Since taxpayers pay for it, perhaps we should open up access...

With the growth of the internet (and the subsequent privatization issues such as FERPA) the issue of open access is on the minds of many in the digital history community. 

     Digital historians are often greeted with new and exciting ways of presenting and researching history, but the question always remains: who should benefit from our digitized world? As Lisa Spiro said in a 2008 article on communication and open access in digital humanities (found here), “open access, just like dark and blueberries, is good and good for you”. She argues that opening up scholarly research in the humanities leads to more information accessed by more people, and encourages the exchange of ideas and collaboration with other scholars. Spiro like many other academics in humanities notes that while economic and scientific communities have greatly benefited from open access materials, the humanities has yet to really latch on to the possibilities digitizing and open access can bring. Dan Cohen, a pioneer in the field of digital history, notes in an entry on his blog (found here) the resistance some in the professional historical community have to open access forms of historical research. The American Historical Association (AHA) claims that open access works better in scientific and economic publishing, not humanities because of the nature of scholarly publishing in the field. Cohen argues that the AHA has a conflict of interest with the issue of open access, while it is mandated by congress to circulate history, it is also an association that publishes scholarly research and represents scholastic authors of history. There has been a “collective failure” on the part of historians who cling to the old ways of research (which is often funded through grants, endowments and tax cuts). According to Cohen, “we haven't tried very hard” to find a sustainable way of adapting to a democratized digital world.

This 19th century slave cage sits outside the American Historical Association building in Washington D.C.. Perhaps for the purposes of this article, we can use it as a metaphor: the cage is the box in which traditional historians have placed digital history. Instead of exploring the ever expanding and evolving digital world, historians like to follow the old methods and look at digital history as a quaint commodity that will never fit in a practical academic world. 

     While some groups like the AHA resist the opening up of scholarly research to the public, others have sought out new ways history can be presented freely to the public. Purely digital open access scholarly journals, such as the Journal of Digital Humanities (found here), provide scholars with new ways of presenting their research using digital tools. For instance, Daniel Booker's article, “Visualizing San Francisco Bay's Forgotten Past” was able to use high quality images to support his analysis of the use of the San Francisco Bay since the gold rushes of the mid 19th century. Lisa Spiro argued in 2008 that digital forms of publication can offer things like publishing photographic sources that traditional publishing methods can't or are unwilling to do. Scholars like Bill Turkel argue that history should be interactive and tangible, as it uses “people's natural way of comprehending the world through touch and other forms of sensory perception” (found in Spiro's article here). In other words, scholars should actively engage their audience instead of bogging them down with dry, and somewhat archaic, academic articles.

A pioneer in digital history, Roy Rosenzweig believed in open access of academic research. In his eyes, almost all historical research was underwritten by taxpayers, and should be made available to them. 

    University based centers are looking for new ways to research and present in digital forms, such as the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities based at the University of Maryland (found here), which provides access to current projects by students and faculty, as well as providing a blog, podcasts and hosting events that facilitate discussion on relevant issues for digital humanities. The Center for History and Media at George Mason University, is an excellent example of the strides historians can make using a digital platform. Founded by Roy Rosenzweig in 1994, the center has sought to create a variety of online digital projects aimed at educating and providing sources and tools for high school, and university students and educators. Not only does the center focus on providing tools for a “new generation” of scholars, librarians, archivists and museum curators, it has pioneer the ways we capture and preserve history made digitally. It's starring example is the center's September 11 Digital Archive (found here) which is made up of some 150,000 digital items like Black Berry Messages, video clips, emails, voice mails, and so on.

     While some historians will continue to resist the emerging field of digital history, the potential ways in which opening up history to the modern world are invaluable in teaching history to the next generation. The field is still developing, but it has come a long way in the past decade and will continue to expand, opening up new potential ways to share history and excite people in the process. While we still need to consider sustainable ways to  support the publishing of open access research, perhaps opening up historical research will inspire more creativity and new ways to think about the past.