The Apprentice Historian

What I've Learned So Far

1) The USGS website is every bit as devilishly difficult as we were led to believe it is. I mean, if there was such a thing as anti-user friendly, USGS.gov has got to be the poster child.

2) DEMs are being phased out in favor of NEDs. As if our acronym library wasn't full enough! See this page buried deep within the USGS.gov website.

3) National Atlas.com has maps of the counties of each of the states that is immensely helpful when trying to figure out into which bucket the USGS dumped stuff. In particular, each state has a County Map with selected Cities and Towns map. Check it out if you can't quite figure out which DEM to get.

4) Scroll down below the ad that breaks up the list of DRGs in geocomm.... That was about 45 minutes of frustration before I realized the data set I was looking for was below the ad!

5) This is as big a time sink as last year. I need extra hours to sift through everything!

Just for kicks, I set up Mt. Washington, New Hampshire in Natural Scene Designer. On the left is the view from the Headwall in Tuckerman Ravine in NSD. For comparison, the actual view from said location on the right (from my climb there in March 2006 — if you look carefully at bottom center, you can see me at the end of the line of climbers headed up side of the ravine.) The important thing is how pretty darn close NSD's view gets to the real thing!

Historian 2.0 (and GIS, eventually)

I missed class on Tuesday night because I was in Dallas at a conference. I delivered a talk on utilizing Web 2.0 technologies (blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking, etc.) to enhance learning in the classroom. Here's the main point of my presentation: As a workplace learning professional, I am pretty good at delivering effective learning in a classroom or via self-paced web-based training. However, these formal learning events is maybe 10-15% of a worker's time. The other 85-90% of the time is filled with "unstructured learning" — informal learning that happens when one looks up information on the internet, or asks a colleague how to do something, or reads a book to learn more about a topic. Until now, it has been very difficult for me to affect that unstructured learning. But Web 2.0 changes all of that by giving me tools to guide learning outside of the classroom or other formal, structured learning event.

In my talk, I then proceeded to give examples of the different types of Web 2.0 technologies and how to apply them to workplace learning. I even used this blog as an example of how to use a blog to extend discussions beyond the classroom. On the whole, I believe the presentation was well received by the audience — I got good comments on the evaluation forms, anyway. I was surprised at how many people had actually been experimenting with one or more Web 2.0 tools. There's a heck of a lot of hype surrounding these technologies, enough to intimidate most people from trying them out for themselves. But that's really the only way you can get to know the tool and then start to see how to use them to encourage or enhance learning.

My focus on Web 2.0 and learning this week reminded me about Gaddis' assertion that "the single most important thing any historian has to do, whether in the classroom or in scholarly monographs or even as a television talking hear, which is to teach [emphasis in original]." (page 149) Teaching is the reason I have embarked on this journey towards being an Historian in the first place. It's a real thrill (to me, anyway) when I discover a new way to teach, and these new technologies have exciting potentials to revolutionize how learning is delivered. I believe that Web 2.0 has much to offer us as historians.

What concerns me, however, is the predicable (but nevertheless disappointing) resistance to new ideas by the institution known as the Academy. This goes back to our discussion last semester about Manan Ahmed’s The Polyglot Manifesto. Ahmed is concerned (and rightly so) that the Academy is improperly valuing these new technologies and the mastery of them. Without beating a completely frayed and ratty cliché, Web 2.0 offers a new paradigm for teaching history, one that can shatter the rut of the classroom and put History lessons in a medium that young minds instinctively grasp. But, it seems, the Academy is not interested.

And now, finally, I'm getting to the point about GIS (Geographical Information Systems) and their significance to historical research. If I only get credit for the number of words I write in scholarly journals or monographs, why am I going to waste my time entering data in a cross-referenced database that includes geographical, economic and meteorological data points? As Ahmed puts it, "No extra points come tenure time...." I think Anne Kelly Knowles has collected enough reasons in this week's reading for me to have hope that time spent populating a GIS with datapoints can be time well spent. The research outlined in the chapters in this book are a fantastic inspiration to me — I am finally seeing historical research through technology in action!

And if one of the core competencies of Web 2.0 is control over expanding and expandable data — as Tim O'Reilly put it: "control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them" — then GIS represents those very data sources. It also represents a way of quantifying history, which addresses Gaddis' assertion that history is more like a physical science than a social science. With a well-rounded GIS, historians can examine the interdependency of variables, causation, contingency, and counterfactual scenarios in an effort to better understand the how and why of history. This, then, is the real value of GIS for history.

Maps as History

As much as I really wanted to find something interesting about Jeremy Black's Maps and History, I will have to join my classmates in general disappointment with this book. I tried quite persistently to make inroads into this dense and unimaginatively typeset book, but the text was like Wonder Woman and her bulletproof bracelets: The Nineteenth Century [pwang]; Politics and Post-war Atlases [spwing]; A New Agenda [zzzzzz]. Nothing he wrote seemed to stick, and I found myself really annoyed with the faux-French intellectualism he continuously waved in my face. Just because you can speak french, that does not make you smart, nes pa? I can certainly understand why the used copies are selling for 40% of the book's list price on Amazon!

Perhaps after the coffee table book glory of Hayes, Professor Petrik thought this could serve to show us what not to do with maps....

On the other hand, I found the websites immensely educational and useful. I'm very much looking forward to shading and even the hand-drawn maps next month.

I'm sorry that I'll miss the discussion in class on Tuesday night — I should have liked to hear how bad Black gets busted!

Hard Drive, Rest in Peace (but give up the data first!)

So it's official — it's not the boot.ini file like I was praying it was. The hard drive ist kaput. If everyone would burn some incense for me or otherwise think good karmic thoughts, I'd be much obliged. It's not so much the indignity of losing the hard drive. I've been a technology professional for too long to take it personally when the hardware craps out. I was even moderately successful at spreading the data and backups around so that mitigates the impact. It's just the timing: project due, the big Kings Dominion Clown Band reunion is this weekend (and everyone's email address is on the dead hard drive!), fully commented pictures of my spring trip to Italy, I'm headed to a conference next week and was going to give my presentation with my laptop, etc., etc. [sniff, sniff]

But I do have much for which to be thankful, to be sure. It's not the end of the semester. I was pretty good about backing up data. I have a good job and my health. Meh.

A valuable lesson here, kids. Back up, back up, back up. Spend the $30-$50 on a 1 gig flash drive and copy the important stuff there — then throw it in a drawer. Spend $100 on a 250 gig USB external hard drive and once a week copy your hard drive to it. Make sure you know where your system CDs are and how to use them. Be sure to take advantage of any built-in backup and restore software that's bundled with your operating system. I know both Macs and PCs have such things...take a moment to use them. There are many things to do to ease the pain...just don't make the mistake of thinking that it can't happen to you!!

</pity party>

Atlas Evaluation

In reviewing historical atlases, the maps and diagrams in Geoffrey J. Matthews’ Historical Atlas of Canada stands out in my mind as particularly effective in conveying additional knowledge, context and meaning by effectively blending maps, diagrams and text. The most useful layouts play to the strength of maps, conveying information that changed over time or providing a sense of spatial context. While some maps are able to speak for themselves, the most beneficial layouts include passages that explain parts of the map, or the significance of the map, or at least the origins of the map. The pages that seemed most effective were also the pages that did not limit themselves to a grid or a conventional layout. I find my own personal taste extends to the original or alternative layouts that include bleeds off the page and unusual orientations of maps, illustrations and diagrams. While I am sure that it is a matter of taste, the most effective layouts reflect a sense of style and confidence

I found the passage on Cultural Sequences in the Historical Atlas of Canada quite valuable in understanding the spread of early peoples through northern North America. Effectively writing about the migration of populations as evidenced in arrowheads and pottery shards requires a keen sense of narrative and imaginative use of prose that escapes most historians. Seeing illustrations of the pottery and arrowheads superimposed on maps that visually convey the distances and spread of each group and sub-group was a much more beneficial method of reporting on the results of the migrations. In the same vein, the use of the same map as a base for many different diagrams served to tie the information together and transmit a concrete sense of context. Maps are used to call attention to changes in time and space, as in the Rumsey maps comparing the filling in of the Back Bay of Boston. This passage in the Cartographica Extraordinare clearly shows how Bostonians claimed more land for themselves over time. The map also makes it clear how the Muddy River played an important role in the challenges of reclaiming of Back Bay.

Hornsby’s Historical Atlas of Maine makes extensive use of other visuals superimposed on maps to convey information. Statistical data can be dry and difficult to place in context, but Hornsby helpfully supplies maps to show the geographic distribution of Canadians in Maine; but not just Canadians, but the differences between French Canadians and English Canadians as well. This combination of charts, diagrams, illustrations and maps gives the presentation greater strength than the single components could do individually.

As for the mechanics of the effective layouts, several rules of thumb or guidelines seem to present themselves. Captions should be set apart with smaller font sizes. The font face, color and typesetting serve to tie the separate parts of the layout together. The word count for each topic tends to be low, in the 500-750 word range, presumably because the visuals support the text and provide more insight than words alone. A limited number of visuals and maps prevent the layout from being too crowded, thus detracting from the informational value, and six seems to be the upper limit for color graphics. Allowing your visuals to bleed off the page provides more functional space for the critical elements without reducing the context provided by the maps or diagrams — cropping an image to fit within the galleries of a page could remove important contextual information. The most effective layouts used a grid system only when it served a purpose.

A focus on maps and other visuals brings a different and broader perspective on history than is conveyed by words alone. A map of the area discussed provides direct clues as to the decisions made by key players in the historical narrative. Illustrations showing the differences in arrowheads can immediately convey the evolution of technology. Graphs combined with maps point out the importance of trends to a geographical area without explicitly explaining them. Maps and visuals provide a rich medium for communicating key information and concepts that support the themes an historian is advancing in the narrative.

Not to Over-Blow It, but Houston, We Have a...

As Professor P puts it in her syllabus: "Do not expect to get through the semester without having at least one computer meltdown."

Voila! The first of the semester! I don't know if it was Illustrator or just the fact that I got all cocky with my spiffy tablet and my karma took a hit as a result. Regardless, I have an "unmountable boot disk" now and nothing going on.

On the bright side, I've not lost any computer assignments since it's so early in the semester! But let this be a lesson for you, kids — back up early and back up often. And if you are backing up to a hard drive with moving parts, consider backing that baby up, too!

What I Did During My Summer Vacation

New semester, same blog channel. At the conclusion of the Spring semester, our intrepid hero had barely managed to avoid a catastrophic cranial explosive event from trying to learn too many things all at once. My historical website Project turned out ok, however!

So over the summer I made sure to read very little of import.  Mostly classic science fiction (found some old Heinlein books in the book swap shelf at the library at work!) with London: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd thrown in for some variety. Spent a couple of days in Paris on the way to a week in the Italian countryside. Moved into a condo. Tried to stay out of trouble. The usual stuff.

Now, back in the HIST saddle again. This semester's class is History & Cartography another barn-burner with Dr. Petrik. This semester we'll be honing new digital history tools, this time in the mapping department. You can look forward to digital maps with high "Cool!" factors.

To start, however, we're reading John Lewis Gaddis' The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past. This book was actually on my "to read" list, so I'm quite excited to dig in. Another bonus — short and light, unlike some of the other books on the book list this semester! Don't let the brevity fool you, though. Gaddis always has something interesting to say and he doesn't disappoint here. Drawing from ideas I first read in Edward O. Wilson's Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Gaddis points out that reductionism isn't the be-all-end-all of scientific thought. Wilson enphasizes that the "hard" sciences (those that lend themselves most easily to quantifiable, repeatable experimentation) have gone far down the road of specialization only to realize that the best theories and explanations usually require a broader view and often cross disciplines.

While most social scientists will gasp at the scandalous thought of cross-discipline thinking, Gaddis builds on Wilson's view that historians have a unique perspective within the field of social science disciplines. Independent variables are less important than finding the thread that explains your narrative. History offers an alternative methodology that can cross disciplinary lines in an effort to find that common thread. This broad-view mindset appeals to me in a big way, and indeed is one of the reasons I started thinking about World history as a concentration.