What is Digital History?

The four web sites chosen for this week’s assignment are an excellent cross-section of approaches to doing history on the web. Differences in presentation, content, detail, and source material reflect the purposes and resources of their respective creators. They are well chosen to illustrate what Cohen and Rosenzweig[1] have ably discussed in this week’s readings, not in terms of web history, but what history can be on the web. I used a rating of one to four stars for content and ease of use.

The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/

The Valley of the Shadow is an impressive web site from any perspective, and the awards and accolades it has received are no surprise. It draws on virtually all the possible materials that could be asked for including archival material and images. The availability of diaries, letters and newspapers, as well as official sources is particularly interesting and underscores the level of effort expended to provide a balanced and broad collection. It, like DoHistory and the National Museum of American History sites, offers a guide for the use of the site that is particularly well suited to teachers using the web in the classroom. I found the history of the making of the site interesting in light of reading Cohen and Rosenzweig, because this site really did begin on the ground floor of the digital history “movement” and has evolved into a major resource. I give the site four stars for content and four stars for ease of use.

The History Channel

http://www.history.com/

The History Channel’s web site is much as one would expect: primarily a vehicle to hawk the channel’s programming. This is not to say it is unattractive, far greater than an individual, or most history departments for that matter. There is interesting content, but it is largely entertaining more than informing. I am not disputing the factual from it. The resources available to a corporate web developer obviously are far basis for the features, such as “This Day in History” but amusing as this site can be it is really a mechanism to sell a product, either directly from the site, or via its television. Fun to play with, but not as well put together as the rest of this week’s sites, and certainly not history with a capital H. Like my colleagues in the National Archives, I frankly cringe when answering any public query that begins, “I saw this thing on the History Channel.” I give the History Channel two stars for content and three stars for ease of use.

DoHistory

http://dohistory.org/

This is a fascinating web site and, as deserving of its awards as Valley of the Shadow. The content is interesting in itself, but the meta level introduced by using a real person and events that carry a contemporary flavor are a very powerful resource. I am not a teacher, but if I were this would be high on my list of sites to use as a teaching tool. In fact, its section on Doing Your Own History Project is better than most similar guides I have seen in print. I give DoHistory three and one half stars for content and four stars for ease of use.

National Museum of American History

http://americanhistory.si.edu/index.cfm

The National Museum of American History web site is as good as any public museum site I have browsed. The richness of its graphic design is every bit as good as the History Channel’s without the taint of crass commercialism. It also represents another resource for teachers. It is attractive to the eye without being busy and seems to be kept current. It does have the limitation of any museum site in that the primary focus is, understandably, material culture and the context is not as full as a historian might desire. Historians are not curators however, and the site does a good job of introducing its collections to the public and generating interest in potential visitors and that is its purpose. Considering those specific limitations, I give the site three and a half stars for content and three and a half stars for ease of use.

I must admit that I had no idea of the diversity and quality of history materials on the web. I could find small faults with the sites we have used this week, but they are head and shoulders above what I have previously used. With the possible exception of the History Channel site I would use any of them if called upon to write or speak on their respective subject areas.

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[1] [1] Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, Digital History http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/

Blog This

For my first assignment I chose to read an established, main stream blog, Chris Cillizza’s The Fix (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/). I made this decision with malice aforethought for two reasons: I am familiar with the author’s style from reading his newspaper, The Washington Post, and his articles for Roll Call before he moved to the Post and two, my general unfamiliarity with the blogosphere. I must not be alone in this unfamiliarity since the spell checker for Word does not recognize “blog” or “blogosphere.”

The comfort of The Fix lies in its predictability. The prose is the kind of pleasantly crisp declarative English one expects of an experienced journalist on the staff of the Post. It may rarely excite, but it never offends. His coverage of the lead-in to last week’s primaries was insightful and sympathetic, if a bit conservative in the literal sense. He spent considerable time in detailing the landscape of the growing friction between the Obama and Clinton campaigns with some insight, but no excursions onto any opinionated limbs. The audience is obviously intended to be informed middle-of-the-road to mildly liberal – the sort of people who read the print version of The Post.

The mechanics of Cillizza’s blog are as good as the Post can make them, and that is very good indeed. Links to video feeds are flawless and relevant – for example, the sound bites from Obama and Clinton appearances that support the author’s narrative. Photographs from the campaign trail are present without being intrusive. Cillizza posts daily most of the time, and more often as necessary in the case of recent Presidential Candidate Debates.

Unfortunately, some of the outstanding characteristics of The Fix will alienate many in the blogosphere. Cillizza’s very predictability that is certainly in keeping with The Post’s editorial policy will alienate a significant number of people for the same reason it comforts others: no fire. I began this review by confessing my lack of experience with blogs, but one thing I do understand is that, at best, blogging represents a new avant garde of thought, a place where innovation counts for more than safety.

While it is not surprising that so august an institution as The Washington Post remains true to its institutional conservatism it is unfortunate that its on-line arm cannot rise to the opportunities that the blogosphere provides. It is not due to lack of talent, for Chris Cillizza really is an informed and able journalist. I am afraid that something else is at work: the curse of the larger brand.

Blogs, I am finding out, are often messy and sometimes chaotic – not the stuff of newspaper legend or Pulitzer prizes. There is a kind of freshness about them that attracts pointed commentary and out-of the-box thinking that is refreshing, if less rigorous than some readers would prefer. This is not to say there are no standards, but there is a certain lack of consistency that comes from the lack of an Editor. I have reached a conclusion: I’ll read my newspapers off-line and my blogs on-line.