Alumni College 2010

Links for the June 3, 2010 presentation, Digital History, at UMW Alumni College

Links for Digital History Class for Alumni College 2010 – June 2, 2010

What is “Digital History”?

• Online scholarly article with all the sources included
  • Ed Ayers & Will Thomas — http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/AHR/
• GIS/imaging and historical maps
  • Civil War in 4 minutes —  http://fragg.me/video/civil-war-4-minutes
  • Historian Mills Kelly’s writings on using Google Earth historically.
    • http://edwired.org/?p=164
    • http://edwired.org/?p=170
  • Quick takes on cutting edge projects using GIS http://www.scholarslab.org/announcements/frontiers-in-spatial-humanities-video/
• Archival collections of the recent past
  • Hurricane Digital Memory Bank – Katrina & Rita
    • http://hurricanearchive.org/
  • Heavy Metal Umlaut Video – Even Wikipedia has a history
    • http://jonudell.net/udell/gems/umlaut/umlaut.html
  • · Twitter and the Library of Congress — archiving social media for historical uses
    • Info on LOC and public Twitter archive.  See http://www.archivesnext.com/?p=1280 for round up of initial reactions.
• 3-D rendering
  • Rome Reborn – Collaboration of UVA and UCLA
    • http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/
  • 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition – “White City“
    • http://www.ust.ucla.edu/ustweb/Projects/columbian_expo.htm
  • Lost Museum of P.T. Barnum
    • http://www.lostmuseum.cuny.edu/barnum.html
• Data-mining/Text mining
  • Tag Clouds
    • Wordle
      • My notes for the history methods class as a tag cloud — http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/39965/299
      • Gettysburg Address — http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/886521/G-burg_Address
  • MONK
    • http://monkproject.org/ — “to discover and analyze patterns in the texts [humanities scholars] study.”
• More traditional topics, but with powerful results
  • Lincoln at 200 — Newberry Library and Chicago History Museum
    • http://lincolnat200.org/

• University of Mary Washington Digital History
  • UMW digital image archives — http://archive.umw.edu:8080/vital/access/manager/Index
    • Aerial view from 1965 – http://archive.umw.edu:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/umw:616
    • Monroe Hall Swimming pool – http://archive.umw.edu:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/umw:376
    • Centennial blog
      • http://centennial.umwblogs.org/
      • UMW Centennial site
        • http://www.umw.edu/centennial/default.php

• UMWblogs – http://umwblogs.org

• History & American Studies Department work in blogs
  • 1) To extend class discussion beyond the classroom
    • Jess Rigelhaupt’s Methods Class – as class reading reactions
      • http://amst201sec2s10.umwblogs.org/
      • And Krystyn Moon’s Consumerism class. — http://consumerism.umwblogs.org/
  • US History in Film –
    • Scroll down to see post-class discussion of Pocahontas
  • Sue Fernsebner’s Gender in Chinese History – Course management tool
    • All assignments available
    • Links to key resources here (see her slideshow on writing)
    • Individual students’ writing collected (on each other’s projects)
• 2) As Museum
  • Krystyn Moon’s 19^th-Century Museum — http://amst312.umwblogs.org/
• 3) As resource guide
  • Steve Harris’s Hist 485: Researching Russian and Soviet Resources
  • Other departments’ history-related blogs
    • Marie McCallister’s 18th-Century Audio Blog
      • Phillis Wheatley poem, read by UMW Prof. Mara Scanlon — http://ecaudio.umwblogs.org/wheatley-on-being-brought-from-africa-to-america-read-by-mara-scanlon/
• Marjorie Och’s Online Venice Exhibit — http://venice.umwblogs.org/

• My students’ work
  • Digital History Class  — http://digitalhistory.umwblogs.org/ (2008) and http://dh2010.umwblogs.org (2010)
    • Background
      • Valley of the Shadow at UVA — http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
• 2008 Projects
  • Historical Markers — http://fredmarkers.umwblogs.org/
  • Farmer Project — http://jamesfarmer.umwblogs.org/
    • Introductory video — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YJXFKjzHLg
  • Alumni Project — http://projects.umwhistory.org/alumni/

• 2010 Projects
  • UMW Images through the Ages – http://projects.umwhistory.org/images/
    • Map of campus over the years by Dr. Hanna’s Mapmaking Class– http://www.maplib.net/fullmap.php?id=9075&legend=1
• Civil War Fredericksburg  — http://projects.umwhistory.org/cwh/
  • Exhibits – http://projects.umwhistory.org/cwh/exhibits
  • Fredericksburg as a Hospital — http://projects.umwhistory.org/cwh/exhibits/show/fredericksburg-as-a-hospital/period-medicine
  • Timeline — http://projects.umwhistory.org/cwh/timeline
  • Clickable Map with images and links to more details — http://projects.umwhistory.org/cwh/maps

• James Monroe Papers — http://projects.umwhistory.org/jmp/
  • Letters to Two Secretaries of State — http://projects.umwhistory.org/jmp/exhibits
  • Map — http://umwhistory.org/projects/jmp/europe-map
  • Tags — http://umwhistory.org/projects/jmp/items/tags
• Life and Legacy of Mary Ball Washington  — http://maryballwash.umwblogs.org/
  • Survey – http://maryballwash.umwblogs.org/survey/
  • Timeline – http://maryballwash.umwblogs.org/timeline/

• History of Tech Museum Exhibit — http://historyoftech.umwblogs.org/

• What can you do?
  • Transcribe a letter and make it available.
    • e.g., http://nowviskie.org/2009/hidden-history/
    • Individual approaches you can take:
      • Scanning old photos or sharing new digital ones
        • Flickr.com, Picasa (http://picasa.google.com/)
        • My pictures on flickr — http://www.flickr.com/photos/52355157@N00/
        • Blogs as publishing platforms
          • WordPress.com
            • Manuals for UMWblogs – http://umwblogs.org/support/
              • Most of the advice is applicable to other forms of blogs.
• Blogger.com
• Typepad.com (Not free)
• Umwblogs.org

UMW’s explorations in digital humanities and academic technologies have been featured in:

• EDUCAUSE’s “7 Things You Should Know About…” series
• May/June 2009 EDUCAUSE Review article on cutting-edge solutions to problems of 21st-century teaching and learning
• 2006 InfoWorld article about UMW’s use of low-cost, high-impact technology in teaching and learning
• Horizon Report (featuring cutting-edge technology people in Higher Education need to be aware of in the next 1-5 years) - UMW cited in paragraph 16
• Whitman 2.0 – NEH grant with three other schools to explore place in Walt Whitman’s writings. [See Chronicle of Higher Education article as well.]
• Regularly in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Also UMW people cited by numerous sources on a variety of digital topics: as leading economics bloggers; as experts in the semantic web and information analysis (see p. 14).