Unit 9: Reality vs. Not Real in the Digital Word

The process of holding a book and reading it is not the same as reading a pdf or other online version of the material. https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-best-way-to-hold-a-book-while-reading The only interactivity that happens with a book is inside the reader’s head while digesting the information. On the screen, a reader searches for interactivity, for graphics and links. Information may be there in shorter bits. The reader’s hands are not positioned in the same way with a laptop or desktop computer or mobile device as with a book. Whether one is better than the other is debatable, but that physical difference does affect whether one believes an experience is real or not.

But an online experience can be immersive in ways a book cannot. Digital Karnak https://vsim.library.ucla.edu/xmlui/handle/20.500.11991/1012 and the Edinburgh project are examples of that, taking you back in time. Online, a website visitor clicks away, picking and choosing bits of appealing information. Karnak links don’t all work anymore; Daily Rituals, for example, no longer has video. The site lacks sound, and the 35-second video that supposedly shows visitors today is blank. Nevertheless, with what is available, a visitor can process a “book” full of information much more quickly than reading a book. People process images more quickly than text, unless the text is a big red STOP sign or something similar.

The article that discussed the aroma of new and old books in chemical terms was wonderful. Some people love musty old books. Others won’t touch them. An online experience has no smell. It is sanitized.

An example of real versus non-real: During the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s, British and American television showed film of young pilots bombing enemy targets. They used technology https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/Persian-Gulf-War/276372/206294-toc and https://www.militaryfactory.com/battles/weapons-of-desert-storm.asp that mimicked the video games the generation of pilots knew well-- talk about blending real and non-real. Military training incorporated virtual reality for soldiers learning combat for Afghanistan. Virtual reality came later to the general public.

MAKING MUSEUMS FUN

Some go to museums for reality, some for fantasy. Online, you get just a taste. There, you get text and images and maybe more interactivity. An acquaintance told me she recently went to The Museum of the Bible, but it was too much information, even though she is religious. The museum does not charge admission, but does have a “ride” of sorts, an immersive experience. https://www.museumofthebible.org/visit/current-attractions/washington-revelations  It cost $5. “This was the best part of the museum,” she said. While she was telling me, her husband pulled out his mobile and proceeded to show me the photos he took – about 50. “I liked the Bible room, but all the signs everywhere were overload,” he said. “This way, I can look at these tomorrow and understand what I saw.” For whom was that experience more real? They both liked Nazareth Village. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6rdjOVMYwg 

Can a museum online experience be real, the same as visiting the museum? The Washington area has some of the best museums in the world. The National Air and Space Museum website present to a visitor information on exhibits and objects, and that IMAX films are available. There is no information about the virtual-reality rides, which any visitor I’ve taken there has enjoyed. Like the no-admission Bible museum, you don’t mind paying for this immersive reality, or for an IMAX movie. Jurassic World, Fallen Kingdom may not sound like air-and-space museum fodder, but if that’s what it takes to get someone to like a museum, why not? https://www.si.edu/Imax/

George Washington’s Mount Vernon slave exhibit https://www.mountvernon.org/plan-your-visit/calendar/exhibitions/lives-bound-together-slavery-at-george-washingtons-mount-vernon/ is so popular that it has been extended. It is the opposite of flashy but brings reality to the visitor. Research into the slaves who worked at the estate is presented in their words, their lives from their viewpoints. This is an example of mixing the non-real past with reality very effectively.

Colonial Williamsburg’s https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.com/ formula – costumed narrators, curators, old-time crafts, etc. – seems to be replicated at many museums, whether they are a historic house or not. In my opinion, the formula needs updating – but it is tricky to create a “real” museum experience. Charging admission to present a short program on Alexander Hamilton’s ties to the Washington area and inviting participants to try on clothing similar to that worn in Hamilton’s time may be too immersive for some museum-goers.

One of the best museums I have visited is the Jorvik Viking Center https://www.jorvikvikingcentre.co.uk/  in York, England. There are smells both pleasant and not, scares and surprises. The visitor can choose to be an observer, merely reading signs and seeing objects, but participating in the full immersive experience includes a train that loops through scenes from times past (with latrine and animal smells), plus video, costumed staff, and interactive exhibits. The website doesn’t have the same impact. 

Check out http://www.museumofdeath.net/ and you are probably, like this writer, glad that interactivity goes only so far. 

Photo from Museum of Death website

With virtual reality, real and non-real blend in museums https://unimersiv.com/virtual-reality-used-museums/

The reality is that not everyone can get to good museums because of health problems, lack of money, or other reasons. But they can visit the websites and judge how real the experience is, something that could not be done 30 years ago. Digital reality bridges the divide.

Unit 8 - The Information Age

Loudoun County's history can be told through its cemeteries, many of them dating to the 18^th and 19^th centuries. My project will be a Loudoun County Historic Cemeteries story map, a website that focuses on 20 cemeteries across the entire geographic area. It should be a way for viewers to find cemeteries easily by address and GPS (or GIS), and have a brief description of why each place is historic, who is buried there, a link to a website if there is one, and a photo. 

Who might be interested in it? Members of the Loudoun County Historic Cemeteries Committee, which encourages the protection and maintenance of cemeteries, and public education about the importance of county cemeteries; other historic preservation groups; cemetery “friends” groups; history buffs; students; and locals and tourists who want to take cemetery tours.  

Loudoun County has almost 180 documented cemeteries, both public and private. This project is just a small number of historic ones chosen for ties to the Civil War, Revolutionary War, famous people, notable events, and unique landscapes or monuments. It is not a comprehensive look at cemeteries but attempts to give a representative sample.

INFORMATION IN LOCAL LIBRARIES

Thomas Balch Library in Loudoun County has a cemetery database with known burials, but it has not been updated in almost 20 years. It also has an index of public and private cemeteries, and about two dozen books on Loudoun cemeteries. The Loudoun public library, as well as public libraries in Prince William and Fairfax counties, has information about cemeteries. A Fairfax County cemetery survey was done almost 20 years ago, the same time that the Balch Library database was created. The Fairfax one (in print form only) is a catalog that does not list individual grave information about the deceased, but rather cemetery names and locations and a few burials. The Loudoun database lists cemetery name and as many burials and facts about the deceased there as can be gleaned from the tombstone, which is much like https://www.findagrave.com . There is a Balch Library Cemetery Collection with photos of varying quality from 1990 to the 2000s, contributed by local cemetery preservation groups. The Library of Congress, Library of Virginia and  National Archives websites have some Loudoun County cemetery information, but nothing that specifically seems useful for this project. Searching these databases for information about individual people may be useful.

Unit 7: Digitizing and Sourcing Images and Text (and Video)

A Lucky Day, Thanks to Grammy

How much was that old glass jar that my husband had inherited from his grandmother worth? I turned to eBay a commercial site, https://www.ebay.com/

It might be worth $6 to $65. Mostly what he and I learned from the search is that it was a Lucky Joe Louis Bank. 

Louis was a boxer and his face was used on the bank after he became heavyweight champion of the world in 1937. Taking that info and going on an antique class collector site, https://www.kovels.com/collectors-questions/lucky-joe-bank.html  I learned that the jar had once held Nash's prepared mustard and was sold in grocery stores in Pennsylvania (where Grammy lived) and elsewhere as a promotion item. This was after the Depression. People needed a reason to buy. The jar had a dual purpose: it provided food and a place to put your (scarce) money. Grammy kept the jar on her dresser and gave a coin to grandkids who might be especially good. This foray into material culture was started because we had an old piece of stuff on the shelf. What we learned from both commercial and collector websites was an example of the knowledge gained quickly

On eBay, which says it facilitates "consumer to consumer and business to business" sales, it's not always clear whether your seller is a collector, a business, or someone cleaning out the basement. You hope they abide by the company's stated good-faith policy. There's a place to make complaints on the site, which means unethical sellers can be barred from using it. 

Another commercial website that is in the progress of taking over the world (in the opinion of some) is Amazon. Most of us look at several website when we are buying or selling, so here's what I got when I looked for Lucky Joe Louis on Amazon:  

https://www.amazon.com/Antique-1930s-Mustard-Lucky-Joe/dp/B004AAOPUC 

Joe was worth $30 and up. We decided not to sell it. But if it gets to $500, then - yes. 

The "search" function on Google or a commercial website or any website today is probably the most time-saving breakthrough on the web EVER.

OTHER SOURCES

Google owns more than 200 companies https://www.investopedia.com/investing/companies-owned-by-google/, including YouTube, a video-sharing website. The search function is crucial there, too. You go there to learn something (like units in this class or running tips), but also for random info that can only be classified as entertainment, such as cartoon and video. Type in "workplace meltdowns" and spend the next hour saying "ohmigod" and "oh no" and "holy whatever."

YouTube empowers ordinary people as well as experts to share their knowledge. How do you know who vets them? You don't. It is a user-generated website. How do you know what is fake and what not? You don't. (Yes, this comes from Wikipedia, but explains in one place well all the technologies and ways YouTube works : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube) 

YouTube was started by three former PayPal people. Now many of us can go on Amazon and use PayPal to pay for purchases. Companies and membership associations rely on PayPal to do transactions for a small amount of every purchase. 

Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, often pops up first on Google searches.  But those who contribute info to the site may or may not be experts on the subject. Citations are there, but further research needs to be done by those searching for primary sources.

Facebook may have privacy problems lately, but that doesn't stop us from using it. It is the form of social media for sharing information at personal, group, neighborhood, national and international levels.

THOUGHTS ON IT ALL

"This exciting prospect of universal, democratic access to our cultural heritage should always be tempered by a clear-headed analysis of whether the audience for the historical materials is real rather than hypothetical," say Cohen and Rosenzweig. http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/digitizing/ 

Digital searching most dramatically transforms access to collections, whether they are commercial websites or historical ones. Commercial websites make money. Historians have to justify can digitizing costs; a collection of personal papers that attracts very few researchers is costly, as C&R say in this chapter. The Library of Virginia, for example, has some personal papers described online, yet available only in the library. http://www.lva.virginia.gov/ 

The speed with which research can be done today from digital collections is astounding, although getting access to some data has become harder as firewalls have been put in place for security reasons and subscriptions to publications become the norm. 

Google's plan to create a library was welcomed by those who believe in a democratic web with information available to anyone, but getting things digitized is still a technical challenge.

As Cohen and Rosenzweig note, document markup predated the Internet. Before computerized typesetting, there were copy editors. There still are, but instead of using pencils they use computers and the Microsoft Tracker function to edit, leaving a trail so that changes can be tracked to the person who made them (and heads can roll when there is a serious mistake).

Machines can do much more. Even publications like The Washington Post use computer programs to "write" some stories, notably sports scores. This eliminates the need for the old film version of reporter calling in a score to a copy aide, who then enters it into story.  Scores get "fed" into a database, entered in a column, sorted and placed in context in a sports text. Computerized typesetting revolutionized printing.

Examples of materials I have digitized

1.  At right is a page from an American Historic Buildings Survey (HABS), the 1936 field notes on an Alexandria house. The original field notes, which are small notebooks filled with grid paper, are kept in stored collections at the Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/ A visitor must specifically request them. These survey reports are not available online or digitized, although some sketches from select buildings can be found on the library's website. Field notes are fragile and can only be photographed with approved cameras at select tables in full view of librarians. The sketch here shows the measurements of a door fame, pediment and step. From examining this, an architectural historian may be able to determine its age. The HABS was the nation's first federal preservation program in 1933. Its purpose was to document America's architectural heritage.  https://www.nps.gov/hdp/habs/

2. The photo at left is from an Alexandria family collection. It may have been taken in the late 1880s. The style of dress and hair on the woman must be examined to determine that, as well as the quality of the photo itself. The family member who provided this said he believes it is his great, great grandmother as a young woman in her twenties, or an aunt. He is reluctant to remove the photo backing (paper) to learn more information at this time. This black-and-white photo with white frame is about 3 inches wide by 5 inches high. The family member says he sees resemblance to family members today.

From  consulting sources such as this 

http://www.thisvictorianlife.com/everyday-clothes.html , I learned that dresses in the Victorian era most often were two pieces, blouse separate from skirt, and that collars and cuffs were detachable. From this source https://www.uvm.edu/landscape/dating/clothing_and_hair/1880s_hair_women.php I learned this hair style was popular in the 1870s and as late as early 1900s.

Other sources of digital material: Deeds and will in courthouses are sometimes digitized. Boxes of fragile papers can be digitized so that the information is available to future researchers, but this takes technical skill and money -- the latter, the main obstacle.

FINAL PROJECT

I'm compiling a list of 20 cemeteries from sources in Balch Library, looking for photos on Creative Commons and cemetery websites, and trying to contact people connected with some cemeteries to get permission to use the photos in a story map. 

Unit 5: Copyright on the Web

Confusing Copyright

After reading Cohen and Rosenzweig's "Digital History" chapter on Owning the Past and the links to websites, articles, and videos, I understand why someone might need an attorney to get advice on a copyright. It is complicated. Copyright gives the legal owner of a creative work the right to take credit for their work. Big corporations smart enough to register a copyright (Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Bill

Gates’s Corbis photos) make the researcher wary. What also makes it complicated is that it even if they (the corporation)  themselves pirated the photos or image from others, they don’t say “oops, sorry, won’t happen again.” At least the digital historian could say it and remove something quickly from a website. The Disney video poking fun at the corporation, using its film clips in tiny snippets to explain copyright so that Disney cannot claim the copyright was violated, is a work of genius.

Images and video and music copyrights are tricky, as well as the time limitations on items (for photos, anything from 1945 to the present). Recording artists say their creation was “ripped off” or imitated by someone else (some might consider that high praise, but there are various opinions on tribute bands), but Dr. Martin Luther King’s most famous speech? It was broadcast live to a TV and radio audience. King’s estate sued CBS because King had registered his work. (EMI Publishing owned it but got bought by Sony, which now owns it. Corporation wins.) It will again be in the public domain in 2038. But the phrase "I Have  a Dream" has become part of the American vernacular, even appearing on Tee-shirts. Without this copyright, however, it would probably be heard on TV commercials daily and in ways the King family could sue over. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/01/15/54-years-later-you-still-have-to-pay-to-use-martin-luther-king-jr-s-famous-i-have-a-dream-speech/?utm_term=.7b438f4fcde9 

Why this all is more confusing: Works do not need a copyright, but if you registered for one, you have it in case of a lawsuit. That applies to printed works, images like Mickey Mouse, and music. It might apply to digital. But digital historians have a different outlook: Share knowledge for the common good. Free sharing of ideas for educational purposes on the web is ideal (hence Creative Commons), but a scholar might want a copyright of a dissertation. Ethical historians will attribute the work to you, but can everyone be trusted? 

Work can be disseminated more quickly on the web than in print, and technology also allows the alteration of works in ways not conceived of by their creators.

A blatant example of copyright infringement is demonstrated when a web page is set up with the purpose of allowing someone else's music, videos, or software to be distributed and downloaded without the owner's permission. https://www.hawaii.edu/infobits/w2001/copyright.html

SOME KEY CONCEPTS (from a non-lawyer)

• Better to ask permission than forgiveness if you want to use something copyrighted

• Cite works/photos/images/music and attribute what is not your own work 
• Limitations -- on what you use; best to stick to small snippets or phrases

• Time limits – copyright extends 70 years after the author’s death in the U.S.; rules vary for other countries (commit following to memory!)http://www.ctevans.net/Nvcc/HIS218/Documents/Copyright%20Chart.pdf

• Fair use – Rozensweig says: "Given the ease with which 'more' can be incorporated into a digital work, the digital historian risks crossing one of the fair use boundaries." You can use work if you are not taking the whole as your own. (However, if you are using something copyrighted to illustrate something negatively, could that backfire?) Says the government: 

  The fair use of a copyrighted work ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.  
  

  https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf

  
  

    
  "Four factors" to consider are: the purpose and character of your use; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion taken; and the effect of the use upon the potential market. https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/ . This site explains fair use for non-profit educational purposes. Basically, you cannot copy entire books and use them unless they are intentionally digitally available. A chapter or two with permission, yes. The specifics: an educational multimedia presentation (such as a website) may include:
• Up to 10 percent or 1,000 words, whichever is less, of a copyrighted text work. For example, you may use an entire poem of less than 250 words but no more than three poems by one poet or five poems by different poets from the same anthology.
• Up to 10 percent, but not more than 30 seconds, of the music and lyrics from an individual musical work.
• Up to 1 percent or three minutes, whichever is less, of a copyrighted motion media work—for example, an animation, video, or film image [Note: Like the Disney video]
• A photograph or illustration in its entirety but no more than five images by the same artist or photographer.
  
  
  
  
  https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/academic-and-educational-permissions/proposed-fair-use-guidelines/
  This still gives the website builder considerable leeway. 

• Public domain – basically something that can be used freely by anyone.
  From http://vintagephoto.com/reference/copyrightarticle1.htm The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed on October 1998, changed public domain timelines. The act (strongly supported by businesses with valuable intellectual property about to enter the public domain, such as Disney, and the estates of creative individuals such as the Gershwins) placed a 20 year moratorium on materials entering the public domain. "The effect is to freeze January 1923 as the date prior to which materials lapse from copyright protection and enter the public domain." (Should we expect an avalanche of scholarly works soon?)

Worldwide, laws have been created which criminalize the circumvention of DRM, communication about such circumvention, and the creation and distribution of tools used for such circumvention. Had no idea DRM existed.

OTHER EXAMPLES OF COPYRIGHT

1. On the Zapruder film: The term “citizen journalist” was coined to describe ordinary people recording or reporting. Abraham Zapruder was filming President Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, with a home-movie camera when the president got shot. He sold the film to Life magazine. The footage he took is the most complete film of the assassination. It has been used in other films.  After years of ownership and hassles with news organizations, in December 1999 the Zapruder family donated the film's copyright to the museum at the Texas Book Depository near the scene, as well as one of the first copies from 1963 and other items Life once held. Seems that they realized history belongs in museums, not in anyone’s private possession to make money off of it. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-does-the-zapruder-film-really-tell-us-14194/

2. http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/civilrightstv/copy.html

"All material, including film, text, and image, on this site are copyrighted. No film, image, or text on this site may be reproduced, copied, or duplicated for any purpose whatsoever without the express written permission from the rights holders. The rights to WSLS films and scripts are held by the University of Virginia. The rights to all WDBJ films in this collection are held by WDBJ-7 (Roanoke, Virginia)

This site is intended for educational and research use by scholars, teachers, and students of all levels. Teachers, students, and scholars are encouraged to use this site for in class demonstration as well as for research projects." As a student, I am confused that a website created using images that themselves may have copyrights is copyrighted.

3. It is all about money. Royalties can bring in a lot, about $3 million a year for Harper Lee, author of “To Kill a Mockingbird." She almost lost her copyright and fought her agent in court, claiming he diverted her take.
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/08/harper-lee-dispute-royalties

After her death in 2016, Lee’s estate moved to block publication of cheap paperback copies of the book but approved posthumous projects, including a tourist attraction that she herself probably would have scoffed at.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/20/arts/harper-lee-dies.html 

ON MUSEUMS AND COPYRIGHTS:

1. Reston - copyright at bottom on home page; unclear whether website builder holds it

2. Loudoun – copyright symbol also bottom of home page. Nice site except for yellow background in lower part. Could not link to Alphagraphics Loudoun. Wanted to learn if they copyrighted any of the graphics.

3. Fairfax – This government page, like others, includes a logo and “official” links prominent, besides the museum info. Click on the word Copyright and get All content © 2018 City of Fairfax, VA. All rights reserved. Implies that nothing can be used from website, but no details. All the government websites are like this.

4. Colonial Williamsburg -  Click on the tiny C symbol at bottom of home page and get linked to a section about the award-winning website and products. CW is big business.

This site puts the fear of the law into you.  Do Not Mess With Us.

Click on Terms of Use and you learn that all website content and images can used for personal and educational use, not commercial. Intellectual property section: All Content is owned by CWF or its licensors. “CWF retains all rights, including copyrights, and the rights comprised in copyrights, in and to the Content. Copyright and other proprietary rights may be held by individuals or entities other than or in addition to CWF, and when this is the case, ownership will be identified. Many of the trademarks, service marks, and logos (collectively, "Trademarks") displayed on the Sites, including WILLIAMSBURG and COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG, are registered and/or unregistered marks owned by CWF. The Trademarks of third parties may also be displayed on the Sites, and when this is the case, ownership will be identified. By displaying Trademarks on the Sites, CWF does not grant any implied license or right to use such Trademarks. The prior written permission of CWF or the third-party owner is required to use any Trademark displayed on the Sites. Any unauthorized use of the Trademarks or any other Content, except as authorized in these Terms and Conditions, is strictly prohibited.”

There are also disclaimers – limitation of liability, which IN ALL CAPS SHOUTING LETTERS -and indemnification of anything or anyone who works for CW and puts something on the site. Message: Basically, if you use the site, know that they did their best to keep it current and factual, but if they did not, don’t bug them.

http://www.history.org/foundation/terms.cfm

5. Manassas – Copyright and Legal. CivicPlus Content Management System © 1997-2017 CivicPlus. All rights reserved. All content © 2006-2017 City of Manassas and its representatives. All rights reserved.

Accessibility and Copyright link says (en ends) all rights reserved, after listing all the software and browsers and assistive technology you can use to  see the site. This is the only site as far as I can tell that emphasizes its accessibility to persons with disabilities, and that it complied with Section 508 of the American with Disabilities Act.

http://www.manassascity.org/2211/Website-Accessibility

6. Alexandria Archaeology –tiny copyright symbol at bottom of page government site. https://www.alexandriava.gov/Legal goes to this:

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. In no case may you reproduce or distribute material in such a manner as to misrepresent the City's authorship or purpose of publication, or in any way that violates any applicable law. Any information provided to the City through a City website, or through electronic mail, shall be the exclusive property of the City and the City shall be entitled, unless restricted by law or otherwise noted when you provide the information, to use such comments or information for any purpose whatsoever without notice, consent, or compensation to you.

7. Cold War Museum – private museum. Does not mention copyright. Emphasizes that external links to other sites are not their problem. If you read about the backgrounds of people who are on the board or contribute to the museum, you see that many were military or CIA or other agency spies. Seems like they want you to disseminate their worldview. Why worry about rights?

Other museums to add to the list: 

1. Fredericksburg Area Museum https://famva.org/

No info except copyright word. This is a pretty new website, looks like it has some problems with user-readability. Some parts not pretty. A good learning tool.

2. Not local, but my hometown: Reading Public Museum explains its policy clearly in non-lawyer language, unlike some other sites. Click on

https://www.readingpublicmuseum.org/privacy-policy#copyright 

for: WEBSITE CONTENT IS PROTECTED BY LAW. The data, images, software, documentation, text, video, audio, and other information on the Websites (the "Materials") are proprietary to The Museum or its licensors or other third parties. The Museum retains all its rights, including copyright, in the Materials. Copyright and other proprietary rights may be held by individuals or entities other than, or in addition to, The Museum. Any unauthorized use of the Materials or the Trademarks (defined below), except as permitted by these terms and conditions, is strictly prohibited.

FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Google books posted my master’s thesis (not copyrighted), and an acquaintance found it  because her class was looking at the decline of afternoon newspapers (yes, there used to be such things in working-class towns).

https://books.google.com/books?id=yRtzNwAACAAJ&dq=Susan+Kovach+Shuman&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiv3vfh88TbAhVP7qwKHfJGDPgQ6AEIJzAA

It doesn’t look like anyone is buying it, but if they did, Google would make money, not me. It’s 406 pages. If you try to buy it, it says no versions are available and takes you to Amazon books about survival (thanks to search engine). Haha. I survived writing the thing. I don’t even have a complete copy. I’d buy one if I could, but probably cannot afford it. The only copy I know of is at the University of Maryland. For the record, everything in it was original or attributed. (Again, Google and Amazon, big corporations, win.)

Another brush with copyright: When I worked as an editor for a print publication, we had to check whether political cartoonists and illustrators had a copyright. Payment was $10 to $50 per use if they did. Some were syndicated, so free. We were urged to use free ones.

As a newspaper staffer, work I did for the paper became property of the paper. When I left and freelanced for the same newspaper, I was asked to sign agreements that gave up my rights to anything published. They paid me once (not much) and subscribers to their international news service could republish work. That wasn’t a problem until I learned that the newspaper sold photos I took as a freelancer. Photos were not in the agreement I signed. I asked to have them removed from the photo archive. However, one photo I took as a freelancer (above) still appears almost yearly in the publication. I don’t have time to fight it. They attribute it to me. That's all they legally need to do.            

FINAL PROJECT UPDATE

I plan to do a story map using www.arcgis on some historic Loudoun County cemeteries. There are almost 200, but I will aim for 15 to 20. There will be a county map with pinpoints to each, a photo taken by me at each (unless a good one can be found online), and a paragraph on why each is historic, including notable people buried there. Sources will include the Balch Library cemetery database, books, and contacting the county's historic cemeteries committee, cemetery caretaker groups or churches. This map can be expanded in the future with information on more cemeteries, categories such as Revolutionary War soldiers, Civil War monuments, and inconography. Above right is my first photo of Ketoctin Baptist Church (taken by Cecouchman in 2013).

On volunteer forest service projects, I have done conservation and preservation work at cemeteries in New Hampshire. When I visit places in other countries, I look for cemeteries because they are quiet and often very beautiful. Our link to history is through people now gone. Epitaphs and carvings on gravestones give us clues to their lives and times. Even plantings and landscapes tell us about history. 

HELP! Following the blogs of all my fellow students, but it is not showing up here. Can't add the gadget/widget.