Abundance Abounds!

Throughout this fall term, we have been constantly addressing the new 'culture of abundance' that the internet affords us. As I sit in the basement of Weldon Library as I type, I am confronted by my own abundance issue. I am currently working on a report for Fanshawe Pioneer Village where I am supposed to track the evolution and variety of fields crops in the London area between 1820 and 1930. Wow, that's a lot of years. I was instructed to compile as much data as I could find in order to carry out this assignment. I though that finding data would be relatively easy and that I would pretty much all I needed to write a comprehensive report detailing everything that happened in this one hundred and ten year period. Boy howdy was I in for a wake up. I was right that finding data would be simple, and for the most part it has, my problem is now that i have far too much data to compile into a 25 page report. I truly believe that everything I have been able to find would need a book the size of...well, let's just say it would heavy in order to effectively discuss all of this information! While writing a preliminary introduction and methodology to my study, I had a realization about the nature of digital initiatives.

My report is a microcosm of the dilemmas faced by archivists, librarians and historians. How in the world do you make sense of all this data in a quick, concise yet comprehensive way. For my project I have focused myself on producing a research guide on the subject, a one stop shop for someone researching local agriculture in this area in the future. I am making my own data tables for analysis, highlighting where to find sources on every area related to the subject and revealing which source reveal nothing at all. My interpretation merely lies in pointing people in certain research directions based on the ridiculous amount of data I have encountered. I feel that this is also the first step in tackling the immense amount of information on the web. We cannot even fathom what it all means by simply attempting to understand it at once and on the whole. It is the job of archivists, historians and librarians to compile and organize the seeming unending mass of data now on the internet in intelligible ways that will aid future research. This may not be the most glamorous job, but it is imperative if we are to harness the potential of conducting research on the internet. So to all those out there who are compiling, organizing and interpreting the collection of data I salute you. I now also know how it feels (albeit on a much larger scale) to perform this seemingly thankless job. However, our job is vital to all future research and potential breakthroughs that result from this organized chaos. After all, if you want to build a skyscraper, you better have a damn good foundation!

The books from Christmas Past

With the holiday season gearing up, it it always nostalgic fun to look back upon Christmas' past. For this blogging assignment, I have been asked to pick six books from the 1913-1914 Eaton's Christmas Catalog and attempt to located them in their entirety on the Internet. I have selected relatively well known books in order to display just how accessible valuable cultural knowledge (in this case classic literature) is in today's world. The first thing that struck me when beginning this assignment was the attempts made by the Internet Archive to make their digital online version of that catalog as lifelike as possible. This includes the outline of a book cover behind the pages and also the pages physically turn resembling real life interaction between the reader and the book. While I have read many online articles and even some major portions of books, I have never come across such a real life digitization effort. Another excellent quality to this digitized catalog is that the text has been marked up to allow it to be searchable. This is extremely efficient as it removes the need for a physical index to be consulted for a desired search. For the future of e-books, this is certainly a promising development as many people have a difficulty reading text from an non-interactive screen. By adding real life physical movement and employing marked up text, the reader now can interact directly with the book rather than having to passively navigate the screen. The Internet Archive's attempt to bridge this disconnect is a positive movement in the integration of e-books into a generally acceptable form of print media. However, as I begin to search for my books, I notice the trend backwards into static text displayed in a screen in a lifeless manner. Despite this format constraint the real object of this exercise is to hunt for content, of which there is an abundant supply on the Internet.

The first book I have chosen is the bible, perhaps the most widespread book in all of human history. This is also the first page of book listings and I felt should not be neglected from my search. The edition that I was trying to find was simply entitled The New Testament. I was able to locate this version fairly easily by using a simple google search. The website I found can be located here and is a fairly good website. It has the text organized by book and chapter for easy navigation however the text is not searchable. The second book I wanted to search for was Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher-Stowe, an extremely important book in the emancipation movement in the mid 19th Century United States. The third book I wanted to find was Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, a literary classic. Again, I was able to find the full text for both of these books by simply entering the title in a regular google search. However, the site which I found the texts for both books can be accessed here(Uncle Tom's Cabin and Robinson Crusoe) has marked up text allowing the text to be searched. This has some excellent potential values as one need not flip endlessly flipping through pages to find character references or major plot themes resulting in more efficient searching and opening up new modes of analysis. This is an instance of an historic book being given added value through the digitization process. The fourth book I wanted to search was another classic, Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. Again, using a simple google search I was able to find the entire text online. The site that I found can be accessed here and also contains marked up text, however in an entirely different format than Uncle Tom's Cabin and Robinson Crusoe. To my surprise the markup on this site did not allow the text to be searched but instead linked words to advertisements. The words could be completely taken out of context such as " 'the blank' of my infancy", with 'the blank' linking to a site describing how to fix computer blanking errors (something that Dickens would have thought endlessly about while writing the novel). To add to this confusion, once a 'link' was clicked, it would disappear as a link and then most of the words around the original link would then become their own links. This allows the text to serve as a constantly updating advertisement stream. David Copperfield illuminates the difficulty in offering an open source novel while simultaneously generating profits for the sight. In this extreme example of the uses of markup, it is clear that digitizing text can be distracting not only in format but also in content as well (if manipulated properly).

The fifth book I decided to search for was Aesop's Fables. Due to the children oriented stories of Aesop I expected to find a site with much more interaction than just text as children often need more to hold their attention that mere text. However, I soon realized that using multimedia to enhance each and every fable would be extremely time consuming and difficult and thus tempered my expectations on finding such a vibrant source. Using a simple google search I was able to find a site which contain over 650's fables and also had lots of multimedia attachments. The website, which can be located here has a good amount of imagery as well as audio recordings of many of the stories. A nice addition on this site is the use of a translator which allows each fable to be translated into a plethora of languages. By having digitized text, this website is making the fable's accessible to many people beyond English speakers and have created a universal site. The sixth and final book I wanted to search was the classic Christmas story The Night Before Christmas ('tis the season!). Again, begin heavily geared towards children I was expecting a much more decorative and interactive online source for the full text. Also, since the Eaton's listing of the book was merely an illustrative addition to the original poem I would expect there to be some more interactive reproductions of the poem online. Unfortunately, I could not find a the site I had envisioned. Again, using a google search was more than sufficient to find the full text, which can be viewed here. I was disappointed to not find a really vibrant page that could bring the poem and the text to life. A big drawback for reading digital text is the lack of interaction between the reader and the screen (unlike the physical interaction one experiences when reading a book). I was very surprised to see such a famous poem lack any extra panache on the web where integrating multimedia aspects is becoming easier everyday.

Overall I have learned a few valuable lessons about finding complete texts online. The first being that you can find pretty much anything you want by using a simple google search. All I had to do to locate the books was to type in their title and voila, I had a link within the first ten options to the full text. Secondly, I learned that many classic works of literature have been compiled and marked up to allow more effective researching techniques than merely possessing the book. In particular the website http://www.online-literature.com/ has a tremendous database of marked up classic novels. Thirdly I learned that our expectations of what the Internet can provide us with sometimes needs to be moderated. I was expecting to find some very elaborate and exciting websites for the popular children's stories and poems I wanted to search, but could not locate them. With the vast potential of the Internet at our disposal, sometimes we can forget that it takes hundred of hours of manpower to create those wonderful sites and there just hasn't been enough time or motivation to make some of these potentials into realities. The case of e-books and digitization of text clearly illustrates this dilemma. There has been so much already accomplished by ambitious projects such as googlebooks and the Gutenberg Project, yet theses project have only scratched the surface of what can be accomplished. We must also remember that as well as being an educational tool, digitized text can be distorted and used in other ways not conducive to the learning or entertainment experience, as evidence by Dickens words being used as advertisement for shoddy online products and services. It is amazing what you can discover simply by going on a treasure hunt for old literature!

It's about time I blogged about blogging

As a deep believer in the positive power of reflective introspection, I feel it is time for me to look back on my evolution as a blogger over the past two months. What I have gotten out of blogging? Is this what I expected blogging to be like? What will my future blogging look like after this initial feeling out process? I was never one to keep journals or a diary but was always aware of the power of introspection. Always scrolling through thoughts, ideas, fears and dreams in my memory rolodex kept me in tune with my ever evolving self. Can blogging allow me to achieve similar results for my professional self? How can I use blogging to further my passion in history and gets others involved as well? Here is what I have learned so far...

1. Blogging is fun because we can all share!

As someone who never cared to write a diary, use journals or even a calendar for organization, I am finding this type of personal outlet enjoyable. I think that the potential possibility for communication is the straw that stirs my drink when it comes to blogging. A journal is meant for one person only, the author and the author only. A blog is different in the fact that it can be a personal journal meant to be viewed by anybody patrolling on the internet. I love the idea that I can talk about anything of interest to me at a particular point in time on my blog and someone interested in the same thing can find me. It's this communicative potential which is the real power of blogging. Historians especially should be harnessing this capability to engage in dialog not only between themselves but to the public as well. Too often historians perch in the ivory tower unwilling to engage in constructive dialog about their passions. But what good is a passion that is left unshared with people? This does not include the few dozen academics worldwide who may have read your latest publication, or couple hundred for the successful ones. I'm talking about engaging with lots of people about something that inspires us: History! Blogging is not a collective production, we still control the ideas and words of our blogs. However, blogging allows others to get into our brains without the constraints of language, form and content which are inherent in almost all scholarly publications. So relax everybody, the warm world of blogging is within our comfort zone of academic production, we just need to harness it!

2. Blogging is flexible, start stretching!

One thing that I really enjoy about blogging is the many forms it can take on. You can structure a blog anyway you want to discuss any topic you want. The freedom is astounding! Some bloggers prefer a very rigid focus that defines their blog. This blog is written to discuss x ideas on y subject. These blogs are great for content since they have defined parameters and all blogs are streamlined to fit within the overarching focus of the author. They are usually easier to find (another benefit) and can generate excellent discussions as people reading the blog will no doubt be passionate about the same particular subject. Conversely, you can blog about nothing in particular at all and everything all at once. You can blog about what you are thinking at a particular time, the great time you had last night or even about a really cool blog that you just came across. The possibilities are endless! These blogs are great for a lark, entertainment and also can be very elucidating about human nature (due to the spontaneous nature of this kind of blogging). I believe that I am somewhere in the middle of this dichotomy. I like to talk about historical things, but anything relating to history can be game for my blog. Already I have blogged about Holocaust Denial, Canadian National Identity and The Mongol Empire! Something biblical is probably coming too since I find the bible as a historical source to be extraordinarily fascinating. I even find myself blogging about entirely different ideas within a blog then I maybe started with (this blog no doubt will be the same I am sure of it!). For historians, this gives us a myriad of potential ways to structure a blog. We can blog about one thing in history or many things. We can have an academic tone or a casual one, or both. I say it's time for us to have our cake and eat it too! And while we are eating cake, let's share it with everyone as well.

3. Blogging is great, but people need to be able to find it!

The one real hiccup when it comes to blogging is getting people to read it. In the new age of the long tail, how can one stand out from the crowd? First things first, make sure your blog is good, no one wants to read a bad blog. Next it's time to start deploying a few tricks of the trade. Having learnt a few of these tricks from my Digital History Professor Bill Turkel (nice name drop, I’ll tell you why in a little!) about how search engines work, we historians can easily make them work for us. Using efficient keyword in your titles, linking sites with other historians (hence the name drop) and generating word of mouth buzz are all great ways to make your site show up where it counts. Historians have a head start in some respects since we have built in audiences ready to be tapped. There is such a public thirst for history that all we need to do is go out quench it. The internet allows us a communicative potential that far exceeds all the capabilities of reaching a physical audience. If historians are looking to get their ideas out there, the internet is only the most vast reaching social communication system ever conceived by man. Shouldn't this be the first place to go?

In the end this blog about blogging has really opened my eyes to the potentials of blogging for historians and for myself. Blogging is whatever we want to make it. Historians for too long have been cooped up away from any human contact outside the academy. If we really want our work to mean something, let’s share our passion with the world. Did musicians who wrote the wonderful symphonies and songs of generations past want their music to be heard by no one? Authors of great novels surely have a particular audience in mind, but their stories need to be read by great amounts of people in order to have deep seeded influence. The same goes for all forms of art, share it if you want it to mean anything! Historians are passionate about history. We weave seemingly unrelated events and ideas into extremely artistic narratives to espouse our interpretation of the past. Let’s share our passion and art with the world. Start blogging, it's a great way to start!

Genghis Khan - Now available in web 2.0

For me, there is no single individual who captures the imagination of what can be achieved in one's lifetime more than the founder of the Mongol Empire Temujin, or as most of us know him Genghis Khan. Depending on what source you may read, he is either one of the greatest political and military leaders in history or the most successful of a long line of savage nomadic warlords who contributed nothing to the world expect despoliation and destruction. Having read countless books and articles on him, I have definitely formed my own opinion, but where and what can a novice on the subject access in terms of information on the internet about Temujin? Since we have been studying folksonomies I thought I would digress from my usual first point of destination 'google' and try the user generated delicious.com to search for content on Temujin.

For a novice , the first link that appears seems to link Genghis Khan with the human genome project. I would highly suggest a novice starting with this ongoing science project and Genghis Khan's relation to it. This article by the Guardian would be a great starting point for someone who knows nothing of Genghis Khan. Finding out that at least 16 million people today can be genetically linked with the great leader would instantly impress upon me the sheer scale of his importance in history as no other individual can claim such a genetic tree. Now that we know that Genghis is indeed an important historical figure, where can we find a biography? Strolling down the delicious search results, I find the obvious link to Wikipedia, however at this point in one's journey I would not suggest visiting this online encyclopedia. The wikipedia page on Genghis can be viewed here but it contains far too much information and does not specifically focus on the man himself. It is a great reference source however I would direct searchers to the National Geographic online timeline to discover the basic biography of Genghis Khan. I like this source better than wikipedia for a couple of reasons. The first being that one is not bombarded with information as in the wikipedia case. This timeline provides succinct information which is highly structured and contextualized by chronology and very elementary in its nature. Secondly, this website provides a great bibliography and links so that one may continue learning from the page. Thirdly, the site also describes the modern geographic science involved in uncovering the history of Genghis Khan to show how primary research on Genghis is conducted.

After visiting National Geographic I would then send the searcher to the wikipedia to delve deeper into any particular aspect of Genghis' life. If one wants to know about his religious beliefs, political practices and military strategies and tactics this is a great place to go. Because of the hyperlinks embedded within every Wikipedia article it is very conducive to illuminating the type of information the user desires. One can start on the Genghis Khan page and easily navigate through each military campaign and also many individual battles. You can click on a link to learn about Genghis deeply held spiritual beliefs and his mandate of religious toleration. Or peruse through his political practices which for the most part abolished patronage in the place of a more 'democratic' style. Wikipedia in this case can serve to focus one's interest in Genghis Khan since there is a wealth of specialized information which stretches beyond just the man himself.

At this point in the search, I would suggest switching over the the beast that is 'google' since many of the delicious sites link to the same articles and there is not much variability. One of the downside of the folksonomy it seems is that miniature differences in user nomenclature produce the same pages over and over. There are some good links to newspaper articles such as this one from the LA Times which discusses the organizational brilliance of the Mongol Empire created by Temujin. However, for an interested person after wikipedia I would send them to the primary sources available online. Specifically I would direct them to the only Mongol literary source of the 13th Century The Secret History of the Mongols. This source is an epic poem (similar to the Greek styles of epics) about the origins of the Mongol people and the biography of Genghis Khan himself. The book is written in a wonderful prose and is highlighted by spiritual and moral undertones but there is a great deal of history as well. With the access created by the internet, anyone can now access this source via PDF in many translated languages here (English version). Written shortly after Temujin's death, this book reveals how the Mongols viewed themselves in the world. A great introduction to text found here would be a good read before one begins diving in the 13th century epic.

There is also one great one-stop-spot for Genghis Khan that is worth mentioning here before I wrap up this post. This website edited by Tim Spalding provides a detailed annotated internet bibliography on Genghis Khan. In essence, this is the website which manifests the purpose of this blogging assignment. As someone who is very educated in the Mongols and on Genghis himself, this is a little overwhelming even for me, let alone someone who is not educated on the subject. The beauty of this site is that it is organized by thematic content so that if you want to find a link on his politics, you simply click on that topic. The same goes for his military and religious practices as well! Perhaps the best attribute of this website are the links to primary sources. I directed the searchers to the Secret History but by using Spalding's site, one can access all the opposing viewpoints from the 13th century that have survived are are digitized. This website also gives a great balance between academic and popular choices and also offers many multimedia options including picture and movies making it accessible for all internet browsers. I find it a little ironic that I am presenting a site which completely undermines my posting assignment since it has created a far better guide than I have. But at the same time, my ability to share this link with the world is what propagates the revolutionary communicative ability of the internet. What I deem important and interesting may resonate with thousands of others whom I may never have gotten the opportunity to connect with without such a forum. By participating in this blogging assignment, I have learned that although the democratic nature of the internet can sometimes miniaturize an individual project (like my Genghis guide here), it is through each of these individual prerogatives and social activities such a tagging that our collective knowledge is enhanced and the information made more accessible.