Digital histories have the potential to be very effective for scholarship. More than just another research tool, they combine photos, video clips, audio clips and text to create online research environments. I intentionally use the word potential as I have found varying definitions of what digital history is. The following are two interesting journal articles. I provide a brief summary of their views on what makes digital history engaging and effective, as well as their views on authority and interpretation.
Seeing the Past: Digital History as New Model Scholarship
The author explains that digital histories are effective for scholarship because they provide “full access to timely research.” He believes that not all digital histories are created equal and that “visual history” is the new frontier that historians must strive for. Visual history answers abstract questions like What does the past look like? The author explains further:
“But let’s be clear that visualization as advocated here goes beyond mere illustration. Many authors use images to illustrate their work. But it is when researchers use a variety of visualization, animation, and auditory tools and techniques as the primary means of analyses and presentation that will make visualization history’s new frontier. Through simulations, three or four dimensional renderings of objects—used broadly here to refer not only to artifacts, for example, but to more complex landscapes, such as an African slave fort, a Caribbean port, a French settlement…—historians have the tools to open new vistas on past worlds and also pave the way to study history comparatively. Visualizations such as these expose interpretive relationships and possibilities to provide historians with an effective means to imagine the past, even when visual data is sparse …”
In regards to who is creating these projects, the author believes that interdisciplinary collaboration is key. Bringing together the resources and talents of individuals and institutions can create this new model for how scholarship is produced. Most interesting, is the push for digital histories with open narratives and “muted voices of authority,” leaving the door open for interpretation by the audience to produce further knowledge on the subject.
Crandall Shifflett, “Seeing the Past: Digital History as New Model Scholarship,” Journal of Online Learning and Teaching 3 (2007): 1.
Online Multimedia Museum Exhibits: A Case Study in Technology and Collaboration
Three university libraries and five regional museums worked together; gathering input from historians, museum curators, librarians, archivists, and web designers. This team decided that using a digital history exhibit would provide researchers with easier access to materials that are otherwise held in many different physical locations. This article compliments the first in that it advocates the collaborative effort of a variety of institutions; however it takes a different and interesting look at authority and interpretation in digital history.
“Initial discussion among the partners revealed a desire to add interpretive information beyond the multimedia presentation. Here, the different backgrounds and institutions that were represented in the partnership fueled pointed discussion resulting in a very valuable addition to the Voices Web site."
"Generally speaking, a librarians’ main interest is providing quality access to the collection. Librarians are anxious to use all the information resources at their disposal in order to satisfy a patron’s educational/informational needs, while at the same time offering very limited, if any, interpretation."
"Museum curators also have valuable collections that they wish to share with patrons yet, they worked from a very different paradigm. They give patrons access to only a limited part of their collections and offer high quality, professional, educational, interpretation for each artifact. They are qualified and anxious to interpret artifacts but they must bar patrons from most of their collection."
"Generally speaking, archivists have a view, somewhere in between. Their knowledge and familiarity with their own collections qualities them for varying levels of interpretive assistance and they usually offer more general access to their collections but under controlled supervision."
Matthew F. Nickerson, “Online Multimedia Museum Exhibits: A Case Study in Technology and Collaboration,” Library Hi Tech 22 (2004): 3.
I appreciate your deliberate use of "potential." Even with the differences in definition and the debate of collaboration versus single initiative, I think there is a more vital question of how to make a collection attractive *and* how to make it informative. The "potential" could lead to an unsatisfactory balance that is either uninformative or inaccessible. (Really interesting articles!)
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