As previously established, digital history has been one of the most revolutionary fields of study because of its ability to democratize the study of the past. One of the most important figures within the historiography of digital history, and the main voice pressing the need for open access of digital history to audiences outside academia was Roy Rosenzweig.

According to his colleagues and the staff of the RRCHNM, Roy Rosenzweig was a historian and professor at George Mason University who founded the Center for History and New Media, one of the earliest centers for digital humanities. (@masondevelopment, YouTube). After establishing his Center, he was able to create multiple tools that could be used by academics and public audiences alike. A historian willing to embrace the new technologies, Rosenzweig published “the first multimedia history textbook” (Mintz, AHA). Unfortunately, Rosenzweig passed in 2007, right as the internet truly began to flourish.  One of the main themes throughout Rosenzweig’s research is the idea of historical research and publication as a collaborative effort. Unlike traditional history, which Rosenzweig stated was “characterized by possessive individualism” (Rosenzweig, Can History Be Open Source) digital history had the opportunity to build off of the developing technologies that were becoming a part of the everyday historian’s toolbelt.

This theme of the infinitely small window for the existence of digital projects and issues of open-source information were also major themes throughout Rosenzweig’s work. In his and Daniel Cohen’s book Digital History Rosenzweig lamented on the lack of accessibility that projects can suffer from because of rapid advancements in technology and paywalls. Not only does this limit the number of sources that the public, or historians without access to those databases can view, but it also means that the true validity of works that people are accessing can then be questioned. According to Rosenzweig this inaccessibility limited not only access to sources but also the “effective use of the new, global resource” (Roy Rosenzweig, Digital Archives).

While Rosenzweig championed Wikipedia for its ingenious format, allowing collaboration and accessibility that made it easy for users to navigate, there have been significant questions, and notorious examples, of how Wikipedia itself has been manipulated to include fake information and articles because it is so open to the public. It was especially interesting to see how Rosenzweig also argued that Wikipedia was also a tool that could be used for research outside of the content that users could read. Rosenzweig mentioned the use of Wikipedia as a link for H-Bot (Rosenzweig, Can History Be Open Source?).

Of the many tools created by RRCHNM, my favorite is Zotero. Much like Endnote, Zotero also allows for users to save relevant citation data of articles and sources. Most useful to the citation machine, Zotero allows for users to save PDFs, links, etc. as well as add annotations and notes to each individual entry. This means that while one is in the process of researching a given topic you can at the same time be developing an annotated bibliography. While many professors make an annotated bibliography a required assignment for their course using a tool like Zotero streamlines the process of reading and analyzing cited works and creates an easy to navigate database that allows for users to find exactly what source they’re looking for. Zotero is especially useful to me, because it replaces one of my favorite digital tools that has sadly, been archived: eTurabian.

Bibliography

Cohen, Daniel J. and Roy Rosenzweig, “Introduction: Promises and Perils of Digital History,” in Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Presenting, and Preserving the Past on the Web, 2006.

masondevelopment. George Mason University. “Democratizing History – Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.” YouTube Video, 6:27, October 18, 2019, Democratizing History – Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.

Mintz, Steven. “Roy Rosenzweig and the Future of the Past.” American Historical Association, May 2009. https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/may-2009/roy-rosenzweig-and-the-future-of-the-past.

Rosenzweig, Roy. “Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past.” The Journal of American History 93, no 1 (June 2006): 117-46. https://rrchnm.org/essays/can-history-be-open-source-wikipedia-and-the-future-of-the-past/

Rosenzweig, Roy”Digital Archives Are A Gift of Wisdom to be Used Wisely.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 24,2005 Volume 51, Issue 42, Page B20 .https://rrchnm.org/essays/digital-archives-are-a-gift-of-wisdom-to-be-used-wisely/