Dead Ends and New Hopes

Leaving a group meeting last week I had planned to meet with many of the members of NC's music scene to get a view of Charlotte's musical past. My plan was to question many of the members of Greensboro's music scene about any affiliation with Charlotte's music scene. What I found was astounding even if it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Of the people I questioned non appeared to have any information that particularly related to Charlotte. I heard stories about a dive in Greensboro called "Friday's" and a pizza joint called "New York Pizza" both of which were host to a myriad of bands from the seventies up through the late eighties. I heard about the culture surrounding UNC-Greensboro and how its student body helped to shape Greensboro's music scene. I learned about several Avant-Garde bands many of whom are still on the cutting edge of improvisational art. I even had the pleasure of playing with one, the F-Art Ensemble, who has been active since the early eighties.

While specifics surrounding the Charlotte area were sparse I found some good jumping off points. I was directed towards Bill Hanna who has been hosting an open Jazz Jam at the Double Door Inn (a bar in Charlotte) for almost twenty years. I also found out that the owner of Somewhere Else Tavern in Greensboro has thirty years of experience and contacts that could be to my advantage. 

These developments are also exciting because it gives me an idea of the era in which my research could be the most useful. Because I am currently involved in North Carolina's Music scene, I figured recent history would be more fitting to my experience. The sources that I have begun to pool give me a better target for the information that I might actually be able to find; the experience also introduced me to a great target audience, musicians. Interest was very high among the musicians to whom I spoke. Hopefully I can start building a great base of study. 

Contracting, Conspiring, Completing

Creating a group contract never appeared to be a massive undertaking, however, the due date for the project presented certain challenges. While it makes sense to present a full group contract early in the semester, the relative lack of familiarity with the project left me... concerned.

After a few trips to the Charlotte Public Library, our research led us to a conclusion: this is a huge undertaking. Ideas for organization of the project developed over time. We initially consented to select eras, around a decade a piece, upon which to base our research. We quickly realized that a decade of music not only included an incredibly diverse number of artists to log, but also presented us with too large body of other mediums (such as venues, shows, sheet music, and radio broadcasts) to reasonably manage. Eras were quickly presenting more problems than they solved.

We quickly decided that a better method by which to evaluate the music scene in Charlotte was selecting a medium. We resolved that each person should select from venue, radio, sheet music, magazine, recorded music, or photographs. We once again ran into a problem; creating any sort of narrative with no cross medium integration was nearly impossible.

Eventually, Tina decided that the best way to approach the issue was using Venue as an organizational tool, and so it stood. By focusing on certain venues each (concert halls, bars, hotels, radio stations) we are enabled to focus our research. Many venues in Charlotte have been host to bands large and small, national and local, signed and unsigned, from a variety of different backgrounds.

Drafting a contract, then, became much simpler. The Contract was now a way to decide what areas we needed to focus on and to be realistic about each of our responsibilities to the project and to the group. I decided that I would take overarching control of the website as well as focusing on contemporary music venues; most notably Tremont and the Double Door jazz club in uptown Charlotte. Our group has now decided what it wants to do with the website and how to represent the material in an interesting and valuable manner.

September 11 Digital Archive

The September 11 Digital Archive is an archive of resources related to the tragedies which occurred on September 11th, 2001.

From the website:

The September 11 Digital Archive uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath. The Archive contains more than 150,000 digital items, a tally that includes more than 40,000 emails and other electronic communications, more than 40,000 first-hand stories, and more than 15,000 digital images.

This website is a perfect representation of my aims as a digital historian; that is not to say that the website has no flaws, but it represents a huge database of electronic resources. Most interesting are the 40,000 emails. This is an indispensable collection.

Emails are a great source of first hand accounts, they are personal and contain personal accounts of situations. Personal correspondence can't be faked, these are actual insight into people's thoughts and feelings. it offers a great step towards humanizing and connecting users with the personal aspect of the tragedy.

The September 11 Digital Archive is also nice because its collection is seemingly endless, this archive has been open since 2002 and now includes Emails from regular individuals, relatives and friends of victims, and government officials. The website also contains information like FDNY daily plans at the World Trade Center site. It has a catalog of interviews and a photo archive of information relating to 9/11 which is fully searchable.

Having been created in 2002, the website describes its self not only as an archive of resources related to 9/11, but also as an "opportunity to develop free software tools to help historians do a better job of collecting, preserving, and writing history in the new century." This website benefits largely from the limitless space available on the internet as well as the ease of accessibility afforded by the internet. It was so successful that the library of congress accepted the database into its own catalog. The September 11 Digital Archive is now guaranteed continued accessibility.

The biggest issue I find with this website, however, is also its greatest advantage. The website's "Browse" section contains 31 headings linking users to thousands of resources. This body of information, while very thorough, is intimidating in its scale. Navigation of the website could also be simplified, by more intuitive headings and a home page with some useful information the website could seem more welcoming. At its welcome page, the website looks almost empty.

Omeka

Omeka is a powerful tool which allows users to create and organize information as an online exhibit. I've done some research and it appears that the interface for Omeka is both user friendly and diverse. Its simple layout offers the ability not only to easily manipulate data but also to apply ones creative flair to whatever medium they should choose.

Since my group is creating an archive of music in Charlotte I thought I would look at some of the tools available that may enhance our client's experience. Omeka offers a host of plugins that could really make the user experience on our website more rewarding and enjoyable.

Here are three of the features that I think will be very useful:

Download Logger:

Download Logger is a system which shows how many times each of the items on your website have been downloaded. I think this could be really useful because we could see which features on our website are the most popular. While popularity is not the only goal, if we have more popular exhibits then hopefully more traffic will come through all parts of our website.

Geolocation:

Geolocation adds mapping software to websites. This feature will make it easy to geographically note where certain hot spots within the Charlotte music scene were including clubs, bars, music venues, and record companies. I believe this is powered by Google maps which is an online tool that is widely used already and will hopefully be self explanatory to users. 

Dropbox:

Dropbox will allow users to upload their own media. While, in the long run, this could create more indexing work for the developers, it would be nice if we could get user contributions. The only thing I worry about with this plugin is the copyright implications. We will have to be very careful about what content we allow on our website. 

The WayBackMachine

Take a groovy trip into the past, transcend time and space, delight at the poor web design of days long gone.

The WayBackMachine

The WayBackMachine is an amazing tool which allows users to view snapshots of webpages in past formats. This is an incredible resource for any historian because it allows one to track the advances made in webpage design and structure; through its utilization people interested in web trends can track developments in web infrastructure.

Google.com - Nov 11, 1998

Google.com July 29, 2011

 Since access to the internet has become widespread, webpage design has had the opportunity to develop through trial and error; as a result, conventions have developed such as the way we denote buttons and hyperlink organization. Flash and HTML formats have also changed the way we browse: from simple link clicking navigation to interactive three dimensional menus - websites have come a long way.

Online indexes in particular have moved forward. One of the most important developments in net usability is the simplification of webpage navigation. While many of the things we take for granted like organized panes of information (similar to newspapers) and 3-dimensional clickable buttons did not always exist and they took a lot of time to become convention.

For the purposes of this blog I've decided to look at American Memory - the american history index maintained at the Library of Congress' webpage. This website has developed much since its introduction.

July 20, 1999

Throughout its own history, this index of history has undergone some major changes. If you look at the first panel, from 1999, you see some counter-intuitive measures probably thought to be engaging. The tiles in the middle of the page run on Java and constantly change to reveal new pictures. It offers the ability to view the captions from the tiles; however, this comes at the expense of ease of use: the enter button at the top left is not noticeable. In viewing this page my first thought was "this website no more than a photo captioning index." This turned out not to be true, but I would imagine I am not the first person to be misled. 

April 20, 2003

The second panel depicts the website in 2003, as you can see the design has improved and many of the features are much easier to locate. While the page has made advances it is still cluttered. The left side of the page (where my eyes are drawn first) contains only two links that I personally would click: "This Day in History" and "What's New," while the others (FAQ and How To View) are completely frivolous; I will not be clicking those. Fortunately, both the "Search" and the "Collection Finder" are grouped together and they are relatively easy to find. This page shows tons of potential and with a little reorganization could truly shine. 

June 20, 2012

Finally, the third panel shows the fully developed webpage. The search bar in the top right simplifies my search, but the real benefit is the instantly visible index of collections which are sorted by topic. This is the purpose of the website and now its acquisition takes no effort. This website has truly benefited from its time on the internet. The highlights feature on the right side of the screen is very enticing and I think this website has been organized in the best possible manner. 

Week 1, Digital History and Problems

Humans have been developing a way to store and transmit data for thousands of years; some of the most impressive strides in globalization have been made within the last thirty years. I will assume you have never attempted to update your Facebook with a hammer and chisel.

Pre digitization, print was the best way to reach a large audience. Unfortunately, for the normal person, mass distribution of the printed word was limited to those with access to a printing press and access to distribution.

Transmitting information over large geographic areas was a conundrum prior to internet connectivity. One could send letters or try to release a newspaper but geographic and linguistic barriers barred communication. A master of smoke signals may have been the closest thing to a social media master before the widespread use of print; and still only a select few had access to mass communication. Radio and later television then stood as vehicles for mass communication, but even those were only available to a small portion of the population. It wasn't until the explosion of the internet in the eighties and nineties that the average Joe had access to global communication. 

As a prospective historian it's important that I understand the implication of a growing body of digital information. Thanks to Daniel Cohen and Roy Rozenweig I have some good direction on interpreting digital sources. Their book, Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web, outlines many of the advantageous features of the internet; they have shown the true value of the internet is in its flexibility. As a medium, the internet is truly only limited by data acquisition speeds and one's ability to code. The internet offers a platform for anything from the arts to sciences to be presented in creative and entertaining ways. Considering that the internet is truly limitless in its capacity, storage space is cheap. Nobody is restricted from its utilization as a communication tool. 

Thanks to websites such as Yahoo and Google searching internet resources has become easy and fast; the flexibility of the internet is represented in the different indexing methods employed by search engines. On the one hand, Yahoo represents search results in an index which sorts websites based on content; this appears useful in the context of scholarship, however, the man hours taken to archive every website on the internet into Yahoo's index is unimaginable. For just this reason, Yahoo ignores many websites in its indexing system. On the other hand, Google uses blunt force to search for strings of text within web pages and presents them in order of popularity. This is a powerful tool and gives on access to almost the entirety of the internet with minimal searching. Unfortunately, when one searches a string like "Digital History" they are met with "About 75,300,000 results." A number that is truly impossible to sift through.

Stuart Fox's article "Digital Age Presents New Problems For Historians" focuses on just this problem. "Through Twitter, Facebook and email, a child in 2010 will, over their life, produce a body of writing that dwarfs the collected output of even the most prolific Founding Fathers such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. This volume will shift the problems of historical research from the archeological recovery of rare texts and letters to the process of sifting through vast fields of digital information that weave through legal gray areas of corporate and private ownership." 

Growing challenges facing historians include legal grey areas and, just as Fox stated, an unreasonable amount of information. Fox also does a good job of representing the advantages to historians; the ability of historians to write social histories have been greatly enhanced . Socially based history will become as easy to represent as the traditional "Great-Man" view of history.