Digital history : a guide to gathering, preserving, and presenting the past on the Web / Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cohen, Daniel J. (Daniel Jared), 1968-

Contributor:

Rosenzweig, Roy.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

History--Computer network resources.

History.

Internet.

History--Computer-assisted instruction.

History--Methodology.

History--Research.

Physical Description:

316 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2006]

Summary:

Digital History provides for the first time a plainspoken and thorough introduction to the for historians-teachers and students, archivists and museum curators, professors as well as amateur enthusiasts-who wish to produce online historical work or to build upon and improve the projects they have already started in this important new medium.

The book takes the reader step by step through planning a project, understanding the technologies involved and how to choose the appropriate ones, designing a site that is both easy to use and scholarly, digitizing materials in a way that makes them web-friendly while preserving their historical integrity, and reaching and responding to an intended audience effectively. It also explores the repercussions of copyright law and fair use for scholars in a digital age and examines more cutting-edge web techniques involving interactivity, such as sites that use the medium to solicit and collect historical artifacts. Finally, the book provides basic guidance for ensuring that the digital history the reader creates will not disappear in a few years. Throughout, Digital History maintains a realistic sense of the advantages and disadvantages of putting historical documents, interpretations, and discussions online.

The authors write in a tone that makes Digital History accessible to those with little knowledge of computers, while including a host of details that more technically savvy readers will find helpful. And although the book focuses particularly on historians, those working in related fields in the humanities and social sciences will also find this to be a useful introduction. Digital History builds upon more than a decade of experience and expertise in creating pioneering and award-winning work by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

Contents:

Introduction: Promises and Perils of Digital History 1

1 Exploring the History Web 18

2 Getting Started: The Nature of Websites, and What You Will Need to Create Yours 51

3 Becoming Digital: Preparing Historical Materials for the Web 80

4 Designing for the History Web 108

5 Building an Audience 141

6 Collecting History Online 160

7 Owning the Past? The Digital Historian's Guide to Copyright and Intellectual Property 189

8 Preserving Digital History: What We Can Do Today to Help Tomorrow's Historians 220

Appendix Database Software, Scripting Languages, and XML 249.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [261]-299) and index.

ISBN:

0812219236

OCLC:

60589151

Publisher Number:

9780812219234