Greg Ruth

On balance, I found Omeka a streamlined software tool for online exhibits. Having said this, my initial plan of mimicking an art gallery in the digital realm proved difficult to manage.  The strength of a gallery setting is the that the image (e.g. painting, sculpture, furniture, armor, etc.) is of a scale and size that, when juxtaposed with information cards and the physical space of the gallery, enhances the image by removing most everything that could distract viewer’s attention.  I found that in the digital space offered by Omeka’s themes, foregrounding an image was very challenging.  I could make the images large enough to dominate the screen space.  Most themes wanted to pair images with equal if not greater space devoted to text.  I experimented with simply allowing my “items” to stand-alone in order to mimic the gallery effect I wanted.  Centering images was not an option in any of the themes I worked with.  Limiting what I call the gallery option likely meets the needs of most public history institutions who rely on the interplay between a variety of textual and non textual records to create their exhibits.  In this case, what seems a simpler presentation was not an option.  Will public history sites continue to move away from more basic presentations?  What else is lost and what more is gained?

From Puritans to abolitionists, Jeffersonians to neoliberals, the jeremiad has proven itself as a popular genre in American History.  While the content of these speeches have changed to reflect the crises of specific moments, the fundamentally moral message of misaligned priorities remains constant.  What changes is the media that transmits the jeremiad.  Let’s start with the media of television.

Jimmy Carter’s infamous “Malaise Speech” stands as a case in point for the impact new medias can have on fundamentally old messages.  Carter’s message essentially echoed the observations Max Weber’s made in the Protestant Ethic: Americans, more so than any other people because of their Calvinist into Congregationalist individualized-beliefs, worked hard, worshiped hard, and saved hard in order that they might see the outward signs of their inward election (i.e. the proof that they’d been predestined for Heaven by God).  For Weber, acting on these beliefs both created modern capitalism and made America the most capitalist society in human history.  Sure Carter updated the speech both by removing some (not all) of the religious tones and discussing a nation shot through with decades of consumer revolutions.  Nonetheless, pushing a little past but still much like Weber (i.e. the “iron cage” metaphor), Carter feared that the unrelenting profit seeking of the capitalist enterprise could overwhelm people into foregoing authentic relationships with work, friends, and family, instead, replacing these associations with a gilded consumer culture.  The real difference came in the presentation and reception.  Millions of Americans saw the nationally televised speech.  Gone were the days of an audience the size of a church congregation, town hall meeting, or lecture hall.  Airwaves moved information more broadly and at a faster pace than print media.  Watching the President gesture and hearing the inflection of his voice were of course experiences anyone who had ever attended a Presidential speech knew well.  What television did to warnings of Carter (or Eisenhower) was to infuse the reception of the speech by the viewer with a sense of national solidarity—that is, both an individualized and shared problem in need of redress.

Simultaneity in the jeremiad genre went a step further with YouTube.  One of the most popular and controversial videos criticizing consumer culture is Annie Leonard’s “Story of Stuff.” First popular in 2010, Leonard’s video has twenty-one minute and sixteen second video gained a following amongst teachers and moved into middle-school through college classrooms.  Following under a Creative Commons license, the “Story of Stuff” was easy on the budget and easy to use for any teachers with a smart classroom.  But what about the content and presentation of the video?  Was the narrative actually worth watching?

The “Story of Stuff” features a tech-casually dressed Leonard talking, in a conversational tone, directly to the viewer.  Leonard tries to wear her research on her sleeve, claiming ten years of transnational research on the “materials economy”—that is, where raw materials come from, how they’re consumed, and where they go for disposal—went into this twenty minute presentation.  The way the material is presented, however, is what gives the video power.  Etchings—imagine Frank Leslie’s Illustrated meets Penmen—convey the ideas as much as Leonard’s narration.  Having said this, both the voice and the visual are created in the moment.  As Leonard speaks to the audience an omniscient felt-tipped pen sketches the third-world, the Wal-Mart, and the shopper who link into the materials economy chain.  Pedagogically, witnessing creation of information (i.e. teacher writing notes on the board vs. power point, or professor lecturing off  the cuff vs. reading directly from notes) impressions viewers to the reality that knowledge is in fact produced by someone, and that they themselves can produce their own knowledge.  Leonard’s video thus shares a lot in common with the chalkboard and narrative educational videos of the Khan Academy—teaching aids that technocrats such as Bill Gates suggest will revolutionize education.

Overturning a revolution is exactly what Leonard has in mind when she asks: “Have you ever wondered where all the stuff we buy comes from?”  To illustrate her question, the different parts of the chain are drawn on a white background.  The harvesting of resources links to the factories which produce both product and waste.  Products end up in the big-box retailer where  consumers push shopping carts out of the store.  Supporting the movement of goods is the Federal Government and the Corporation—entities which are drawn as larger or smaller depending on the historical time period Leonard discusses.  In fact, the visual ways the chain is changed in front of our eyes is the single most effective narrative device in the video because erasing and redrawing segments keeps the viewer mindful of the narrator’s points without requiring the flipping of pages.  One sees the smog above the factory, and the speed at which the animated shoppers move their goods from store to home exemplifies just how relentless consumption really is.  The effect that consumer culture continues, unabated, through the changes Leonard narrates, only works because content is split between what is seen and what is heard—what remains and what changes.

The visual medium changes slightly in the middle of the video as color is added to emphasize certain dimensions of the materials economy.  The “golden arrow of consumption” that propels the entire system is bathed in gold, and thus emphasized in a way one often does not find in books.  Harp strokes of divine glory also satirize the arrow every time Leonard mentions it by name.  Color also appears to heroic purposes at the end of the video.  Environmental conservation and dimensioned consumption practices sprout in green, and transform the smog of the factor into full recycling; the big box retailing falls away to reveal more localized economies, the “primary identity” people have as consumers becomes one where authentic relationships with family and friends matter more.  The power of impression that these images have, simply by making them green, is far harder to achieve is say a printed work where the move from black text (analogous of the status quo) to green text (analogous to grassroots) would jar readers in unpredictable ways.

More than anything else, the videos inspire a certain amount of unpredictability themselves—chiefly the discourses folks of differing opinions can engage in.  The ability to comment partway through a narrative is of course not new as people could always scribble a note about the book as they read the text.  What is new is the speed at which a large audience can be reached.  Instant comments, linking, re-posting, and video responses are digital media expressions of the first order.  For example, conservatives have hit back against Leonard’s video offering specific critiques designed to provide a broad defense of capitalism.  Leonard produced subsequent videos with criticisms of capitalism more specific to Supreme Court cases, the cosmetics industry, and the 2011 financial crisis.  Conservatives again responded with their own interpretations.  Such exchanges suggest that the digital jeremiad is far more malleable than that of the sermon or text.  Sure spoken words and texts had their own mimesis of conversations with parishioners discussing content and subsequent authors arguing against the previous viewpoints.  Nonetheless, the breadth of the audience digital narratives can reach is both its great strength and constitutive of its own digital form—that is, the ability to simultaneously present material in different medias.  While we may never make it out of Weber’s “Iron Cage,” at least digital narratives will help us describe our problem more clearly.

In my previous post, “Websites Made of Sand,” I discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the Glessner House Museum website, concluding the design and content need not be but were in fact superannuated.  In that critique, I drew much of my introduction on the Glessner house mansion from my visit to the museum and from my reading of the Encyclopedia of Chicago, the second of which provides a good opportunity to discuss strengths and weaknesses of digital and print formats.

Undertaken as a collaborative effort between the Newberry Library, the Chicago Historical Society (now the Chicago History Museum), Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago Press, the EOC mimicked earlier city encyclopedias such as the Encyclopedia of Cleveland and the Encyclopedia of New York City in combining topical breadth and approachable writing with scholarly veracity.  Hundreds of individual contributors were commissioned to complete entries ranging from a paragraph to several pages on the most essential topics in the respected cities.  In the case of Chicago, the result was over a thousand pages of concise articles complete with a wide range of photographs, accompanying documents, and informational maps.

Published in 2004, editors followed-up the printed encyclopedia with a freely accessible online version that went live in 2005.  Taking advantage of efforts by the National Endowment for the Humanities to create more digitized versions of encyclopedia content meant a great deal of preplanning, simultaneous development of some digital elements with the print version, and quick action to translate the EOC’s content to a useable interface for anyone with an internet connection.  The results succeeded  in capturing the information and tone of the textual entries; however, at the same time, the web version left behind a great deal of the visual content.

The powerful and elegant maps, created by Michael Conzen, the cartography team at the Newberry Library, and various other contributors, suffered the most in the transition from print to digital.  The print EOC measured around twenty inches in height and featured paper suitable for high quality images.  Taking advantage of these generous dimensions, fifty six maps, many of them full page and thematic on topics ranging from Chicago movie theatres, to neighborhood ethnic compositions, to the most accurate map ever produced following the spread of the Chicago fire, conveyed, to the readers, the greatest amount of information in the shortest amount of time.  Maps within maps, such as “Chicago’s Evolving Economic Geography,” and maps next to maps, such as “Chicago: Commuting in the Walking City in 1854,” communicated change over time expediently.  Whereas in the print version these juxtapositions were possible, the digital version (which runs on Flash) reduced the size of the maps to windows too small to grasp the details of the change.  A sidebar allowed zooming to detect finer grain details at the expense of crowding out the bigger picture.

A way forward could be to abandon the Flash originally used in favor of a platform which better allows for full-screen versions of the maps and images. Expanding the width of the text would also reduce the frustrating frequency that the reader must scroll down.  My final design suggestion is to spruce up the theme of the website, as the small header, the brown on cream on black color scheme, and the small link menu does not do justice to the rigor of the content within.  While the web enhances the expediency people look to when tapping a tertiary source, pushing ease of access even more should remain a continuing goal of online digital history projects.

One comparative postscript with the Encyclopedia of Cleveland mentioned above.  In perusing their website, one finds a different genesis and vision for the future in the Cleveland example.  Completed in 1987, the print version would wait about a decade before making it to the web.  But even though the internet was not part of the original editors’ plans in launching the project in 1987, their vision of frequent updating and continual participation reached apotheosis through the internet.  Currently, the website emphasizes user collaboration through a “Corrections” menu tab which directs the user to form-field boxes requiring the article title, correction, sources, and contact information of the corrector.  Modifications are patrolled by an editor and  two editorial assistants who update entries after verifying the accuracy of the user generated changes.  By maintaining the stability of the first digital edition (really the second print edition) on a separate site, the editors are then able to update the articles on a second site allowing for changes to be tracked over time.  While the Encyclopedia of Chicago has no such collaborative dimension, placing the depth of content of the printed volume is still commendable despite some shortcomings.  Will paid only versions such as the Encyclopedia of New York imitate their example?

The Glessner House sits as a castle on the corner of 18^th street in Chicago’s famed Prairie Avenue District. Following the Chicago Fire of 1871, Prairie Avenue served as the refuge for Chicago’s business elite who built mansions on the grandest scale.  Partially in response to the labor unrest of early 1886—where in one instance workers marched along Prairie Avenue, knocked on doors, and demanded the elite answer for their crimes—agribusinessman John Glessner looked to famed architect H.H. Richardson to bring his Romanesque aesthetic to crafting a strong house.  Finished in 1887, Glessner got what he paid for as the house still stands as the last of the great Prairie Avenue mansions.

While the home was built to last, the Glessner House Museum website appears far more fragile.  A simple header emphasizing the granite blocks of the home, gives way to a two column mishmash of upcoming events, about us, and remembrances.  All such material is rightly a mainstay of museum websites, however, the jumbled presentation impedes the content.  In particular, I think the following changes would improve the transmission of content to the reader: first, a monochromatic blue color scheme rather than the dual green and salmon; second, a wider screen presentation meeting the increased dimensions of today’s monitors and allowing readers to scan more information with less downward scrolling; third, a greater emphasis on the pictures as, in terms of a cursory glance, images best project the image of the organization.  Historic homes need not antiquated presentations.

Cosmetic changes will lift the reader’s experience, but in order for expectations to really rise content changes are also in order.  I wanted more of the back story behind the social conditions leading to the commission and construction of the mansion.  How much give and take was there between the architect and the Glessners?  Also, content could better emphasize the social dynamics on Prairie Avenue, thus giving a greater perspective on the 1% of Gilded Age Chicago.  Glimpses of this content emerges under the Explore tab, but greater foregrounding of this content would improve the website and possibly encourage more visitors to the house.

Having visited the Glessner House before, I don’t feel the website does much justice to the treasures within.  As someone previously uninterested in the Arts and Crafts movement, I left the house with a greater appreciation of the popularity of this approach to design.  I cannot say the website strikes the same chord.  It seems unrealistic to expect a website to hold one’s attention as long as the interactivity of an on-the-ground tour; however, museums will better engage an audience if they emphasize a contemporary presentation of the historical material.  Changes in programming languages, media-plug ins, and server space create many challenges for small budget museums without full-time IT staff.  Nonetheless, if the museum hopes to last as long as the castle they call home, then their website must be built on the sturdiest of digital materials

Tonight’s post responds to the following three book chapters from Cameron and Kenderdine, Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage: Andrea Whitcomb, “The Materiality of Virtual Technologies: A New Approach to Thinking About the Impact of Multimedia in Museums”;Fiona Cameron, “Beyond the Cult of the Replicant: Museums and Historical Digital Objects – Traditional Concerns, New Discourses”; Deirdre Brown, “Te Ahua Hiko: Digital Cultural Heritage and Indigenous Objects, People, and Environments.”

Taken together, the readings raise a series of questions to the benefits and drawbacks of a digital format versus an analog format.  The readings all argue an inherent materiality in digital forms rivaling that of traditional objects.  Through 3-D object-mapping scans of Maori artifacts (Brown), post-structuralism linguistic deconstructions of the sign/signifier relationship (Cameron), and the empathy invoking digital experience of the Our Grief exhibit (Witcomb) the reader is perhaps convinced of the reciprocality between what is fellable and what is touchable.   I, for one, am not completely convinced.  Fully admitting the ability of movies and other digital mediums to move viewers, from a research perspective opportunities are lost when the object is replaced with the computer code.  Outside of rare cases where a historian makes an inference based on the smells or touch of a book or document, a more commonplace example comes from the world of music.  Antonio Stradivari, the most renowned of all Italian violin makers, varied the length of his instruments from time to time.  In the hands of an expert player or researcher, these centimeter adjustments mean differences in sound and periodization.  Would 3-D mapping preserve the cultural experience of these violins?  Likewise, anyone who had been to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC could testify to the visceral reactions the physicality of the exhibits evokes.

While some of my own Museum experience has pointed to the very real possibilities of interweaving the digital with the analog in order to tell previously un-explorable stories (e.g. curators at the Putnam Museum in Davenport, Ia. transported their Egyptian mummy to a local hospital for CT scans and then created a digital interior of the mummy for visitors to compare to the exterior), expecting virtual reality to instill the same fear a storm trooper would experience in Darth Vader’s presence seems as far away and yet as close to home as science-fiction.

Hi all,
Wanted to share some of my thoughts on Paul Erkickson’s essay “Help or Hindrance? The History of the Book and Electronic Media.”
Erickson’s concern is what has and what can book history methodology bring to the study of digital medium. To probe the possibilities, Erickson shares some of the work by major names in the field. He begins with William Charvat and Robert Darnton’s paradigmatic theories of the diffusion of printed matter. Terrific in telling their supply-side of the story through careful unraveling of changes in “materiality of texts” and “distribution” (e.g. dime novels), Erickson critiques—certainly not a unique argument—the models for leaving much of readership unexplained.
The field-wide argument goes something like this: Even when scholars have concerned themselves with deriving readerships—Michael Warner’s The Letters of the Republic, Timothy Gilfoyle et. all The Flash Press, as examples—their look towards texts themselves still abstracts the reader because their findings cannot avoid what the market wants from the text. The only effort I’ve read that really squares the circle is Janice Radway’s Reading the Romance. Through focus-grouping and ethnographic work she poses the clear question: Do the romance novels the groups reads express the desires of the Smithton women? A kind of cycle emerges where readers become writers, and she embraces the constitutive paradox that reading remains both a private-individual action and part of a system. On balance, Radway, whom Erikson cites, bears a torch for the kind of mixed/cross disciplinary perspectives Erikson advocates—an example historians have hesitated to take-up probably because the rise of digital media as an agent of widespread social change boarders on the arbitrary twenty-five year cusp separating journalism from history.
Erikson suggests that for historians of the book to not put skin in the game is wrongheaded  because, those who have done book history well—examples include, Michael Denning on dime novels, Anthony Grafton on what might be called scrapbooks, and Robert Darnton on “philosophy under the cloak”—all elucidate the myriad examples of changes in the materiality of the text impacting individuals and society. Progenitors can help in studying newer phenomenon, and the recent shift from the printed page to the digital screen should not move forward, in Erickson’s view, without more attention from historians of the book.
I curious about peoples’ reaction to Erickson’s specific call for book historians to stop wasting a great opportunity; however, I also am interested in peoples’ reactions to the history of the book more generally. What’s the best strategy to get at readership? Is it possible to find the impact a specific text had on an individual without a box of personal papers? Even if we have the papers? Is participant observation the best approach to studying the effect changes from print to digital media has had on the individual reader? What else would work well?
I’m also interested for folks thoughts on Darnton’s longstanding “communications circuit” found in Robert Darnton, “What is the History of Books?” Daedalus, Vol. 111, No. 3, Representations and Realities (Summer, 1982), pp. 65-83.