This week we examined historical scholarship in the digital age, and the question that most emerged to me was:  What is most important in digital history form or content? Does history influence digital media, or does digital media influence history? I think it is fair to say that most scholars would argue that the best digital scholarship does both.

In all of today’s pieces there is the question of how history and digital media can influence and change each other without getting so far away from either subject that the product is not useful.  William Thomas’ account of creating an innovative history site, “Writing A Digital History Journal Article from Scratch,” provided interesting insight into the challenges of creating digital history.  His account demonstrates the challenges of trying to integrate traditional historical scholarship with the possibilities of digital scholarship.  Ideally Thomas and Ayers wanted to integrate the argument with the possibilities of form, which as Thomas points out, meant thinking about everything from the presentation of footnotes to visual cues.  The final product was an article, “The Difference Slavery Made,” which appeared as the above website.  However, a short printed overview of the project appeared in the American Historical Review.  It seems as though Williams and Ayers tried to draw traditional historians in with a traditional form and then lure them into the digital age.  This indicates to me that in this case, content followed form.

Ironically, I printed this article out to read it on paper. I’m not sure what this says about the digital medium or myself.  But, staring at the computer for so long hurts my eyes and I had to get glasses because of it, and you can’t mark up or write comments to yourself on websites, which brings me to my next point….

Digital Campus’ discussion of the Kindle on Making it Count, in which the scholars contend that the Kindle is not really a revolutionary new form.  I was surprised that everyone on the show seemed wary of the Kindle, but I agree with their reasoning.  If the books they offer are currently as expensive as buying a paper book, what is the point? Especially for people like me.  I think there is still something that makes you feel disconnected from what you are reading when staring at a screen, even if it doesn’t hurt your eyes.  However, the point is more that the Kindle does not seem to offer anything new in the field of digital history. While it is convenient and may offer a longer life to books that are no longer profitable to publish, there does not seem to be the collaborative merge between form and content that is vital to digital history–it is just reading a book on a screen.

On the other hand, Planned Obsolescence by Kathleen Fitzpatrick was an interesting merge of form and content, but it did hurt my eyes.  I really enjoyed seeing the immediacy of peer review and the possibilities for engaging the public.  But, it did seem as though the comments were mostly from others in the field rather than a broad range of readers, which is a weakness that I found with the site.  But, I do think that it seemed like an excellent example of digital history because Fitzpatrick uses the possibilities of new forms for a scholarly end that does not alienate those within the academy.  In fact, it aids in one of the key tenants–peer review.

It seems as if the key in digital history is merging the possibilities of digital media with the valued themes of academia while trying to push the envelope slightly.  However, it is hard to accomplish all of these things at once.