Unit 14: Tools, Tools and Tools

TIME AT A GLANCE

      A timeline is the graphic representation of the passage of time as a line. It shows chronologically how events happened, perhaps making it an easy way to comprehend how one thing led to another.
      For my assignment this week, I created a timeline for a property in Alexandria known as the Murray-Dick-Fawcett house -- a name chosen by the Office of Historic Alexandria (OHA) based on three former owners. It has had other names over the years. The timeline title is 517 Prince Street, Alexandria, Va. It is a public timeline. The URL link is

https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/the-house-on-prince-street 

(NOTE: This is different than the Blackboard link I sent! I created the timeline, then changed the title of it while editing to make it more specific; apparently, you can't do that.)

         The city bought the property in 2017

with the intent of turning it into a museum. (Here is a photo I took from the garden area that shows how the 1772 part of the house was expanded in 1784.) That museum date is indefinite because the resident was granted life tenancy. I've been volunteer working part time on the house history since late last year, after taking Dr. Dluger's museum practice class. 
          I chose the timetoast tool after looking on YouTube at videos of several timeline tools. This one said about 30 to 40 items work best in a timeline, partially why I chose it. Tiki-toki looks easy to use, and there are more choices on graphics and looks, but the results seem cluttered.
         You can see from my timeline that the Brown family may have owned the property for 184 years, but there is not a lot included about them. They were not rich or famous. Some of them lived in the house their entire lives, but a tool other than a timeline would show their stories better. 
          This timeline uses some of the primary source documentation I have compiled. Since some is from deeds, wills and official documents, and not everything is online, I used a few important to telling this story on the timeline.It is much easier to use this online timeline than the way I have been doing it -- written out in Word. However, the online tool itself seemed to get stuck sometimes. Twice my work got erased. I was surprised that uploads were easy from my own computer, after resizing images. 
            Tracing the history of this house in a timeline works well. In museums visitors like a quick view of significant events or facts. Often an exhibition has a timeline near the front as an introduction to the topic. If this property opens as a museum, a graphic like that would be useful right inside a door. In fact, this timeline tool on an interactive notebook or other device right inside would work, too. 
            Fine-tuning is needed if this timeline is to be used for real by the Office of Historic Alexandria. In any case, should I buy a basic timetoast account so I can embed this on my own web page (and take credit or blame)?
              This tool also would be good for a timeline of the Loudoun County historic cemeteries such as those used in my final project, or a complete list of county cemeteries.

PROJECT UPDATE

             The story map on 20 Loudoun County Historic Cemeteries is being worked on in arcgis online. I am rewriting descriptions in a more standardized way so that the reader is not confused, including the address, when the cemetery was started, by whom, and at least one or two facts about why each is interesting.
            I may reorganize the photos but don't think a chronological or alphabetical order is the best way to present this project, although that can be changed later. Interspersing landscape shots with tombstones and iconography makes for a more visually appealing story. I am having problems subbing some photos and thumbnails, but will stumble along! 

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=b8dff999034e45de8cb54a39d62faaea

It is shared. Use https://arcg.is/KbuTa as the link to view it.

Unit 13: Big Picture, User Participation Projects and Crowd-Sourcing

The Force of the Crowd

           Crowd-sourcing is a great idea. The idea of tapping multiple people with diverse backgrounds both professionally and personally is brilliant (who first thought of it? --- maybe began with a teacher who assigned group projects). It depends on volunteers, however. In my experience, working with volunteers also requires that you offer incentives or carrots, something that induces participation. If not, you might get a few people who are a bit crazed, some who have too much time on their hands, or some who always have something to say to show others how smart they are. Whether that helps the “conversation” is debatable. As in school group projects, there is usually someone who takes the lead, someone who carries the research load, and someone who does little.

            I could not find much crowdsourcing on NoVa sites. Things asking for comments, but…

             An idea for Virginia history: A crowdsourcing project for a property in Alexandria that was bought by the city of Alexandria, the Murray-Dick-Fawcett House, could be done before the property opens as a museum, especially because that date is indefinite. Participants in the Vernacular Architecture conference this Spring had many comments about the house, but they are not being compiled anywhere. The house is unique architecturally, since it was built in 1772 and many things exist from that time. But architectural historians do not agree on things about the house. Getting their input now is crucial to both the house history and documentation.

PEOPLE VERSUS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

           This unit asked a question: Who decides what should be preserved, and what not?

Which websites should be preserved? I went to Wayback machine to see 2012 websites for my neighborhood, randomly cached (www.mantua.org) . Not much there. Worthy of saving if other records are available? Plus, as I know from living here, that info was compiled by a public relations firm after an oil leak tarnished the name of the neighborhood. I don’t think it needs to be preserved.

           About blogs worthy of saving: Can and should the federal government have the right to preserve everything it wants to, not Google and commercial enterprises? Cat is out of the bag – companies did this before government.

          Random thoughts” About “meta schema” – that is robots, not people. This is artificial intelligence making sense of our data.

           About code – does standardized code threaten genius? Maybe.

Migration of files is important for future. WordPerfect files gone as an example.

          The Memory Project, by ancestry.com and The Holocaust Memorial Museum, is an effective way to capture history before those who lived though the Holocaust are all dead. This goes to the museum’s collections for free. It links to ancestry’s DNA test kit, optional.

But this link for the Geographic Project also goes to a site for buying a DNA kit https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/

The Smithsonian Transcription Center has more than 1,000 “volun-peers” contributing. The sheer volume of what is being transcribed, including much Civil War-era stuff, is astounding.

Reclaim the Records https://www.reclaimtherecords.org/ uses the Freedom of Information Act to get records that. This site is by and for historians, genealogists and others who want to keep public info free. – gated info that should be kept public! Only New York for now, but with help could be national. Nothing is on their “to-do” list for Virginia. https://www.reclaimtherecords.org/to-do/

BAD LINKS: from Historical Transcription Assignments

http://reports.crowdsourcing.org//document/8-crowd-sourced-transcription-projects-you-can-contribute-to/10957

and

https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/collections/sale which is supposed to go to the Field Expedition Mongolia page. If you type those words in the Search box, you go to

https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/products/geno-2-0-next-generation-genographic-helix-dna-ancestry-kit-u-s-delivery where for $99.95 on sale you can get a DNA test.

It was good we saw the project cached on YouTube!

PRESERVATION

               From Cohen and Rosenzweig: “For now, you are the best preserver of your own materials. Pay attention to backing up, and try to create simple, well-documented, standardized code. After covering those basics, you might search for a preservation “partner,” an institution that would be interested in saving your website or its constituent materials after you can no longer provide the attention (or financial resources) …”  

This goes back to the question of what should be preserved, and who makes the decision?

A few days ago, my daughter, whose husband Luis Vicente died in February of brain cancer, was told about this blog:

http://luisvicente.blogspot.com/

                The blog was mentioned at a memorial workshop for her husband last week in Leiden, in the Netherlands, by a friend of Luis. Luis got his PhD in Leiden, worked there for a while, and then went to the University of California Santa Cruz for his post doc work. That is where he met my daughter. The University of L held a linguistics workshop in his honor, as a memorial. My daughter, who was married to Luis for almost 8 years, did not know about this blog. Of course, we all went to look at it for the first time when she told us it existed. Loved the part about why he never wanted to return to Spain to live, although some of his school was financed by the Basque government.

                While it is mostly comforting to read this now and understand Luis better, will this live on blogspot forever? Will Luis’s now 4-year-old daughter access it at some point? Is that good or bad?

                 I guess we should be careful about we post on blogs and anywhere online. They live forever, unless some decision is made, commercially or by the government, to take then down.

                I sure hope this blog does not live long after I do.

MY PROJECT UPDATE

Please go to this

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=b8dff999034e45de8cb54a39d62faaea&edit

with password

https://arcgis/KbuTa

to see a project called Loudoun County Historic Cemeteries. I have 21 cemeteries, but this will be just 20. Am working on fixing photos that will not load, and will fine-tine the descriptions of each cemetery. It is unknown how many actual burials are in each cemetery, because most are active – people are still being buried there. Many of my project photos have not focused on names and living people, because I was told by one caretaker that I would need permission for that from the Board of Trustees. I think I got some representative photos of each cemetery, and have many more photos from most to choose from.

This is just a representative sample of 20 historic public cemeteries. 

The Balch Library database is outdated. Numbers of graves etc, cannot be gleaned from here. 

Unit 12: Data Visualization

My Final Project, a Work in Progress

I started a story map on 20 Loudoun County Historic Cemeteries from scratch after losing what I created (and showed you last week, Dr. E). This time, I choose a different layout to experiment with the photos and text and because I thought a thumbnail at the bottom would be useful to locate each cemetery. They are not being done alphabetically. Not sure I like one map style more than the other. Feedback, please!
I have not figured out how to get the Loudoun County map back; it reverted to a broader map after I added locations. I had 14 done before on the first story map. This weekend I finished taking photos (visited 4 cemeteries on Saturday), and am finishing descriptions. Shared the map publicly, though I am embarrassed to do so:

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=b8dff999034e45de8cb54a39d62faaea&edit 

https://acg.is/Kbu Ta (to access it)

We learn by making mistakes, and I sure am making mistakes. 

DATA FOR THE PROJECT

The Loudoun County Cemetery Collection started by Aurelia McCormick has detailed listings of cemeteries made between 1945 and 1950. Data was sorted by grave location in each cemetery. It is not especially useful. https://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=tbl/viletbl00026.xml

The Balch Library cemetery database created in the 1990s may have been updated a little, but the library is not sure who did that or when. Data is wrong for active cemeteries, meaning places where people are still being buried. None of this data is in visual form, but it could be, showing which cemeteries are larger or have more burials, or how many veterans are buried.

https://www.leesburgva.gov/government/departments/thomas-balch-library/loudoun-county-cemetery-database

The information on www.findagrave.com is not always correct.

The Virginia Department of Historic Resources has some cemetery information, but not online, and not data in a chart. 

THIS INFORMATION GRAPHICS UNIT

Tools to visualize data discussed in this unit demystified the job of graphics designer. I didn't know the first infographic dates to 1626, or that Florence Nightingale made her case with them. Michael Kramer says historians can use data as an additional tool, to be creative in explaining data more effectively, but that computers won't think for them.  http://www.michaeljkramer.net/digital-history-as-transliteration/  But some of these tools come pretty close.

Some effective data visualization:

http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/india/brief/developing-india-first-modern-inland-waterway

Ditto for World Resources Institute, but some links go nowhere.

This Fairfax item is for my neighborhood

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/demographics/community-profiles

but is not as useful as OpenDataDC, which has crime information.

Hard-to-visualize – but effective data visualization projects: 

https://web.stanford.edu/group/spatialhistory/cgi-bin/site/viz.php?id=143&project_id=999 and

https://web.stanford.edu/group/spatialhistory/cgi-bin/site/gallery.php 

and https://infogram.com/us_military_personnel_during_wwii

[Bad Links:

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

 https://www.gatesfoundation.org/what-we-do/global-development/agricultural-development/infographics

and 

https://cas.illinoisstate.edu/jpda/ ]

Unit 11: Digital Online Archives

A PLANTATION, THE COLD WAR, AND A CHURCH

What do they have in common? I uploaded files of these to the Northern Virginia History Archive -- 4 photos of Oatlands Plantation near Leesburg, one of the Cold War Museum near Warrenton, and one of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church outside Middleburg. All were photos I took (but forgot to say that on some). The site is very easy to use. I looked at the collections and at search features.

The similarities in design between this website and Amy Bersch’s Robinson schoolhouses are clear. After reading more about Omeka for this unit, and looking at the projects by the Center for History and New Media, I’d like to try Omeka (but not for this class). Having the support at a university nearby is a plus.

Cohen and Rosenzweig write: “The massive capacity of the web means that historians can push beyond the selectivity of paper collections to create more comprehensive archives with multiple viewpoints and multiple formats (including audio and video as well as text). Given the open access of the web, it seems appropriate to cast the widest possible net …”  The Center compiled the September 11 digital archive quickly as it was unfolding, and with more primary sources, something that no print publication could do as well.

A TOOL TO FIND A TOOL

A collections database could be started for some of the research I am doing as a volunteer for the Office of Historic Alexandria on items at a historic site. As I slowly compile the information, I can see the benefits of an online database now. It could link to sources located online, such as this carpentry website I found today from the New York Public Library https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e4-50b2-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Some of the items associated with the historic site are tools, found in the basement. A carpenter told me that they are old, maybe before 1900. By using this site, I learned that one item is a planer, and that this type was used by carpenters in the 1880s. The “period of significance” for the site is still being determined. By finding out who might have used this tool, and where, the site might have a story to tell. The database could be shared with a listserv for woodworkers, carpenters, historians, and those interested in historic preservation. The outreach could be a simple comment button, even anonymous, but could lead to more details about how one tool can help explain the site’s history.

DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS

That’s the motto The Washington Post adopted during the last presidential campaign.

Cohen and Rosenzweig said on using the Internet to collect history: “… it shares democracy’s messiness, contradictions, and disorganization–as well as its inclusiveness, myriad viewpoints, and vibrant popular spirit.” Good newspaper reports strive to include all the views and make sense of a topic or event (editorial opinion pages and clearly labeled advocacy articles are the exception).  

The Post has some good digital archives that come up quickly either because the tags are good or they pay Google (doubtful). If you look under World, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/digitalarchive/index.html you get to The Cuban Missile Crisis: Reliving the World’s Most Dangerous Days, which is a timeline and newspaper accounts of the event. Most newspapers, even national ones, don’t have archivists and librarians with time to create such digital archives unless there is a special section attached (a moneymaking product). Although The Post archive is extensive, it is difficult to find specific things. Since obituaries of ordinary people are rarely printed anymore, searching a name and www.legacy.com yields better results. 

While looking for online digital archives of newspapers as an alternative to ProQuest, I found https://paperofrecord.hypernet.ca/default.asp? I did not know the Toronto Star was the first newspaper to put its papers online, from 1892 until the present. If interested in a site where international as well as historical newspapers are archived, I'd try https://databases.library.jhu.edu/databases/subject/newspapers from Johns Hopkins. It is described as an “independent” newspaper database and requires a login.

Sometimes a newspaper or lay publication may not have cutting-edge research, so you look elsewhere. ProQuest has dissertations and theses, but it is unclear how the list is compiled – who decides the order? Universities must have an account to submit work by their faculty or students. This is about scholarly research on Star Wars: https://www.proquest.com/blog/pqblog/2015/Star-Wars--Theres-a-Dissertation-for-That.html in case you are doing research on popular culture.

With all these resources, a historian’s task is made easier – but not everything is archived.

                                      PROJECT UPDATE!

          I'm working on selecting and sizing the best photos for a story map on 20 Loudoun County cemeteries with historic ties. PROBLEM: I may be recreating it from scratch if I cannot get a free account, or pay for a short time to keep an account, by July 6. (They still insist I must pay.)  Should I sign up for a free public account under someone else's name and credentials? 
          The mapping of each cemetery is being done by address, but might also be done by GPS. 
          The number of graves in each cemetery is hard to locate, and may be impossible. At one cemetery, for example, the caretaker showed me a map and explained that each numbered plat can accommodate 12 caskets. I asked how many people are buried there, such as 500, and he said it is impossible and keeps changing. Some historic cemeteries are still "active" -- still accepting permanent residents. One has been "closed" for more than 100 years might be reopened, I was told. 
          Although I am not focusing on recent tombstones, one caretaker told me that I need permission from the Board of Trustees to use any photos from that cemetery. Dr. E, what do you think? 
          Each cemetery description will highlight a few famous people or features in an engaging, respectful way. I must still take photographs of a few places this weekend. So far, I have been out 7 days doing that. Could not even find one on a badly rutted back road, and was afraid that my 19-year-old small car would get stuck. When a deer jumped in front of me, I knew it was a sign to stop for the day. I don't  want to be a in a cemetery anytime soon unless I'm alive.

THE EXAM 

The psychic who cribbed her entire Mayan architecture and art website from Wikipedia contributors must not have a conscience. What does that say about her being honest with clients?