Defining Digital History

The internet really took off in the early 1990s and in the last decade what started as a few rudimentary websites has snowballed into an ever improving piece of technology that literally brings information right to your fingertips in the comfort of your own homes.  It's really pretty amazing when you think about it.

Image courtesy of GMU

The implications of this new technology driven world are huge, especially for historians.  The word  "history" typically brings to mind crumbling buildings, dusty libraries, and gigantic tomes of texts.  Certainly those things are all necessary to (and greatly loved by) historians, but we also love our computers.  History in the digital age should bring to mind laptops, tablets, iPads, e-readers, databases, complex software programming, and yes, the internet.

This term 'digital history' might seem a bit confusing, but not if you replace the word 'digital' with the phrase 'technology driven.' So what is digital history?  It's a lot of things.  Defining 'digital history' isn't any easier than defining 'history,' and any historian worth his salt can launch into an hour long lecture about just how impossible it is to really define 'history' anyway.  So I'm going to attempt the impossible and try to tell you what digital history is.

First, digital history is technology driven.  It is, for the purposes of this article, intrinsically tied to the world wide web.  Digital history is history online, and as the title of this blog suggests, ongoing.

Of course history going digital means a slew of new problems for historians to consider.  In Digital History:  A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig try to address many of these issues. Stuart Fox of TechNewsDaily also points out some of the dilemmas historians in the digital age face.  All three authors agree that one of the biggest problems to surmount is the vastness of the internet.  Not only is there too much information for future historians to wade through, there is too much information out there to compete with.

History on the web needs to be accessible and searchable.  Newer technologies are making that more possible now, but it's still a slippery slope to go down.  Metadata, labels, and tags are increasingly important for information cataloged and/or placed on the internet.  Finding the right words to use is often difficult, but I've found sticking to the basics and staying simple are usually the best bets for searchability.  For instance, this article has the following labels:  digital history, history online, technology, metadata, tags, labels, and internet humanities.  So always label or tag historic information you put online, and test your tags by googling your internet projects using only your tags to see what comes up.  Good luck traveling the history information superhighway. I hope you enjoy learning about digital history as much as I do.

Tweet Chats for Historians

Clip art courtesy of Hubspot Blog.

My last post was all about twitter, and as promised this post is all about tweet chats. So what is a tweet chat?  A tweet chat is an online discussion that occurs at a predetermined time using a specific hashtag to link the tweeters together in a virtual conversation.  Tweet chats are a great way to meet professionals in your field, and are excellent opportunities for (digital) networking. Whatever your field happens to be, whatever hobby you enjoy, there's a tweet chat for that!

Tweet chats can be hard to follow on twitter, so the easiest thing to do is probably to go to TweetChat, log in using your twitter handle and password, and then type in the pre-arranged tweet chat hashtag for the tweet chat you're wanting to participate in.  It's as easy as that!

Now that you're ready to chat, I guess you probably need a tweet chat to participate in.  There are a few good tweet chats for public historians out there, but not as many as I'd like to see.  Here are some chats to get you started:

Historic Preservation
#builtheritage :  This chat is sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and covers a wide variety of preservation related topics. To find out the date search twitter for #builtheritage and look at the recent tweets (you can also use these tweet chat hashtags to talk about preservation topics when there isn't a tweet chat going on).  The next chat is September 5th at 4 PM EDT.

Museums and Social Media
#musesocial :  This chat is all about how museums can use technology, especially social media, to their advantage.  The next chat is actually today from 3-5 PM.



 Non History/Museum Chats That Are Useful for Public Historians
#assnchat :  The Association Chat is a chat for all different kinds of associations, and they discuss a lot of topics that are relevant for non-profit organizations.  This chat takes place every Tuesday at 2 PM.

#citytalk :  City Talk is a monthly tweet chat about urban issues and cities.  I'm not sure when the next one is, but if you search it regularly they are bound to post a new date soon.

#eventprofs : This chat is for event planning professionals, and if you've ever worked for a Public History organization then you know you have to plan events sometimes.  Many of their topics could prove useful for your next event.  Check out the EventProfs website for the schedule of upcoming chats.

*If you moderate a history, public history, preservation, historic site or museum related tweet chat and your chat isn't on my list then please leave me a comment so I can add it.  Thanks so much!

Twitter for Historians and Public History Pros

Social media is becoming increasingly important as a means of communication and networking.  Big name brands like Pepsi and Nike have already figured out the importance of sites like Twitter for maximizing sales and improving brand loyalties, but not-for-profit organizations have been somewhat slow to jump on the Twitter bandwagon.  Historians, like me, usually prefer our manuscripts and conferences to social media--but that's changing and there are lots of ways we can utilize Twitter for professional growth.

TWITTER BASICS:
1. Getting Started: First you need to go to Twitter and set up your account.  This part is pretty self explanatory.  To create your twitter handle (your public profile name) I recommend using your real name, initials, job title, or some combination of all of those to make your account easy to find.

2. Privacy:  Twitter does offer a privacy feature under account settings.  You can choose to lock your account so only users you approve can view your tweets and follow you.  I discourage using this feature.  Twitter is a public social networking site and to get the most out of it you should really keep your account public.  You can block spammers and anyone you do not wish to communicate with by clicking "block" next to the user's handle.

3. Tweeting: Click the white box in the upper left hand corner underneath your photo and twitter handle. Type your tweet and then click the blue 'tweet' button.  Tweets are limited to 140 characters so pay attention to the character counter next to the blue 'tweet' button.

Use the @ symbol followed by user's handle to tweet directly to a particular user (example:  to tweet directly to me you'd say @JennWelborn followed by your tweet). 

If you would like to tweet to a particular user, but you would like that tweet to be visible to all of your followers insert a period in front of the at symbol (ex: .@JennWelborn).

4. Following: After you open your account and create your handle you are ready to connect with other users. You can search for organizations and people by name or email address in the search box. Click their name to see their profile, and then click "follow" to follow them.  Once you're following someone all of their tweets will appear in your feed.

Your followers are users who have chosen to follow your account. The more you talk to people on twitter, the more followers you are likely to get.

5. Direct Messaging: If you are following someone and that user is also following you, you can have private conversations via direct messaging.  Click on the little gray man's head in the upper right corner to bring up the drop down menu and then click 'direct messaging.'  Click 'new message' and then type in the twitter handle for the user you'd like to message, and then type your message. 

Using Hashtags to Connect

Twitter hashtags are a great place to start networking.  So what is a hashtag?  A hashtag is the pound sign plus text and it can be used to search twitter for specific conversations and topics (example:  #hashtag typed into the search box would bring up all recent tweets containing hashtags about hashtags). Capitalization does not matter for hashtag use.

There are hashtags for just about everything.  You can even make up your own hashtags. 

Hashtags are also used for something called "tweet chats."  My next post will be about tweet chats.

I have taken the time to compile a list of hashtags commonly used by historians, public historians, museums, historic sites, historic preservation pros, historic preservation agencies, archaeologists, and public history organizations.

Topical Hashtags for Historians: 
#archives
#archaeology 
#history
#histsci (for history of science)
#histmed (history of medicine)
#techhist
#envhist (environmental history)
#chinesehistory
#EuropeanHistory
#southernhistory
#ushistory

Hashtags for Public Historians:
#archives
#genealogy
#oralhistory
#preservation
#prestip
#histpres
#publichistory
#museums

Hashtags for Community and Conferences 
#twitterstorians (popular hashtag for historians using twitter)
#aha2013 (AHA annual meeting hashtag)
#session122 (you can follow particular AHA meeting sessions by typing in the pound sign + session + the session number)
#THATcamp (popular AHA meeting hashtag--but it brings up non-history related stuff the rest of the year)
#NCPH (National Council of Public History Conference)

Hashtags for Digital History
#digitalhistory
#digitalhumanities
#dh (#dh does bring up non-history related tweets as well)
#dhdebates

If you notice that any history hashtags are missing please let me know so I can add it to the appropriate list.