Cool diss related links

Ahhh, it's nice to have such helpful friends.
Since we're so close and talk about our research, what we're working on, directions exploring, headaches, etc it always seems like we're sending each other tidbits and info and links that might help.

Got a few lately I wanted to put in one place here to remember lately... hopefully. Many thanks to Mambo for several of these.

From a group of teachers in Rhode Island working on integrating digital and archival primary source materials into the history curriculum [aha! soooo topical!], here's something called the Tirocchi Dressmaker's Project. Nice curriculum guide, intro on 'constructing history', links to educational standards and more. A good example of showing how to use digitized historical materials, rather than just throwing them out there on the web. "Here's some photos, here's a diary, oh look, here's a newspaper front page". NO... that's not gonna work folks. Demonstrate how to use the materials effectively. Sheesh...
[I'm joking a bit there... teachers work very hard to integrate what they find into the curriculum and don't just show items to kids and say 'here, learn'. But too often the people putting the materials online don't help the teachers out any. Let's work together here people!]

IMLS Digital Cultural Heritage Community Project -- digitization of materials from Illinois for integration into social science curriculum. IMLS support made wide collaboration possible and they built materials to support stated standards. Article and research are not new, from 2001 in First Monday -- but still very worth reading, and looking for other work that might cite this project, or similar ones. Here's a link to part of the project.

An article whose reference I found buried in my email folder-- apparently a link I mailed myself months ago from a search done in a database (why I didn't print it, or save it to my computer I have no f--n idea!! aargh!).
"Using technology to teach historical understanding" Robert P Stephens, Jane L Lehr, Daniel B Thorp, E Thomas Ewing, David Hicks. Social Education. Arlington:Apr 2005. Vol. 69, Iss. 3, p. 151-154 ; mentions the 'Digital History Reader'

History, Digitized (and Abridged) -- a recent article from the NY Times. Talks about how some museums, archives and libraries aren't/can't/won't move to more of their items to the digital realm and wondering whether these important items and artifacts are being left behind in a way-- that parts of our cultural history are very vulnerable. This is especially true as more and more people prefer to do all their information seeking through electronic means-- ignoring anything non-digital (even if it might be the best resource to answer a particular need).

This is part of the more widely written about issue of the perception that 'everything is online', or 'if it's worth knowing it must be available online'. Ummm, no...sorry, just not true. Not now, maybe not ever. Sure there are fantastic efforts underway in many disciplines to make information available electronically, and to help users transform that data and information into real knowledge-- but not even Google's vaunted efforts (among many) can not, and will not, make it "all" available online.

Based on some other research I'm doing right now, things I'm reading, I may be writing more aboutarchives, digital libraries, history, digital preservation and this potential loss of our historical, cultural and intellectual output. The NY Times article is a nice summary piece-- some good stats here too.

Aha!!

Ok... instead of waiting and coming back to that list of digital history suggested readings I just posted, I started scanning...just to see if I've read any.

Ha! And now I can righteously feel just the ever so teeniest bit smug...because I have read some.

Ok..."some" is the operative word here. I've read at least 5 of the titles.
[Linked, Sorting Things Out, Social Life of Info, Ambient Findability among them]
But c'mon, does knowing the names of at least 10 more authors count?? And really, where are the other really big players in information retrieval, information science, user studies, to go along with all those information architects, data miners, software geeks, AI lovers and code gurus?!? Can you really talk about 'digital history' without talking more about digital libraries, repositories, digital preservation, or the more 'history' side of things? Interesting to see how so many from different perspectives are playing in the same area, in barely overlapping circles.

Digital History Hacks

Digital History Hacks: "for a student interested in pursuing digital history. For graduate students, a more useful exercise is to compile a reading list of a hundred or so books for a general / comprehensive examination. Obviously, there are very few books that are specifically about digital history (never mind a canon) so any list has to cover the space where the field is emerging."

Oh brilliant...simply brilliant!! No, I really do mean that. I could nearly kiss this blogger's virtual feet. A fantastic list of things to read in the area of digital history, a major issue for me, and akin to my research area. So I say "a thousand times thank you".

Of course this is all subject to change once I actually read the whole damn list, and investigate each title more thoroughly. So this could all be jumping the gun....

...or it could be a major time-saver! hee hee!

Oh the timing of this is quite auspicious too, coming right before the Big Ol' Meeting with Majesty, LooseGoose and other Powers That Be tomorrow. Now I actually kinda feel smart... 'yuck, yuck'.