Cohen and Rosenzweig

     I read Cohen and Rosenzweig's Digital History: A guide to gathering, preserving and presenting the past on the web. As with any historical publication, or any book at all for that matter, it takes a couple of reads to really take in the information being presented but I think the authors have done a great job. The book is practically a step by step guide and I think it suits our course perfectly, no detail is left uncovered. Everything we mentioned in our first class is dealt with somewhere in the book, making it reliable to fall back on if all this technology gets to be a bit too much! The authors are not academic snobs, anyone could follow the designs and plans that are set out which is important for maximum accessibility, something which is very important to them where sharing knowledge is concerned.

     They outline the computer as the central tool for today's historian, and denounce the classroom as irrelevant in the world of information technology, thus making their book a must read...very clever marketing! I think it's true though. Ten to fifteen years ago computers were relatively unknown and almost feared. I remember our first P.C. that had little else to do other than solitaire yet I was under constant supervision when using it. Today our house would be cut off without the internet, our neighbors house seems like miles away, it's so much easier to facebook! According to Cohen and Rosenzweig, personal use of computers and the internet has developed at literally the same speed as academic use, maybe even faster. They say that ten years ago historians were curious about computers, the technology was intriguing yet not vitally important. Today, a yahoo search gives out 39,959 historical sites, and that's just the best of the crop which ignores all the hypertext links that lead all the way down the academic scale. Really it's madness how much information is out there!

     I like how they present the advantages of the internet age as they move through the chapters. All these advantages are concerned both with the mass audience and the mass volume of information that can be presented. The sheer storage capacity available and the different formats it's available in, mean that today's history will never be forgotten. Hopefully that means that eventually there will be no such thing as trawling through pages and pages of illegible chicken scratch in order to find one fact or quote...we can always hope! Interactivity between all realms of society means that history is no longer confined to those that can afford to study it, I think this is the greatest advantage. If someone has a passion for history, there should be no price on it.

     Of course the authors don't ignore the fact that the internet is not always the most trustworthy source, the quantity of information available threatens it's quality and even misspelled words will give out hundreds of search words. I think that's a small price to pay considering we can now reach the other side of the world with the click of a button.

     The book outlines challenges for todays historians who now have no choice but to go digital. In the course of the chapters it helps with the basic skills needed and obstacles that may be encountered. Everything from design to copyright is covered as well as a quick glimpse into what the future may hold for historical research. Over-all, it's the perfect companion to a digital history course, especially for those of us that have not completely mastered the ins and outs of everything the internet is capable of!