A Digital Dark Age?

     This weeks readings focus a lot on the potential digital apocalypse. What would happen if tomorrow the world's technology ceased to work? I always hear people talk about how books are becoming obsolete in the digital age. In reality, paper and other analog records have lasted so long, because they are reliable (even if there are periods where paper has disintegrated). But since we live in a digital world, there are records that are purely digital. If we want to preserve the information of the current age, we must recognize the fragility of digital records today. In a 2008 article in Science Daily (found here), explains that “with ever-shifting platforms and file formats, much of the data we produce today could eventually fall into a black hole of inaccessibility”. The problem with digital information is that it is subject not only to deletion, but with the rapid changes in software and technology, digital data can become incompatible or end up corrupted as time goes on. In the four years since the article was written, we have continued to see a heavier reliance on our digital tools, and thus we are continually locked in with companies that don't like their products being used on devices they don't make a profit on. The key to maintaining digital information’s relevancy and accessibility in the future according to the article is to focus on open source and adaptive software formatting.
    

According to Wikipedia, digital preservation (found here) can be described as “managed activities” focused on “continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary”. Preservation programs require massive amounts of sustained funding, which means that very few groups have the capacity to preserve digital information that will hold up to the test of the apocalyptic digital “dark age”. Not only do digital preservationists need to consider software and deletion problems, they also have to recognize the ethical and professional dilemmas one can face in the field. Questions about relevancy, authenticity, and accessibility can plague any good preservationist, but groups such as the University of British Columbia have sought through their InterPARES (International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems) to develop methods for best practices, standards, and policies that can protect digital information and ensure accuracy and reliability for years to come.

NBC's drama, Revolution, plays on the idea that our tech-reliant world will face a digital "dark age" in the near future.

     While the Science Daily article is good at exploring the potential pitfalls of digitizing and archiving information, the author argues that organizations, universities, and governments are wasting money by investing heavily in digitization of information, because if we enter a digital “dark age” all of the money spent will be lost. Personally, I doubt we will hit a digital “dark age”  any time soon (NBC's Revolution anyone?), and the benefits of digitizing for public access alone seems to be a great reason to continue investing in digital preservation. Since we live in a digital world, we should continue investing in digital archival and preservation of both purely digital and digitized analog documents.
     Magia Ghetu Krause and Elizabeth Yakel's article on the Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collection (article found here, collection found here) explains that  by digitizing documents they were able to “preserve the originals by reducing handling [and] facilitate access”. The online collection was designed with the visitor in mind. Not only does the site offer a digital “book-bag”  to store documents for later viewing, they also use a sort of visitor tracking, so they can alert other visitors of pages related to their views. The group behind the project, FANG (Finding Aids Next Generation), sought to “identify those features and functions that enhance the usability of finding aid, create common ground, and provide 'social affordances' that encourage interaction, such as the participation of users to help one another”. The project particularly focused on social interaction as a way to help users find information relevant to them within the archive. When the site launched in 2006, the group sought to survey users to find out how the site worked for them. Since many of the users had personal family connections to the Polar bear Expedition, things like bookmarking or the comment feature meant they could have a personalized sense of access to the archives, making research easier and more user friendly.
     Personally, after reading Krause and Yakel's article, I was made aware of the impact of accessibility in digital archives. By continuing to expand digital collections and employing digital preservation methods,  historians are opening up access to public while potentially saving original documents from handling damage. While we could find ourselves stranded in a world with out technology in the future, digital preservation is important today because of the accessibility it gives ordinary people. Plus I don't think we should be destroying original documents after we digitize them. I like to think of digital archives as a back up source, that not only protects but provides access to documents.

Spokane Historical Stops: Fox Theater

Fox Theater;

Address: 1001 W. Sprague Avenue

Year Built: 1930

Located on the corner of Sprague and Monroe in downtown Spokane, the Fox Theater has been an icon for entertainment in Spokane. Built in 1930, by Fox West Coast Studios, the stark concrete modernistic architecture of the theater,designed by Robert C. Reamer, stuck out like a sore thumb. The Spokesman Review in an article dated September 3, 1931 referred to the building as "so unusual, so bizarre and so futuristic... certainly Spokane has seen nothing like it before". Fortunately for Spokane, the interior proved to be much richer, filled with art-deco detailing from top to bottom designed by Anthony Heinsbergen, most famous for his work in the Paramount Theater in Oakland, California. The Fox was the first motion picture theater built by a major motion picture company in Spokane. The theater featured many of Fox's studio films as wells as guest appearances by directors themselves, such as George Arliss in 1933. During WWII, the iconic Fox sign towering above the building went dark from 1942-1957. As more movie theaters began to pop up in the city, the Fox Theater began to decline in popularity, and it's old age began to show such as in 1978 when the theater full of school boys had to be evacuated due to smoke caused by faulty wiring. In 2001 the theater was added to the Spokane Historic Register, and underwent a huge restoration. In 2007, the Fox Theater reopened its doors as the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox, and is now the home of the Spokane Symphony.

For more information on the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox and for information on events held there, please visit their website: http://www.foxtheaterspokane.org/

Spokane Historical Stops: Hutton Settlement (revised)

The Hutton Settlement

Location: 9907 E Wellesley
Date Built: 1917-1918


Life as an orphan out on the western frontier was full of hardships. Without parents, siblings were separated and bounced around from distant relative to distant relative. It was a lonely life for most orphans, who were often treated like servants in the homes they occupied. According to Levi Hutton, life with his uncle was so unbearable he ran away to fight Indians at age 15, only to return on account of his empty stomach. But by 18, he had headed out west to make it on his own. In 1887, Levi married fellow orphan May Arkwright, and moved to Wallace, Idaho seeking fortune. After investing all they owned in Wallace's Hercules mine, the Huttons were made millionaires in 1901.

Though the couple's lives were changed by wealth, they never forgot their orphaned pasts. The two constantly sought to improve the lives of the abandoned and orphaned in Spokane. Having moved to Spokane in 1907, the Huttons were actively involved in charity organizations within the community. The two were very involved at the Florence Crittenton Home which housed unwed mothers and their children, and often took groups of orphans to the circus and other events. Having no children themselves, the Huttons even provided a loving home for several children under their temporary care.

After May Hutton's death in 1915, Levi Hutton, who often recalled the hardships of his childhood, began planning a home for children who have been abandoned, orphaned, or abused. This home, according to Hutton would provide a loving home that fostered self-reliance and confidence in the children it housed. In 1917, Levi Hutton had established the Hutton Settlement on over 300 acres of land. The settlement was designed to provide a “Happy Home” for children while teaching them skills through working on the farms located on the site. The Settlement is privately funded through a carefully organized trust funded by the Hutton fortune, and was intended to be self-sufficient by using the crops grown on the property for food. In addition to the 9 buildings on the site, there is a barn, vegetable garden, and land for farming.

Upon his death, Levi Hutton secured the future of the Hutton Settlement by giving almost all of the Hutton fortune to to the project. While Levi Hutton felt bequeathing his and his wife's fortune to the home was the right thing to do, other family members contested his decision. Allegations of fraud and mismanagement have never seemed to deter the goal of Levi Hutton and his home for children. To this day the Hutton Settlement continues Levi Hutton's vision of providing a home for children. It continues to focus on providing a home and family for those who have none. The Settlement's continued commitment to the well-being of children is a standing testament to the Huttons and will continue to be for years to come.

For more information on the Hutton Settlement please visit their website: http://www.huttonsettlement.org/

Sources:

Arskey, Laura. “In No Uncertain Terms: From the Writings of May Arkwright Hutton.” Pacific Northwesterner , Westerner, Spokane Corral 52, no. 1 (April 2008).

Pratt, Grace Roffey. “The Great-Hearted Huttons of the Coeur d'Alenes.” Montana: a Magazine of Western History 17, no. 2 (April 1967): 20-32.

Ellensburg Daily Record. “Hutton Settlement the Realization of a Resolution Made By an Orphan Boy.” February 23, 1920.

Spokane's First National Bank. Levi Hutton Builder of a Dream. 1974.

Spokesman Review. “Demand Estate of Mrs. Hutton.” January 7, 1919.

Spokesman Review. “L.W.Hutton Dies; Spokane Mourns.” January 4, 1928

Spokesman Review. “Orphanage Deed Filed By Hutton.” February 2, 1920

Copyright and the Public Good

Copyright laws are about as confusing as the federal tax code. The original 1790 law only really refers to maps, charts, and books, but since the emergence of film, photography, television, mass consumerism, and the internet, the laws on copyright have become more complicated. The internet was created as a sort of ultimate open access tool-- millions of websites, programs, and tech advances have been born on the internet. The fundamental issue underlying copyright laws is the balance of encouraging intellectual invention, ingenuity, and scholarship while maintaining free access to information so that others can learn, use, benefit, and even expand or add to the intellectual conversation. The question that has plagued businesses, and creators is what is considered their intellectual property, how long it is protected under copyright, and what legal ramifications should come from copyright infringement online. 

     Cohen explains this in his chapter on digital copyright (found here),"those who create historical materials on the web are, indeed, likely to find themselves on both sides of the legal and ethical fence—creating intellectual property that they want to “protect” and “using” the intellectual property of others". The challenge to creating digital scholarship is the dual nature of the internet: open-access but clinging to capitalist ideals. A great example of this is Google Books: what started out as a project scanning millions of books from local libraries and uploading them to a sort of online library, quickly morphed into a privatized project plagued with copyright lawsuits not only from publishers but authors and artists as well. It is funny because while libraries cause little stir in the copyright realm, Google Books which essentially was attempting to do the same thing (only online) dealt with multi-million dollar lawsuits on copyright infringement, but while I would like to consider libraries and Google Books the same, I know that one is a government funded program and the other is a private company which makes all the difference in the world. 

The publishing organization, Creative Commons is dedicated to providing information for the common good, while protecting the copyrights of the creator. This image was provided free for download on their website (found here).

     I could go on voicing my disappointment in Google Books, I should say that there are other projects that have sought to create a open access collection of works that seek to limit the looming copyright rain cloud from the heads of those who are seeking to use materials found on the site for intellectual creativity and education. The Creative Commons (found here) is essentially a publishing company that creates copyright licenses for individuals who want their research, works and projects to be open to the public. Simply speaking the company's vision "is nothing less than realizing the full potential of the Internet — universal access to research and education, full participation in culture — to drive a new era of development, growth, and productivity" (found in their "About" section here). The beauty of this company is its recognition to the original intention of the copyright law. While it is important to recognize the work established by others, it is also incredibly important that we have the ability and freedom to expand and adapt works to make further advancements. Creative Commons recognizes the power of the intellectual community and broadens the scope of readership to those who might not be able to afford expensive subscriptions to academic publications where many of the advances in academic fields are being discussed. 

While Disney still holds the copyrights to this charming mouse, I was still able to find this picture on Google Images and post it online without asking for permission from Disney. The open-access nature of the internet makes it all too easy to find and republish intellectual property. (The image can be from from a blog post here)

     Maybe it is the poor grad-student in me, or maybe it is my experiences living abroad, but I just don't buy into the idea that my historical works are mine and should be tested or challenged or added to. Having taken a bit of Macro-economics, I know that there is a difference between what is considered private property and what is considered a public good. A public good is something that fills a public need. Street lamps, garbage collection, public schools, and libraries are all public goods. Intellectual property as defined in the that 1790 law, gives rights to the author for a limited period, and then turns it over to the public so that others can build off of the work. The problem is that congress has the ability to change the time frames for how long an item can be held under copyright. Mark Helprin's 2007 New York Times op-ed piece (found here) argues that companies like Disney should have the right to keep their intellectual property from the public, despite the fact that the company has been around for over half a decade. Helprin explains, "No one except perhaps Hamilton or Franklin might have imagined that services and intellectual property would become primary fields of endeavor and the chief engines of the economy". In his mind, since the ways of the world are now driven by ideas rather than the hard work of agrarian labor (as it was in 1790), congress should change the copyright laws to better suit the needs of "big idea" corporations. 

     I disagree. As soon as you start to claim intellectual property on ideas and hold copyrights on those ideas for 70+ years, advancement is stinted. As a historian, unlike corporations, I am ethically obligated to share my work to the public and hope that it is used, explored, expanded upon, and challenged by other  historians as it creates a better, broader, and more accurate picture of the historical world. Historical research is a dialogue between the historian, the information, and the community.