mock-up

Finally, the genesis of my project has been achieved. This prematurely born web project can be accessed in its permanent revision and modularity at this address. I am open to all kinds of criticism, since this is going to be a long project.

sunday thoughts on open access

The Access Principle by John Willinsky argues in favor of a fairer and broader distribution of knowledge across disciplines and social categories. In fact, it is in line with Moretti's book, which among other claims also argues that there are no more genius writers in the world literature. In fact, as I understand Moretti's argument, the concept of "genius" has been constructed by the literary scholars, who based their value assumptions on readings of a small sample of literature. In this sense, a research model which would embrace more texts could be more representative of a literary age. Moreover, due to the fact that there are no geniuses, literature is read in stages. As soon as one stage fades, it is quickly replaced by other stage. On average, one stage endures around three decades.

Willinsky claims that the access principle, will profoundly affect the distribution of knowledge in a world where the scholarly journals have lost their initial dialogue with the whole society, and have instead being isolated according to disciplinary principles and to the wishes of the big journal publishers. Furthermore, he refers to the fact that the access principle is not a continuation of the Wittenberg's revolution. It is something more, which is yet to be discovered in the future. I would certainly agree with him in reference to his opinion on the benefits for poor countries. It is true that there are a lot of underfunded educational systems in the world where access to journal subscription is reduced to a minimum. In this sense, open access can be an amazing opportunity for these countries and people to participate in the global community of knowledge.

With all the benefits, I still see some problems with this model. First of all, like any other change, the transition from the subscription model to the open access is not a smooth process and it will not be so in the near future. One important issue is the attractiveness of the principle "what costs more is more valuable" and the still dominant idea that "there is no free stuff in this world." Secondly, is the issue of the inter-generational debate: as soon as we don't have a generation of scholars, who were raised in the digital environment, there is unlikely to be witnessed a radical change in the distribution of knowledge.

Still, there is a chance that there will be nobody to witness this change, because all of the researchers will be blind due many hours spent in front of the computer. On the other hand, if digital environment is the one which will determine blindness, then maybe the same digital environment with its open access principle will provide a necessary cure for the blindness, in the form of any revolution in eye care. Finally, one problem might be the fact that if there will be found an attribution model for the digital scholarship, then scholars will rush to get everything online, hoping to get the feedback from other scholars, who will be also busy in uploading their own content online. In this situation, my question will be: who would comment on the uploaded content?

P.S. Disclaimer, All the similarities with the motives from Jose Saramago's Blindness is purely accidental.

social incentives

Beyond any particular differences in the perception of the Web by different social categories, there is a particular feature on which all of them seem to agree. This feature is the social component of the Web 2.0. It has already become a cliche to argue that Web 1.0 was only about passivity and text absorption, while Web 2.0 is a new qualitative phenomenon, which resurfaces the social component of human activity and revive the social instincts of the New Social Man. In other words, if Web 1.0 was somehow similar to the prehistoric age, when isolated human communities scribbled on the walls of the caves different symbols, then Web 2.0 is the age of archeological excavations or reinterpretation, when different communities discover the caves and start to discuss the meaning of the symbols.

In this spirit, I decided to divide my project into two parts, which, if everything will go according to my plans, would entail two stages. To a certain extent, these two stages will evolve chronologically in a consecutive manner. Thus, first part of the project and the first stage will follow the pattern of Web 1.0, while the second part and the second stage will fortunately develop according to the ethos of Web 2.0. Now, let's turn from this esoteric discussion to the more practical issues. What do I mean by these two stages and their particular components?

So, the first stage of my project or my Web 1.0 will be basically constructed from my uploading certain content on the Web: maps, newspapers and official documents. In this sense, it will be like the interpretation of history from above. Since I have some materials in this sense, I can go into this stage very soon.

The second stage or what I am calling my Web 2.0 will follow after or with the first stage. In this sense, I can engage in some activities on the ground, hoping to get some contribution from local communities. By referring to the local communities, I have in mind not only the two different communities from the towns, which I am looking at, but also the innumerable local networks, which have developed according to different lines of interest involving people from both towns.

Firstly, there are local museums or historical enthusiasts, who are somehow neglected not only by the outsiders but also by the people from these communities. In this sense, I hope that the prospect of getting them into the digital formats and being connected to other communities in the world will bring some positive results as to their participation in my project. In this way, I can get at least some materials, which I can then upload to the website.

Secondly, my research into the project will entail several visits to local archives, where I will be able to follow some examples of the families which moved from one town to other town, because of different circumstances, either economic incentives, family purposes or political views. In this sense, an interesting thing will be to follow these families or individuals and to see if there are some of their relatives or friends still residing there. While I am sure that not all of them will be open to getting their family members on the web, I could at least get some stories around these people and compile some official documents into my web collection.

Thirdly, the local history teachers is another category, which would like to be listened to. In addition, my project could at least serve as a teaching instrument or why not a way to involve some of the local students into gathering the materials. One winning strategy will be to find two schools in these two towns and to assign them an analysis of the same sources. Then, I will post these document readings on the website. In this sense, there are several possibilities: to post a video material from their discussions and on the same page to upload photo images of their written thoughts on this document.

models to follow

For my future digital project, I would consider the following models:

Parallel Archive

A project developed by the Open Society Archives in Budapest, which according to the About section of the site, "is at once a personal scholarly workspace, a collaborative research environment, and a digital repository." The project started in 2008 and is still a beta version. As a matter of fact, the website is designed to be a gathering place of numerous documents hidden in the personal computers of the researchers or other professionals in the preservation and scholarship business. In order to gain access to the full functionality of the site, the visitor should register with the site. The site features two kinds of possibilities for the members to keep their collections: they can either place the documents in the public collection or they can keep them on 50 MB of a private collection for two years, after which if not deleted the private collections automatically turn into public documents. Any non-registered visitor to the site can browse through the narrow public collection. One of the positive aspect of the repository is the possibility to search through different collections of OCR-ed files. Among some weak features of the site, I would mention the limited number of documents available in English and the overwhelming dominance of documents in Hungarian, which as we know is not a easy language to speak or to learn. Another weakness of the website is their copyright policy. The contributors to the website cannot apply any type of Creative Commons licenses on their uploaded content, and instead all the documents are under the copyright laws. This also limits the possibility for contributors to make use of attribution as one of the main gains of the digital media.

The Valley of the Shadow

This is a well-known website, which represents a milestone in the first attempts to explore possibilities offered by the digital media in the research of the past. This web project started with the idea of Edward Ayers, a scholar from the University of Virginia, to write a book on the different experiences of the Civil War by the people of two communities from the US. In turn, this initiative has developed in a different direction, along with the new possibilities which the Web offers for the comparative study of two local communities. As the years passed, the once envisioned analogue, individualistic and static book has been transformed into a digital, collective and dynamic repository of numerous possibilities to research the history of the Civil War from different perspectives. The idea for the book came to Ayers in 1991, and the final version of the site has been released in 2009. So, it has been 18 years of experiments, but the work is not finished yet. Now, the library of the University of Virginia works on the preservation of the whole website in its digital collection. If the Parallel Archive provides some examples of preservation techniques, then the Valley of the Shadow is in line with my intention to shape a repository or, to what Roy Rosenzweig and Michael O'Malley refers to as "an invented archive," of two neighbor communities. Among the positive features are the ease of use and the clarity of the design, as well as the ability to capture a multiple audience for this site. In my view the main weakness of the website is the same concern with the copyright. All the content on the website is under the ordinary copyright law and does not allow for a diversification of the options provided by Creative Commons.

by the way

In this class we are talking much about different strategies of coping with "the digital revolution" in humanities. This semester we have a lot of online sources to read. At least for me this has been a revolutionary or revelatory experience: prior to this class, I have never had this much of reading experience online. I have become so used to reading online that I find it difficult now, to return to the traditional format of a printed book. So, maybe we should also talk about the readjustment to the print environment? What do you think?

digitization

After reading NINCH Guide to Good Practice, I can say that now I fully recognize the workload and responsibility of the people who try to deal with the Scarcity or Abundance of the future histories. In addition to this major achievement, these readings convinced me once more that simplicity is the recipe for any successful digital project.

When I am referring to the term "successful digital project," I have in mind not a one day short-term exercise in PR, but rather a durable project, which, if it will not last 200 years, at least will manage to entertain the life of the contributors to the project. I do not intend to make a distinction between the audience and contributors, because, as we already know, and if you didn't, then you'll know that: "the ideal digital project is the project when the distinction between the audience and the contributors is if not non-existent, then at least it is very blurred."

Referring to the value of digitization for my project, I can say that it plays a crucial role. At the same time, since it is not yet associated with any institutional framework, then I suppose all I need is to do some more or less qualitative job with cheap equipment and with almost zero funds. In this sense, I will proudly sacrifice my Sony Cybershot digital camera in order to transfer the material from analog to digital realm.

Nevertheless, apart from many other objective issues, such as natural or, not less natural, human-generated disasters, that can be solved with a good backup strategy, there is a one objective issue, which is totally independent of my control: since my web project will rely on a collaborative framework with the local communities, then I will have to choose either between a centralized digitization of the materials or to rely on the skills of the each contributor to renounce his bias and to capture his personal history in a professional manner.

copyright issues

As long as the majority of my sources will be self-generated or provided by different state institutions, then I would guess that my copyright problems will hopefully be minor issues. Although, you never know how the dices will be arranged. As we've seen from the readings the dilemma of "to copyright or not to copyright" is a false dilemma and the researcher with all his non-profit desire is left to the mercy of a couple of greedy corporations.

Aside from these "wild capitalism" rules, there is also another issue of a special concern for me: It is clear that the copyright law applies to one's work even after "the death of the author", then what about the copyright conundrum of a dead state? For example, the documents, which I am going to use were mostly produced by now physically defunct, but still psychologically influential Soviet Union. By the logic of the field, I might say that all the content produced by former or present states is open to the use of the public.

Since in my focus on the first half of the 20th century, I am going to use also some primary sources, which were produced by some individuals there are concerns about their private lives. In this sense, referring to some diaries or letters by current survivors, I will try to reach them and to ask for their permission. Finally, while recognizing the premature nature of my gesture, I will apply a Creative Commons "Attribution Non-Commercial License" to my final product.

project outline

Abstract

This project will potentially be a part or an annex of my PhD dissertation, which I will hopefully write during my participation in the PhD program of the History and Art History Department, at George Mason University. As my dissertation project will focus on the comparative analysis of two neighbor towns-Ribnita and Rezina-situated in the north-eastern corner of this map, which represent a de jure non-existent, but a de facto entity called Transnistria, my web project will entail a structure of different layers (maps, images, photos, texts), which will illustrate the evolution of these two localities during the first half of the 20th century.

The necessity of the project

In addition to the objective necessity of fulfilling certain academic requirements, the project will focus on the achievement of following goals:

1. It will serve as a platform for the cooperation involving both the scholars in the field and people in the region
2. It can be an instrument for the exploration of the online environment in different conflict-resolution strategies
3. It will serve as a valuable tool for teachers and students who want to explore the journey of "real people" through different political, social and economic contexts.
   

Main features

First of all, it will be a web based collection of different tagged items pertaining to the history of the region. Secondly, it will be possible for visitors not only to comment on each entity of the collection, but also to tag different elements inside the items. Finally, the web resource will also have a section, which will deal with my dissertation. This section will display an interface similar to a blog, with entries referring to my ideas on the dissertation and readings on this subject.

Audience

I have mentioned some thoughts on this issue, in my previous post. Since at that time, I was thinking about two projects, I might say that at this stage, the audience is a sum of the both projects' audiences. Thus, it is targeted toward scholars and local communities.

Technologies

For this undertaking I consider mainly two technologies such as: Omeka and GIS. First tool is for the management of the collection and second is mainly for the creation of complex environments from the individual items.

Interactive elements

Referring to the existence of certain Web 2.0 applications, I would say that, initially this project will rely mainly on the "Comments" feature enabling each visitor to comment on the items and on any blog post. The next step would be to develop the trust of the community and to involve it into the online mechanisms of documents collection.

some thoughts on a great movie

For those who enjoyed or who are going to enjoy this article by Errol Morris, I would recommend to dedicate two hours more and to watch the movie "Memento" by Christopher Nolan.

The movie is a multidimensional saga of one guy who is suffering from "this condition" of a short term memory loss. It is multidimensional because the action is not staged according to a classical linear time framework, but it is a series of flashbacks, which starts from a certainty and lead to an illusion. The certainty is represented by a murder, the illusion is represented by the tricks and traps of memory and of interpretation. In a sense, if the story would have been developed according to a typical detective story it would not have the same appeal.

Instead, the director added some layers on the subject of the murder. The murderer is a typical human enraged by a cause, which to him seems to be a "just cause" of revenging his wife's murder. As is so often the case, what to him seem to be a series of certainties, actually are no more than illusions, which are rendered possible by his guilty consciousness. As a matter of fact, it turns out that the murderer and his chaser proved to be the same person. Finally, the murderer decide to surrender to "his condition" and to tell his story in his own way. Instead of coming into terms with his own personality, he is becoming a prisoner of his mental condition.

In addition to this fascinating narration of the story, the movie entails some great historiographical questions, such as: the issue of memory and its mechanisms, the objective/subjective value of historical interpretation, the multifaceted nature of identity.

project audience

Since I have in mind two projects I will try to convey a general idea about the audiences of both projects. In the case of a website for The Moldovan National Archives, I guess the main audience would be researchers from all around the world, interested in browsing through numerous collections of the Archives and finding their way through them without making a journey to the Archives. Of course, it is impossible to provide all the content in the digital form, but at least, this web site will provide general guidelines, such as: available collections, hours of operation, archival policies in the area of document reproduction, telephone numbers and physical address of The National Archives and of other archives from the area. Since Archives are open not only for researchers but also to the local communities, the web site will also try to reach to the local population in terms of genealogical research or other services, such as, for example, the restoration of property rights after the fall of USSR.

Concerning the second project, the one concerning the analysis of the two localities in the first half of the 20th century, there is a chance that this project will have as its audience the local population. I am referring to "a chance" because as any new media project this one has got a lot of unexpected elements. Taking into consideration the fact that, nowadays, the two localities Ribnita and Rezina, which can be located in the upper right corner of this map, are divided not only by the Nistru river but also by the legacy of the Transnistrian conflict, then the web site can be not only a historical project but also a site of shared memories, where each community could share its moments of pain and hope. This being said, I am waiting for your comments and criticism.

wiki-history

Recently "Daily Mail" resurrected the debate on the fate of Adolf Hitler, during the last days of the Soviet offensive in Nazi Germany. The article reads that:

Adolf Hitler may not have shot himself dead and perhaps did not even die in his bunker, it emerged yesterday. A skull fragment believed for decades to be the Nazi leader’s has turned out to be that of a woman under 40 after DNA analysis.

Scientists and historians had long thought it to be conclusive proof that Hitler shot himself in the head after taking a cyanide pill on 30 April 1945 rather than face the ignominy of capture.

In short, the story narrates about Nick Bellantoni, University of Connecticut archeologist, who, during his visit to Russian National Archives collected DNA swabs of the skull, and concluded that the skull did not belong to Hitler.

Today, I read another article, published by a Russian website, in which Vladimir Kozlov, the Deputy Director of the Russian State Archive, denied the possibility that Nick Bellantoni visited the State Archive, given the fact that the Archive Registrar has not issued a permit with this name in the last 4 years. In addition, Kozlov mentions that an one hour procedure of drawing DNA samples by cotton swabs, would not be allowed by the archivists. Moreover, he emphasizes the fact that the skull, which was not unanimously accepted as a fragment of Hitler's skull, is not the only proof of Hitler's death. There are another materials such as: the jawbone (which remains away from public view) and the bloodstained sofa segments.

According to The Telegraph's top of the most visited Wikipedia pages for 2008, the page of Adolf Hitler is ranked 17th in the list of 50 pages. The paragraph under the heading Defeat and death contains a very detailed account of these events. Due to the quick reaction of Wikipedia's editors, the entry on the death of Hitler has been completed with the information from "Daily Mail". What about the information from the Russian web site? I guess if Bellantoni did find other ways to approach Hitler's skull, and indeed drew some DNA, then the entry would stay intact, but if Kozlov was right and Bellantoni did not attend Russian State Archive, then it should be deleted.

Until then, my suggestion is to admire the critical thinking of some of the participants in the Discussion section of this Wikipedia page, under the heading The skull proven not to be Hitler's:

No. The link provided says nothing about it not being Hitler's skull. It *is* written in a sensationalist manner though to provoke interest. Clearly a reputable source is needed. srushe (talk) 00:24, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Should atleast be added as "after DNA testing, doubt was cast..." User:MetallicaAddict-MetalJunkie --MetallicaAddict-MetalJunkie (talk) 05:53, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

compromise

The Web 2.0 component of the new media is perhaps the most exciting part of the interaction between "old" and " new" media in the process of learning and teaching humanities and other disciplines. If somebody may object to the quality of the content disposed on Wikipedia or other collaborative wiki platforms (although as Rozenweig's piece suggests some problems can be transformed into advantages), then I guess both "experts" and "amateurs" enjoy the possibility to share their views and thoughts on a certain topic, or to engage in an interdisciplinary discussion.

Here the excitement is not merely that the Web 2.0 will replace the traditional conferences, but it is the great opportunity to display your thoughts and your research process to the scrutiny of the diverse audience. Of course, there is a risk that after an extended session of exchanging comments in a virtual realm, one might found out that there are no more subjects to debate at the conference table, but at the same time, there is another opportunity, that the lively debate will transcend the pixelized format and will jump into the implementation stage.

When in comes to the implementation stage, "First Monday" series featuring Schnapp's idea of any public institution as "a glocal enterprise" transcends the concept of the archives, libraries and museums as physical repositories of memory and make the "memory palaces of the 21-st century more permeable." In this sense, new media has to be an additional layer of means which will not only bridge the communication gap between different social groups, but will also generate interest and non-traditional insights into the physical space of the museum.

A new medium needs new tools. In other words, you cannot make modern cars only with hammers. Although they are still used and will be used, you need some special technical skills to operate different techniques. In this sense, Bruce's project can be characterized as an online photo laboratory which train photographs for the possibilities and challenges of the new medium.

web designers of the world unite

Take a look at this web site and try to read it through the web design principles provided in The Non-Designers Web Book (Robin Williams and John Tollet, 2006). For those who did not read this book, just a hint that there are four basic principles, which according to the book, "will not make you a brilliant designer, and they will not lend you $ 20000 web design contracts, but they will keep you from embarrassing yourself in front of millions of people." So, these principles are: alignment, proximity, repetition, and contrast.

Alignment: Referring to the alignment of the website, the first observation is that the alignment is not uniform. In other words, the headline and the Search panel are aligned at the center, while the basic text is on the left. Also, the navigation bar features some dang borders, which furthermore emphasize the isolation and the lack of the communication between different elements of the page

Proximity: Paragraphs are not related to their titles. Instead of breaks the web designer used Enter button to provide new paragraphs. Nevertheless, due to the colored lines which divide each paragraph it is possible to grasp the connection of these elements.

Repetition: Some innocent clicks can provide an impression of a non-website: pages are not related with each other in some way. They don't share a common logo, graphic or any other multimedia device.

Contrast: At a first glance, there is a focal point in this web site. See for example the head with its capital letters. But, what is the specific of this site besides it being an overall "History Archive." (sic). In addition, the rest of the front page represents a table with confusing geographical and historical facts.

P.S. I have to be honest: it is always easier to criticize others' work than to make something valuable yourself.

fundamental issues

"Of the subjects in the secular curriculum, it [history] is the best at teaching those virtues once reserved for theology-humility in the face of our limited ability to know, and awe in the face of the expanse of human history.

On his journey from China to India, the Venetian traveler Marco Polo ventured into Basman, believed to be Sumatra, where he chanced upon a species he had never before seen: the rhinoceros. But Polo did not see it that way. As his diary records, he saw instead

unicorns, which are scarcely smaller than elephants. They have the hair of a buffalo...[and] a single large, black horn in the middle of the forehead. They do not attack with their horn, but only with their tongue and their knees; for their tongues are furnished with long, sharp spines... They are very ugly brutes to look at... not at all such as we describe them when... they let themselves be captured by virgins.

Our encounter with history presents us with a choice: to learn about rhinoceroses or to learn about unicorns. We naturally incline toward unicorns-they are prettier and more tame. But it is the rhinoceros that can teach us far more than we could ever imagine."

(Wineburg Samuel, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts, 2001 24)

aurea mediocritas

My last week reading of Manovich had a therapeutic effect of not letting me too enthusiastic about the new media technologies. Usually, especially in graduate school, when you are subjected to the prospect of learning something totally new, there is a wave of irrational enthusiasm which is seldom to result into a Mega-project of the same scale. Nevertheless, the soft grounding may result in a series of small but not less important projects. Still, I do not exclude the fact that after a series of other refreshing readings my current mindset will bet on the further minimalism.

So far, the readings for this week have managed to revive a sort of enthusiasm, and at the same, to keep the skepticism alive. Starting with the promise for a lucrative combination of new and analogue media, continuing with a retrospective and some prospects of the digital history and, at last but not least, the survey of certain practical issues which are encountered by historians in their taming of the new media.

The most interesting idea for me is how along with the developments of the new technologies and of infinite possibilities of the computation, historians are confronted with the prospects of creating or reinventing the total master narratives, which in addition to written-based scriptural illusion of the past would also speculate on the "total reproduction of the past as it was lived by those people" making use of new video and other technologies.

Of course, video and audio materials are not new to any type of totalitarian regimes, and they were used extensively either in Nazi Germany or in Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the fact that computer shapes its content according to the will of its user can prove much more dangerous than The Triumph of the Will, because the user-friendly interface will customize its propaganda tools according to the needs of each individual.

projects

As any new media project is a work in progress, I hope this start will be a "good progress." After reading Manovich and a couple of articles for Learning and Teaching History in a Digital Age, which is another course I am taking this semester, I was inspired to think about the following projects:

a) in line with my dissertation interests with the borderlands of modern Eastern Europe and with Manovich's observation that, with the usage of new media, history is becoming more spatialized, one possible project would be the virtual representation of two border regions or two border towns during the first half of the 20-th century. As a possible model for this type of projects I liked the idea of Hypercities

b) since I spent this summer in the Moldovan archives and I noticed that they don't have any websites or home pages, I decided that a viable project would be to design such a website with the possible extension of creating a database with digitized documents.

In this way, my project proposals are quiet complementary. On the one hand, first project seems to be a bit S(cience)F(iction). On the other hand, the second project looks quiet viable. Although, with the current level of Moldovan bureaucracy, it is not impossible that my evaluation would have the opposite results and the first project will be much more realistic than the second one.

"The Language of New Media" by Lev Manovich

For those who are interested in the complex marriage of culture and new media this book is a compulsory reading.

Since this is my first experience with a book on the effects of new media, it is obvious that my impressions are somehow overenthusiastic or amateur. First of all, many thanks to Manovich for bringing me back on Earth from the infinite dreaming about the innumerable possibilities of new media. After this reading, I will start to enjoy the smell of the documents and to pity the future historians who would rely mainly on the imperialism of the screen for their future research projects. Obviously, I would not like to be misunderstood: new media provides huge possibilities but it also hides important traps.

One of the positive aspects of “the digital materialism” is the rapid inter-connectivity and intercommunication of different means of information and historical sources. Nevertheless, historians are no longer mass producers of history. What Manovich calls “individual customization” is not limited to the present of post-industrial society. It actually implies customized versions of the past. Each computer user can generate infinite versions of the past.

To a certain extent, this fact generates a phenomenon, which optimists would call “democratization of historical craft” while pessimists would term to be “the end of the professional history.” Does this mean that everyone can become a historian? Still, this question is not limited only to the historian’s craft. It also applies to other “professional spheres.” I know that there is no final answer to this question but I hope that after this semester I would at least be able to carry a debate on this issue

P.S. For other thoughts on this matter you might consider my comments on the following page