Unit 12

Uploads to Northern Virginia Digital History Archive

I uploaded 5 photos to the archive on June 24, 2017. They are of the Old Town Alexandria waterfront and Woodrow Wilson bridge taken from an airplane flying to National Airport. Contributing a photo was easy.  I don't yet see my photos when I go back and search the site, but perhaps they have to be approved before they are visible to others. The difficult part of uploading was that I had to figure out how to shrink their KB size so they would be accepted.  I used Adobe Photoshop, and it took me a little while to find the right things on the pull down menus. I couldn't figure out how to tell it the maximum KB I wanted, so I just used inches. The resulting photos may be smaller in terms of KB than I could have uploaded. I still don't entirely understand how reducing the KB of a photo reduces its physical size or resolution. My understanding is that if one zooms the photo or reproduces it on a large scale, it would not look as clear.

An Online Digital Archive

I looked at the online archives in the Unit 12 note. On the George Mason site, I wanted to look for photos. I found Collections, then Digital Collections. Some of these sites seem to push one to browsing by collection, but if it isn't clear which collection might be most useful, there is the search box. I didn't find some of the collection names that useful (i.e., Manuscripts, Marie Elsie Fox Photo Collection), although Behind the Wall: Images of East Germany was a clear collection name and something I might revisit. (I've been watching the Weissensee Saga, a German TV drama set in East Berlin before and during the fall of the Wall.) Category Pages within LUNA showed me a very long alphabetical list. I thought I'd see if there were washing machine or refrigerator photos, but both searches yielded nothing. In the end, I feel like I'm not sure what the strengths are of their digitized image collections, and that it might take me a long time to figure it out. If I want photos of the university or Federal theaters, those are apparently subjects the collections cover.

My Project Status

I have sorted the pictures I have collected by type of appliance (washer, refrigerator, stove, other) and within each appliance category by year. I looked to see where the gaps were in my coverage, and searched for more pictures from the 1930s. I have also been finishing the sorting of my notes within each appliance category and by date. This week (June 26-July 1), I'll work with Weebly to see how well I can translate my ideas for a site into reality.

Unit 10

Real or Not?

I looked at Digital Karnak and Persepolis3d to see if they make it clear that they are digital reconstructions, rather than real. On the Welcome page, it says, in present tense, that Karnak “is one of the largest temple complexes in the world…” which is a little confusing if people don’t know Karnak is now only ruins. But on the About page, it says it is a 3-D Virtual Reality model. The site is very clear about who produced the site. Videos are clearly not photographs. And modern video footage is labeled as such. Persepolis3d.com clearly states on its home page that it is “a virtual reconstruction.” The pictures do not look like real photographs. The Statement page says that the goal is to bring Persepolis “back to life” and that it is a “virtual reconstruction” based on documentation from excavations.

Last winter, I visited the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, MO. They had a  room where you could stand in a plaster cast of what looked like a bomb crater. They also had a field of artificial poppies under a glass walkway as one entered the museum. Those were nice touches. I also recall watching a video at Mt. Vernon about George Washington’s winter at Valley Forge and having artificial snow falling from the ceiling, which was novel. Several years ago, I went to the Maryland side of the Potomac to a reconstructed farm that has a barn with drying tobacco and old heritage breeds of animals. Colonial Williamsburg also has old breeds from the Colonial period. Those are nice, real, 3D experiences, though not everyone (e.g., my husband) wants to talk to actors pretending to be living during the period.

With virtual reality goggles we may get closer to experiencing the past, but it still will not provide the taste, smell, or texture. We also come at history from our own life experience, environment, and culture. We can't experience history as someone living in the period did because we know that once we turn off the program or remove the goggles, the experience will be over. And there is always going to be some “fictionalization” in virtual reality because we can’t know every detail, word, or second of activity that took place. However, virtual reality may help us envision the past, improve our understanding, and empathize. The question becomes how can we enhance our knowledge and understanding through short experiences

Another experiential approach to history is to reenact it, but that also has similar limitations. Recently, I watched the PBS show, Victorian Slum House, in which several individuals and families temporarily lived and worked in slum conditions like those in Britain during the Victorian era. However, the participants received mini-lectures on what individuals like their characters would have been experiencing and talked to the camera about their reflections, so they were not just dropped into the period wholesale. It did seem that the participants’ and TV viewers’ understanding of slum conditions at that time were more specific than if they just read about the period in a journal or book. In the case of the PBS show, the participants wore the clothes, slept on the straw beds, lived in the rooms with peeling paper, and likely smelled the privies—of course, the viewers did not.

I am surprised there isn’t a bigger part of the tourism industry that lets visitors pay to temporarily “live” in the past—wear the clothes, do the work, eat the food, etc., from a past period. I’m not sure how closely covered wagon tours recreate the historic experience. In Kansas, the Flying W Ranch Bunk House lets you sleep on the prairie with the chuckwagon, and Wagons West Tours lets you ride and sleep in a covered wagon in the foothills of the Rockies. So far, I haven’t been tempted to part with indoor plumbing and electricity and give one of those tours a try.

Unit 9

About My Class Project 

My project is a website on "The Evolution of American Household Appliances: Washing Machines, Refrigerators, and Stoves." I will include a timeline in some form of key dates and periods in the evolution of each of these three appliances, with photos and drawings of examples throughout the period covered. Although my main interest is in the first half othe the twentieth century, I expect to include dates and examples form the nineteenth century, as well. I will provide short amounts of text to describe the use of the appliances and how it affected housework. 

I have used several books for background on the history of each appliance and the significance for women's work in U.S. Some are e-books or pamphlets that I have found online, such as on "How to Choose and Use Your Washing Machine," published in the 1940s by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home Economics. An e-text by J.S. Woersdorfer (2017) provides me with the most recent survey on how household technology has evolved. I have found a few photos in the New York Public Library's Digital History Collection and many in the Library of Congress's digital collections. I found a couple of interesting videos on washing machines in NVCC's digital library. One demonstrated the use of a combined clothes and dish washing machine (though not washing both simultaenously!).

Other Materials on Building an Audience

Mitchell, Amy, Jurkowitz, Mark, & Olmstead, Kenneth (2014, March 13). Audience Routes: Direct, Search & Facebook. Retrieved on June 20, 2017 from http://www.journalism.org/2014/03/13/audience-routes-direct-search-facebook/

        Talks about how people access news websites and how their behaviors (i.e., time spent, returns) differ in relation to how they accessed the sites. Discusses measures of engagement and comScore Methodology.

Rainie, Lee (2011, June 13). The Perfect People Meter: My Beautiful Fantasy About Understanding Audience in the Digital Age. Pew Research Center: Internet & Technology. Retrieved June 201, 1027 from

http://www.pewinternet.org/2011/06/13/the-perfect-people-meter-my-beautiful-fantasy-about-understanding-audience-in-the-digital-age/

        Based on the transcription of a speech, this presents ideas on metrics for measuring and understanding an audience.

Smith, Aaron (2012, September 6). Reaching Your Audience in the Digital Age: Key Research Trends to Watch. Pew Research Center. Retrieved June 20, 2017 from http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/09/06/reaching-your-audience-in-the-digital-age-key-research-trends-to-watch/ 
       A presentation based on a nationally representative telephone survey of US adults. Includes computers, internet and broadband; smartphones and mobile computing; and social media. This information may seem more dated since it is based on a 2012 survey.

Unit 8

Sources for Digital Materials

So far, I have found the best digital materials for my project on the Library of Congress website. The Farm Services Administration, Office of War Information took a lot of photos in the 1920s-1940s. I've found almost 100 useful photos that do not have any restrictions on their use and are already digitized. I looked at the Smithsonian website, but it was not as helpful because it charges for some of the things that I might have used. There is a great brochure on how to choose a washing machine from the USDA's Agriculture Information Series (1948). I'm also using various books to help me understand the timing of the changes in household technology. My main interest is 1920-1950, and I'm focusing on washing machines, refrigerators, and stoves. I came across a good website for a washing machine museum, but since everything is copyrighted and the images are for sale, I only plan to cite facts from it and not copy photos from it.

Materials I've Digitized (though not for my class project)

(1) Ground crew mechanics next to bomber (likely a B-17), either 96th or 447th bomb group, US Army Air Corps, southeastern England (probably either Snetterton Heath or Rattlesden air base), circa 1943-44. Scanned from a photo. Do not know who took the photo. My Dad was a sheet metal mechanic and is in the top row, far left side.

(2) Maryville, MO, December 1962, Christmas decorations. Scanned from a slide. Photo taken by Dean E. Medsker.

(3) Havana, Cuba, 1953. Scanned from a B&W negative. Photo taken by Dean E. Medsker.

Unit 7

Copyright

My Understanding of Major Points about Copyright Law

It is hard to get a clear picture of copyright law, especially knowing that the laws can change and court decisions modify how the law is interpreted over time. Charts like those in Cohen and Rosenzweig’s Digital History (2006, pp. 205-206) are very helpful, but given that their chart was published in 2006, I am concerned I may be misunderstanding changes in copyright laws and decisions since then. I am comparing their chart to the U.S. Copyright Office’s Circular 15A (https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf), Duration of Copyright, among other sources.  

For example, Cohen and Rosenzweig’s table on pp. 205-206 indicates that works published between 1923 and 1977 without copyright notice are in the public domain. However, the Library of Congress site (http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/copyright.html) says that “the absence of a copyright notice does not mean that there is no copyright. Copyright protection exists automatically from the moment of creation in a tangible fixed form, which is generally considered to include electronic form. A notice is not required to protect copyright.” These seem inconsistent. The U.S. Copyright Office helps clear this up for me (https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf)--consistent with Cohen and Rosenzweig, the Copyright Office’s circular says that for works already copyright protected by January 1, 1978, those published before January 1, 1923 are in the public domain. If a work was originally copyrighted between January 1, 1950 and December 31, 1963, but did not have copyright renewed for a second term, are also now in the public domain. The Library of Congress says that work created by federal government employees as part of their jobs is in the public domain. If there are restrictions on a work in the Library of Congress’ American Memory collection, the library provides contact information for obtaining permission. 

Works copyrighted after 1922 and renewed before 1978, were given an automatic extension so that their copyright lasts 95 years from the end of the year in which they were originally secured. So these are not yet available in the public domain. However, for those originally copyrighted between January 1, 1950, and December 31, 1963, the copyright renewal is automatic, so the copyright lasts 95 years. The earliest any of these works will be in the public domain is 2045. Apparently, works copyrighted from January 1, 1923 and December 31, 1949 will gradually become part of the public domain—I believe this means that published works copyrighted in 1923 will begin to be part of the public domain on December 31, 2018 (https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf). All of this seems consistent with Cohen and Rosenzweig’s table.

The above attempt to summarize the duration of copyright doesn’t even include unpublished works or works created after January 1, 1978. And to make it even more confusing, some organizations may claim that works in the public domain are restricted. For example, Cohen and Rosenzweig (2006, p. 198) note that Corbis puts copyright notices and digital watermarks on public domain images that are in the public domain and free through the Library of Congress.

I think the best policy is to use the tables and Circular 15A for each work one is considering using. Also, given the complexity of copyright law, it is very important for a student, professor, or historian to understand fair use guidelines. If (a) the purpose of a publication or site is not commercial; (b) the work is factual or data, rather than of a more creative nature; (c) one does not use a large amount of the work; and (d) the use of the work is not likely to affect its economic value for the copyright holder, than it is fair to use the work. For example, if a work is no longer in print and not accessible, then it is less likely to affect the economic value for the copyright holder. However, one must be sure to site and credit the use of others’ work, such as photos and text. In addition, attribution (i.e., citation) is not a substitute for the permission to use a copyrighted work. 

Local Museum Sites and Copyright

I did not see a copyright statement on all of the listed sites. Some said copyright 2017 or for a period of years through 2017. Even when they say their site is copyrighted, they often do not provide any other comment about the use of material on their site.

The Loudoun Museum says it is “committed to expanding the digital display of the collection, in a manner that makes it available as a teaching tool for students, teachers and historians around the globe (http://www.loudounmuseum.org/about/mission/). Yet, it also says that images are “available for purchase for private and commercial use” (http://www.loudounmuseum.org/exhibits/archives/). I’m not sure what private use might include. I would think that some older works would be in the public domain so that a user would not have to purchase them.

The City of Alexandria says the entire contents of its websites are copyrighted for 1996-2017 “unless otherwise noted,” but “you may freely reproduce and distribute, for personal or nonprofit use, any original content on a site produced by the City and not protected from you by password or other security method.” 

I would suggest adding www.history.org/foundation/terms.cfm, for Colonial Williamsburg. It has a lengthy Terms of Use page, which would provide a contrast to the less well-funded local museums. Colonial Williamsburg does clearly state that the content on its site can be used for personal and education use—not commercial uses.

Unit 5

Design Considerations and the Unit 4 Websites

The Avalon Project

• This site definitely fits KISS—very simple.
• I think the color used for the cells and words on the menu would be better in a darker color to provide greater contrast.
• The site’s purpose is to provide availability to an archive of documents. It seems that this website uses the right amount of technology given that its objective is apparently to provide access to selected documents. Nothing flashy here.
•  It isn’t that clear when it says “relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government” in its Statement of Purpose and Document Inclusion Policy. Not sure how they decided on relevance and who is making the decisions about what to include.
• The Contact Us had a bad link—nothing there when I clicked on it.
• They do have the copyright symbol and year.
• One can get back to the Home Page from the other pages.
•  The structure of the site looks pretty straightforward—a hierarchy. It has a home page, menu across the top of major sections, list of documents within a section, and list of chapters or parts of a document. It doesn’t give a full “breadcrumb trail” that shows how one got to a particular page.
• I tried using wave.webaim.org on it—it says that (1) it doesn’t indicate what language the page is in, (2) alt text is insufficient in one area, (3) it lacks heading structure, (4) a layout table can cause reading and navigation problems, (5) unordered list can make it harder for users of assistive technologies.

Romantic Circles

• My initial reaction is that this site is too busy and the home page requires one to scroll down 3 times to get to the bottom. I wonder if the target audience (academic) feels overwhelmed, or if it appreciates the abundance of information.
• The font is small. 
• The home page does provide a lot of open space around the boxes in the middle.
•  I like that it says right at the top what the purpose of the site is, who publishes it, and who the editors are.
• It has the About link in top right corner of home page, which is good.

Amiens Cathedral Project

•  My first reaction is that everything is so small—I mentioned that in my previous blog. I saw that Cohen and Rosenzweig had the same reaction. Although it isn’t just the very small thumbnails that I find frustrating, but also that, after I click on a thumbnail, the selected photo is still very small. I tried a different browser, but it made no difference. I end up feeling that this site isn’t very useful. What’s the point of a site centered on providing visual information if you can’t see it?
• On the positive side, it is easy to navigate with the menu at the bottom and the thumbnail pictures and drawing, and there’s plenty of white space around the central artwork on the home page.
• This is one of those sites where one needs to figure out or intuit the site’s purpose on one’s own. I can’t find an About the Site page to explain the purpose, who created it, when it was created, or when/if it has been updated. 

Web Creation Tool Options

I think I’ll start by trying Weebly or something else that is very user friendly. I talked with someone who is a librarian and has developed several web sites. She said that Weebly is really easy to learn. She also said that even though WordPress is the “gold standard” for individuals and businesses, it can be harder to learn. I’ve never created a web site before, so I don’t want to spin wheels and get frustrated trying to figure out technology in the short amount of time we have to complete the project. I also don’t want to invest a lot of money in this since I am just beginning to learn this type of technology.

Possible Project and Web Presence I Might Need

I’ve been exploring the ideas I mentioned in my previous blog. I would like to do something that provides both text interpretation and visuals so I get experience handling both. Also, it seems to me that a text-only page is, to some degree, not using the advantages of the web.

If I go with a set of pages on how home appliances have evolved over several decades in the 20^th century, I would like to be able to present a page for each decade. Something like a kitchen-laundry room with various appliances available in that decade. Each page would be consistent in terms of the placement of appliances. I’d like to be able to allow a viewer to click on an appliance to get some text about its features, use, and related information.

Having said that, I am concerned about copyright on pictures, as well as getting access to what I need. NVCC has the Washington Post and New York Times, but not the Proquest women’s magazine database, which would be ideal. I don’t know if NVCC has agreements with other Virginia public university libraries so that I might be able to access that magazine database. I looked through some 1923 issues of the Washington Post, and I didn’t find ads for appliances (other than radios and Victrolas). Plus, the Washington Post database warns about not reproducing anything—I’m not sure if that prohibits use of ads for educational purposes like a class project.

I was thinking I might need to draw each page by hand to avoid copyright problems. I can draw, but am not sure how easily that would transfer to a web page. I might have less control over color once I uploaded a drawing. I also noted that there are quite a few web sites already out there that show the evolution of home appliances. A different possibility using the Washington Post might be to focus on health tips and guidance in prior decades, but I haven’t explored that yet. It would likely be less visual, although I might be able to use product ads.

It would probably be easier to take photos of the oldest existing Old Town buildings and provide some text on each one. I might need to go to the Alexandria library to look up some information in primary sources. I have a secondary source that contains photos that are about 30 years (?) old that would provide me with a starting point. It is organized by street address, whereas I’d be trying to organize by date or decade. One difficulty, though, is that the date when many old buildings were constructed is not clear. 

Unit 4

Unit 4

Attempt at chronologically ordering the web sites:

I'm not sure to what extent I can use the copyright dates to put these in order. There are sometimes dates within the sites, too, to give some clue. But I'm also making some judgements based on what's on the site--just text or text with photos vs. 3D tours and reconstructions of sites that are long gone.

1. Avalon - legal site just has text documents and a 2008 copyright; looks old because it is so simple, but maybe it only dates to 2008?
2. Valley of the Shadow - the copyright is from 1993-2007, but it has more complexity than Avalon, not sure if the copyright means anything was online at that point--maybe just that some information that is on the site now was copyrighted in 1993?
3. American Memory was launched in 1994 - it isn't as flashy as later sites, but I find the recorded interviews very interesting and ability to search through so much
4. Dickinson Electronic Archives was originally launched in 1994, but it has been updated over time. It has the scrolling banner of "headlines" and lots of text, pictures and photos.
5. Romantic Circles is an online refereed journal that goes back to at least 1996, but it has clearly been maintained and updated over time; it has the scrolling banner and is pretty complex with lots of drawings and paintings and various parts to the site. It is similar to the Dickinson site.
6. Lifeouttacontext - has dates of 1999-2015 - it's got text, photos, tweets, while Eye Level may be later (2005-2017?) and has a video
7. Hawthorne in Salem has photos and text and says it was made available in 2002
8. Persepolis has a copyright of 2003 and says the last update was 2008--lots of photos and 3D, but not as sophisticated as later 3D sites
9. Hurricane Digital Memory Bank looks like it's from 2005, based on notes on the site--2005 is when Hurricane Katrina occurred--there are images and a tagged map
10. April 16 Archive - Primarily photos and text, 2011 copyright but the mass shooting occurred in 2007
11. Digital Karnak has a copyright of 2008--it's very interactive with a sliding timeline, animations, videos, use of Google maps, and diagrams of models; there's a lot of detail on this site
12. Amiens Cathedral - I couldn't get all of this to work (e.g., Quicktime movies) or find any dates. I wondered why so many of the photos are so small.
13. Oyez - site on Supreme Court looks as if it has posts going back as far as 2010; there's quite a bit going on including 3D tours of the court building; high resolution photos; 
14. Shenandoah at War is pretty sophisticated with a sliding timeline, paintings, text, link to a Google map, copyright 2017 but an article dated at least as early as 2015
15. Lascaux - I didn't find a copyright date, but this is very impressive with its 3D simulations of the cave system and paintings.
16. Shenandoah at War has dates 2015-2017--has a timeline, paintings, text, link to Google map and is pretty interactive
17. Journey through Hallowed Ground has a copyright of 2017 and is pretty complex and polished looking

My suggestions for other sites are:

1. Northern Virginia--sophisticated, polished site--http://www.mountvernon.org/
2. Also Virginia--www.history.org for Colonial Williamsburg has a whole list of different multimedia and interactive games and puzzles
3. When I was looking at Lascaux, I ended up seeing that the French government has some very, very cool, sophisticated and informative sites-- for example on World War I,  http://archeologie1418.culture.fr/ and more at http://archeologie.culture.fr/