo album, but this method seems pretty simple to me. I'm not sure if I've explained it properly, but I'm actually happy that I understand what I've done, moreso than usual. I'm still debating the size of images, which I have to do manually instead of declaring width and height in the script. Right now I'm resizing the images so that their width (whether portrait or landscape) is 500px. I'm sure I'll tinker with that in the near-future.

Update 09/27/04: My album for Dragon's Tooth now has 12 images, with one of my favorite pictures of Jill.

Photos that Changed the World

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 20 Sep 2004 21:59:57 EDT

After reading a post by Mighty Girl, I decided to link to a few of Life's 100 Photographs that Changed the World that I found chilling.

All 100 images can be see here.

Networking for Dummies

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 19 Sep 2004 21:49:31 EDT

Besides wanting to create a post with a title like Kubrick's greatest film, I have also been inspired by Kristine Brorson's post on Networking. Brorson has devoted a category in her weblog to her journey through the world of networking in academia. Like her (more likely, worse than her), I have had trouble networking in the history profession. I've been working on a few publications, the largest of which are two chapters in a new version of The History Highway, but I haven't given many conference papers, and rarely do I talk to anyone when I attend professional conferences. I think I'll start a category on networking like Brorson will hopefully force myself into pursuing opportunities to network and discuss my experience with networking.

The Holocaust Museum

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 19 Sep 2004 19:49:53 EDT

As I mentioned in my previous post, my brother Justin and Justin Collins visited me this weekend. We decided to visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum, since none of us had seen it before but always wanted to visit. It should go without saying that this is among the most intense museum experiences I've ever encountered. Of course, being an historian I'm aware of the atrocities of the Holocaust, but the museum exhibits had a submersive atmosphere that provided an in-depth reflection on the Holocaust. What

At first, I was suprised by the number of people walking through the three-leveled main exhibit, especially the relative silence that filled the halls as I walked with other visitors. Going to other musuems, I often encounter people talking out-loud about exhibits, elementary students running around, and "active" things of that nature. At the Holocaust Musuem, I saw or heard none of this. The atmosphere was very somber, and people rarely spoke louder than a whisper. Often I would see someone whisper in the ear of another while pointing at a particular exhibit, but most of the time I saw individuals, slowly shaking their head back and forth in utter disbelief of the accounts they were witnessing.

The distribution of space and light in the main exhibit lends itself to this kind of self-reflection. The hallways containing the exhibit materials are long and fairly narrow, discouraging quick movements and passive glances at the material on exhibit. Movement throughout the exhibit is slow, as groups of people stop to read, watch, and listen to particular segments of a presentation. The variety of media presented to exhibit visitors allows for a variety of ways to learn about the Holocaust. Film footage, secondary text printed on the wall, and artifacts from the Holocaust are used as different vehicles of information for evoking self-reflection on the part of visitors. The lighting in the halls focuses mainly on the exhibit materials, which also discourages loud talking to others and quick glances over the exhibits. The lighting is focused and has a purpose other than filling a room for people to see. The light here has the purpose of encouraging us to see a particular segment of the exhibit, focus on it, reflect on it.

This is by far the best museum I have ever visited. It was planned with purpose, and designed with the idea that visitors reflect seriously on the Holocaust. The topic itself should beckon this kind of reflection, but the museum indirectly fosters reflection through deliberate methods of presentation and organization. If you haven't visited already, you should.

JB and Collins

Jeremy Boggs — Sun 19 Sep 2004 19:48:40 EDT

My brother Justin and his buddy Justin Collins visited me this weekend. We decided to ramble around DC on Saturday.

Here's a picture of my brother (left) and Collins (right) outside a nice pizzaria where we got lunch.

Collins apparently had a long day that Saturday, so he was asleep about 10 minutes into the trip back to my apartment.

My First Commentor

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 15 Sep 2004 15:31:32 EDT

James Halabuk is the first person to post a comment on my weblog. Because of this, James will receive $50,000 in cash and will now be the proud owner of a fully-loaded Lexus.

Disclaimer: James really isn't the winner of a new Lexus or $50,000, as mentioned above. I'm just happy to know that someone, other than my Mom, has looked at my site.

Don't worry: I'm working on more "serious" and "academic" posts to put on here in the future. Right now I'm just trying to get my reading and writing (and watching of documentaries) done for my classes. If you're bored, you can look at my post on scene analysis for Digital History Documentary. Paula has links to blogs written by other students in the class here.

G-Mail Invites: Want One?

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 15 Sep 2004 08:22:42 EDT

I have six G-Mail invitations and would like to give them away...just contact me if you'd like one.

Blogs as Scholarship

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 10 Sep 2004 14:36:36 EDT

Some interesting posts on blogs as scholarship:

"Living the Dream," at Unfogged.
"Blogscholars?" at Cliopatria.

_ Update 9.13.04_: Amardeep Singh also has a post called "How seriously should one take academic blogging?"

Writing the Prospectus

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 07 Sep 2004 10:13:11 EDT

Although there are a few additions I need to add, my advisor feels that my prospectus is good enough to go to the Graduate committee. This is a bit of a relief, since I've had a difficult time wrapping up my prospectus into a digestible, readable form, mostly because I lacked focus on my project. For those of you just tuning in, my field statement will address the current state of online scholarship, primarily in History, but also other disciplines.

In a way, it scares me how much I've learned about the process in the first few weeks of school. I realize that I have a long way to go to write more coherently. My biggest problem was wanting to do too many things with the field statement, like bring in a number of web design/development readings and evaluate current online scholarship based on those readings, in addition to theoretical concepts on narrative and hypertext. In short, the primary focus of my statement--the scholarship itself--became lost, at least in my first prospectus.

I think my new draft shifts the focus back to the scholarship itself: the practice of creating online scholarship. I'll use the concepts I find in my design/development readings and in my theory readings to help me evaluate current scholarship online. My bibliography will grow as the project progresses, but I think it's a solid start.

Fleas...

Jeremy Boggs — Sat 04 Sep 2004 15:26:03 EDT

...have been in the Pohick Module for a while, but they will meet their demise this weekend. The folks getting rid of the fleas have wrapped up Pohick:

These pictures were taken by Mike O'Malley.

Classwork

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 03 Sep 2004 09:50:51 EDT

My site for Digital History Documentary is up. It's not much, but then again I'd rather spend more time on my documentary than worrying about the design. This will be the third design for this one class site! It amazes me (and scares me) that I can't ever finalize a site's design. Open Season is killing me right now. There are so many things I want to do with that site, but it will have to wait for now, at least until the semester is over. Erik Barnouw's Documentary is an interesting read; more on that on my Documentary blog later. Unfortunately no Blockbuster in the Northern Virginia/DC Metro area has Ken Burns's The Civil War, Part 1 for rent. If I really enjoyed Civil War history I would probably buy the whole series, but I would much rather save my money for this, or this.

I've also considered making a site for my New Media readings with Roy. I'm ascertaining the current state of digital scholarship on the web, primarily history scholarship but I'm also looking at other humanities/social-science disciplines. I'd actually like to make a database to catalog all the sites I find and critique. Maybe when I get a little more proficient with PHP I'll do that. *[PHP]: Hypertext Pre-Processor

Design Approaches For Historians

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 30 Aug 2004 21:37:26 EDT

Perusing some of my usual blog destinations, and stumbling upon some quite impressive new ones along the way, I've become interested in the various approaches and philosophies of design. I plan to put together a list of my favorite design philosophies here, in no particular order. My purpose in putting together such a page would be to illustrate some approaches that commercial web designers use that would be beneficial to academic publication on the web.

Probably my favorite among my regular visits is Stopdesign. Creator Douglas Bowman believes that "accessible, understandable information and beauty of form can engage observers and arrest their attention."

A confusing, poorly designed message will miss its target almost every time. In a world where information flows abundantly, our minds have developed filters to sift through the overflow of useless data. While design must appeal to the aesthetic, it must not stand in the way of delivery, cause complications, or introduce stumbling blocks. Rather, the presence of design should simplify and facilitate our everyday life, enable us to accomplish our tasks more effectively, and remind us to enjoy them along the way.

-- Douglas Bowman, Stopdesign | Philosophy.

Keep in mind that design is much more that pretty pictures, fonts, and layouts. Design serves a purpose: To assist readers to understand the message, the argument, and to give readers an overall sense of the purpose of a site. Design helps us communication information, allows us to better reach our audiences, and helps us educate the public on topics and issues that interest us. Design requires good, organized information. Conversely, information requires good, organized design. Both go hand in hand. Bowman's approach lends itself very well to form and function.

Suffice to say that Stopdesign employs web standards in its own design and its other projects. Web standards facilitate the consistent presentation of information by insisting on valid, semantic markup and the separation of content (XHTML) from style (CSS). These two facets of web design are more than just buzz words used in the design community; They reflect growing attention on the need to make accessible, usable web sites for effective communication.

Historians should consider aesthetics and usability to enhance the site's overall mood, message, and usability. Things that academics take for granted in books--margins, font-sizes, line-height, chapter organization, the color of paper--are heavily considered by (good) publishers so that their books can be read effortlessly. Incidentally, those things also apply to web sites, but because historians are not involved in the technical aspects of book printing, we have little knowledge of how those facets come into play. Thus, because we as historians are not trained to notice such things, we tend to shrink away from any indication of their importance when we try to publish our ideas ourselves electronically. Publishing on the web requires more individual attention from historians to these details. Far from diluting our ideas, aesthetics can, when used effectively, enhance our ideas and arguments and make for a more pleasant reading experience.

Historians attempting to publish scholarly work and educational tools on the Web should consider the approaches of web designers like Bowman. Using valid, semantic markup makes our sites more accessible to a wider audience and helps organize our information logically. Paying attention to the aesthetics of a site makes our online publications easier to read and understand, and gives our sites more personality in the enourmous sea of information on the Web. The Web is the perfect place for historians and other academics to publish, because it facilitate the free exchange of information and encourages community and collaboration. We simply need to use the right tools. [XHTML]: eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language [CSS]: Cascading Style Sheets

Under Construction

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 30 Aug 2004 15:55:30 EDT

In case you hadn't noticed, I've been messing around with the styles on this site. Look out for falling debris, be careful when looking around, and if you spot anything utterly horrible, you might want to contact me in case I've overlooked something significant. Otherwise, all is good.

The Wonder that is PHP

Jeremy Boggs — Thu 26 Aug 2004 15:54:05 EDT

I've fallen in love with PHP. Even though I only know a little, and use even less, it seems like a very powerful tool for web development. Besides the PHP that's included in Wordpress, I've also used the <?php include()> feature in the header, the site navigation, and the footer. The site navigation is especially cool, because it chooses which navigation link is "selected". See below:

<?php if($PHP_SELF=="/index.php") { echo '<li><a href="/index.php" class="selected">Home</a>'; } else{ echo '<li><a href="/index.php">Home</a></li>'; } ?>

This snippet is for the index page. If the page you're on is the index page, then it will "echo" the first part, with the class="selected" and put a little arrow image on the left. If you're on another page, like say the contact page, then it will just make the home link a regular link without the arrow. There's a script just like this one for each of my main pages. I'm sure I didn't explain this too well, mostly because I don't know it well enough to explain it properly. Many thanks to Marty Andolino for writing this, and to Rikk Mulligan for pointing it out to me and expaining to me how it works. *[PHP]: Hypertext Pre-Processor

Richmond Segregation: A Look at a 1923 Map

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 24 Aug 2004 20:46:40 EDT

I've been interested for some time in segregation laws that were enacted in Virginia in the early 20th-century. Doing research at the Library of Virginia, I came across a map that highlighted the African-American population in Richmond in 1923.

The map beckons more questions than it answers. The bright red color used to reveal areas of African-American residential areas is prominent, but it offers no substantial information for the viewer. There is no discussion of population density or white/black ratio in the red sections or any sections of the map. There is no reference at all about the make-up of the population outside the red zones. Plenty of information is missing from this map, some unintentionally, but much of it intentionally.

I'm interested in finding out not only how city officials who created this map found their information, but also how city officials and/or others used this map in official and unofficial ways. What was the map's initial purpose? Are there others like it? Who, or what agency, was in charge of its creation? Did other cities and localities have similar maps? If so, how did they use them?

Mason Has a New Logo

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 24 Aug 2004 00:30:07 EDT

Here it is, on this page. Not sure if I like it. The quill is a nice idea (of course it's nice; I used it myself), but the layout of the words is funny. Not to mention the fonts used are a little odd. In any case, it's better than the old, plain, serif font logo up on the main site.

Another Design

Jeremy Boggs — Mon 23 Aug 2004 00:46:34 EDT

Since I found out a way to write a script that will allow me (and other users) to switch the style sheets on my website, I've been working on a new design. I haven't written the script yet, and I don't have all of my pages linked to the new style sheet, so my pages will probably look different from each other in the next few days. Hopefully I'll finish the new design, write the script, and decide on which one I want to make the default. I'm leaning more towards the new one, since it's a "minimal" design, and I'm a minimal kind of guy. This will actually come in pretty handy, since I plan to change my site's design to coincide with various historical themes (i.e. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Women's History Month).

I start back to work tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be going to a workshop given by Paula on the uses of weblogs for history classrooms and the History 120 modules. In the meantime, the details for Digital History Documentary look nice.

Things I Need to Do

Jeremy Boggs — Fri 20 Aug 2004 11:25:24 EDT

School's about to begin soon, and I'll start back to work at the Center next week. I'm looking forward to it greatly. Among other things, I want to work on some design problems with the History 120 website. The colors aren't doing it for me, and the tabs desparately need some work.

More than this, however, starting school again gets me motivated to do my best, learn as much as I can while I'm working on my PhD, and prepare for my academic career. A few things I plan to do this semester include:

Write a solid, well-defined field statement for my History and New Media minor.
Have fun making an informative documentary for Digital Documenting.
Prepare some reading lists and summary information for my major field examination (ya can't start too early, I've been told).
Flesh out some ideas for the Doctoral Research Seminar that I plan to take this spring.
Prepare a bibliography and statement of purpose for my readings class on Race in American Cultural History I'm taking this spring.

There's lots more I plan to do as well. I still need to get more acquainted with PHP, learn more about XML, and finish my dictionary entries I'm writing for two upcoming history dictionaries. I also need to work on this site. In any event, I won't be bored in the next few months. If I look bored, remind me of this post, as well as the one-hundred other things I didn't write down that I need to do. [XML]: eXtensible Markup Language [PHP]: Hypertext Pre-Processor

So Far, So Good

Jeremy Boggs — Wed 18 Aug 2004 14:41:35 EDT

I'm fairly satisfied with the new design thus far. It still feels like the page needs a few more details though, but I'm not sure what or where. I'm pretty happy with the logo design, though I'll probably play around with the look of the quill in the next month or so. Basically I want to juxtapose traditional history (the quill) with the web medium (through the pixel-style font). It kinda works…I guess.

Soon I'll be putting links to my other pages, especially the mini-sites I've made for the two classes I'm taking this fall, "Digital Documenting" and "Historical Scholarship and New Media." I haven't decided if I'll do separate installs of Wordpress for those two sites, or if I'll use Blogger as the blog host. I may just do one Wordpress install for the Digital Documenting class and use this site to discuss my New Media readings course.

boring

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 17 Aug 2004 19:25:34 EDT

The greys on this page are quite boring…need more colors…any suggestions?

Update 08/18/04: I also need a catchy masthead.

This is irritating

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 17 Aug 2004 15:50:48 EDT

I'm trying to fix the width and margin on the maincontent <div>. It's not working well between Firefox and IE6. More later.

New Domain, New Design

Jeremy Boggs — Tue 17 Aug 2004 10:30:33 EDT

For some reason, when I changed my domain from jeremyboggs.net to clioweb.org, I couldn't figure out how to redo my database from my old blog for this new one. So, I've pretty much given up on getting that stuff back, which isn't a problem anyways since I didn't have too many posts to begin with. In any case, ClioWeb is my new site.

I've started finding some interesting weblogs done by other PhD students in a variety of fields at phdweblogs.net. It references 166 weblogs, of which 6-8 are "History and Archaelogy" students. Once my site's up and running somewhat smoothly, I'll register it there.