Last month I set up a blog for the American Studies Crossroads Project as a way to keep people up to date with changes made to the site. Since 1995, Crossroads has provided a comprehensive and integrated platform for pedagogical, scholarly, and institutional information for the international American Studies Community. New content is being added, including a future exhibit on the organization of disciplinary knowledge on the web. Visit the blog, and subscribe by RSS or email.

If you haven’t seen Crossroads in a few years, give the main site a look as well – it has a terrific new design and some useful material for teaching and learning in American Studies.

I’ve resisted the urge to reflect on the state of Finding America since it first went live; until now. So this isn’t a New Years epiphany, but an opportunity to reflect on my blogging process and give my readers a preview of how I plan to shape the blog’s future. I’d encourage readers to subscribe to this blog to receive future updates via RSS or email updates.

As the centerpiece of my personal website, Finding America highlights my academic pursuits and research. This includes work that I’m doing at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the American Studies Crossroads Project at Georgetown, among my own personal research of computer-based pedagogy and the intersection between culture and technology. I broadly address the Digital Humanities while maintaining a focus on American Studies. First going live last spring, my readership has since grown to about 40 subscribers.

I’ve experimented with different approaches to blogging by varying my frequency, content, and voice over the past year. My strongest moments have not been single posts, but series of posts which, connected together, reveal layered arguments and observations. So over the next year, new posts will often be more analytical than the news-like format I’ve more-recently adopted. One notable exception will be any work that I’m involved with at CHNM, which I’ll plug and discuss in greater detail. So if you’re interested in Omeka, ScholarPress, or THAT Podcast, you’ll continue to learn more at Finding America. For the interesting links and stories that I sometimes reflect on, I modified my blog’s design to include my del.icio.us links, which serves that purpose. You can also subscribe to them by adding my del.icio.us profile to your RSS or as a fan.

Lastly, I’d like to put forward an approach to blogging I’ve sometimes practiced and hope to continue which is focused around experimentation and building. I’ve found that mini-projects both expand my insight in a particular topic, and start a conversation at Finding America. Two great examples of this are the Sigil Archive and the American Studies Tagline. These were self-started projects of my own: one to explore historical roleplaying communities in Second Life, and the other to experiment with the visualization of academic texts and provide a new tool for AMST scholars. Blogging and the internet as a medium is a rich platform for these projects, which I’ll continue to explore. I know of several projects in the near future, and can only dream where my research will take me in the future; thanks for joining me.

David Overholt exhibited his project “Robby the Racist Robot” at the 2007 ITP Winter Show. There are a few things that I love about this project:

1) Dave interfaced a dot matrix printer with his macbook – pure genius
2) the analysis Robby conducts is based on actual data that it aggregates
3) the social commentary associated with a project like this

David notes this description on his website:

Robby the Racist Robot is a playful way for people to consider our mass collection of data and information, and how it can be used or mis-used depending on its context. The scanner gathers a skin tone sample and links the profile to a country of origin based on a pigment chromatic scale from the early 20th century. The system then loads and parses through X number of databases filled with up-to-date statistics for your country. For example, if 40% of the population is female, the system uses an algorithm and 40% of the time will determine you are female and 60% of the time you will be male. This is done with all of the statistics before speaking and printing the information. Obviously this will result in stats that are incorrect, and different, every time but are still based in fact.

I’m amazed that Robby aggregates all the data to perform its calculations. And while the machine misinterprets the “conclusions” it comes to, I wanted to share this project in case it could inspire Bill Turkel at Digital History Hacks or others to think of similar ways a project like Robby could be created (and interpreted correctly) using historical data. Further information is at David’s website.

Hat tip to Found History for this modern remake of the Oregon Trail computer game — The Thule Trail. It mimics the visual style and structure of the original Apple II game, while traveling West in 2007, by car. Here’s the game’s description:

Load up your car for the classic American getaway: the road trip. Feel the nostalgia as you experience all the ups and downs of the road. And if you have what it takes to be a true road warrior, you’ll score some great prizes from Thule.

I’ve previously blogged about the Oregon Trail computer and how it represents history; the Thule Trail game has no ambitions of teaching but instead is just a fun game to play. For example, the hardships of the Oregon Trail are replaced with ridiculous situations with your friends who are tagging along on the trip:

“Kris auditions for a reality show and abandons the trip”

“Tom is summoned for jury duty and must return home” or

“Jeremy just fainted from lack of food. Maybe you should hunt”

In the survey I performed about the game, students most-often said they enjoyed the hunting portion of the game so I tried it out in the Thule Trail. Visually its similar, but instead of hunting Buffalo you are aiming at candy bars and cheeseburgers; interesting social commentary in itself.

On Friday the Omeka team hit a new milestone - the fourth release candidate of our web publishing software for collections. This release includes several noteworthy changes, that in the long run are going to make a huge difference to users installing the software:

Greater Database Flexibility
Thanks to the hard work of Kris Kelly, we’ve removed the Object Relational Mapper Doctrine from our core code, in favor of a custom solution that removes an unnecessary library and makes Omeka significantly faster.

The new version also doesn’t require PDO, but can support mySQLi as a substitute instead. For some users on shared hosts that don’t support PDO, this will come in handy.

Database prefixing allows you to have multiple Omeka installs running on a single database, which is once again important for users on shared hosting.

A New Plugin
We packaged Omeka with a ‘Dropbox’ plugin I’ve been developing – it allows you to batch upload files to get your collection online faster than entering each item separately. I’ve found this to be incredibly useful when putting images online, and I’m sure others will find this helpful as well.

RSS for Syndication of everything
A flexible solution for the aggregation of items is now included in Omeka. XML and RDF outputs can also be given, for not only new items added to a collection, but search results as well. Plugins can hook into the feed class to add their own RSS feeds as well.

Learn More
We’re currently in private beta, but adding new testers with each release. To learn more, visit our website, and email us to sign up to be a beta tester.

I’m reposting this call for papers for an upcoming ASA conference on Play that many of my readers may be interested in. It’s also going to be in Rochester, my hometown — well worth a visit if you can make the trip. This was originally posted by Simon J Bronner on the H-AMSTDY listserv.

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS
AMERICAN PLAY: SPORTS, GAMES, ENTERTAINMENT, AND FANTASY IN AMERICAN CULTURE

A special international conference jointly sponsored by the Middle Atlantic American Studies Association (http://www.hbg.psu.edu/hbg/research/maasa) and the Great Lakes American Studies Association (http://www.ohiou.edu/glasa) in Rochester, New York, USA, in cooperation with the Strong National Museum of Play.

Date of Conference: April 4-5, 2008
Deadline for Submission of Proposals: December 14, 2007
Electronic Submission: massa_glasa08@yahoo.com
Location: Strong National Museum of Play, Rochester, New York
(http://www.strongmuseum.org) USA.
Conference Hotel: Hyatt Regency Rochester
Contact: Professor Simon J. Bronner, American Studies Program, The
Pennsylvania
State University at Harrisburg, 777 West Harrisburg Pike, Middletown, PA
17057-4898 USA, 717-948-6039 (o), 717-948-6724 (fax), sbronner@psu.edu.

Proposals for papers and presentations are invited for a special conference addressing the theme of American Play: Sports, Games, Entertainment, and Fantasy in American Culture to be held at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, April 4-5, 2008. Play is conceived broadly in this call and proposals are invited that explore and expand the definition and application of play in American Studies. The organizers are especially interested in interdisciplinary perspectives on play across the life span, including adulthood and old age; cultural meaning of play and entertainment in theme parks, film, literature, television, advertising, and political protest; uses of fantasy in new media and technology, including video gaming and the Internet; material and visual culture of play, including toys, furniture, dress and the body, costuming, sports, and board games, for adults as well as children; the topography of play, including parks, stadiums, playgrounds, and gyms; play in consumer culture, including intertextual connections between merchandise and film, music, advertising, and television; relationships between play and work, and the idea of leisure and recreational industries as they have historically emerged in the United States and its border regions, especially in Canada; verbal play, including humor, speech, jokelore, and legendry; intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and age in sports and recreation; the ethnography of play behavior, especially controversial traditions such as pranks, hazing, gestures, and “extreme” sports; comparative cultural analyses of games, sports, and entertainment in the United States and other countries.

Proposals for individual papers and presentations (15-30 minutes for each presentation, depending on the number of presenters in a session) should include one sheet with title, name and affiliation of author, and 150-300 word abstract. Another sheet should include a brief CV or biographical statement with full contact information of the presenter, including email. Proposals for panels, roundtables, and workshops should include a summary of the panel’ concept and a list of participants and special roles (chair, discussant, respondent). Send materials by email BEFORE DECEMBER 14, 2007 to maasa_glasa08@yahoo.com. Proposals will be evaluated by a program committee composed of representatives from the sponsoring organizations of the Middle Atlantic American Studies Association and the Great Lakes American Studies Association, and notices will be sent to presenters in February 2008.

Publication of papers from the conference will be encouraged. Presenters will be invited to submit papers for a special issue subject to peer review in the American Journal of Play, edited by Dr. Jon-Paul Dyson. The American Journal of Play is intended to increase national awareness and understanding of the critical role of play in learning and human development and the way in which play illuminates the cultural history of the United States.

The setting of the Strong National Museum of Play is significant for this conference because it is the first and only major museum in the world devoted to the study and interpretation of play. The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York (already home to the National Toy Hall of Fame and the world’s most comprehensive collection of toys, dolls, and other play-related artifacts) nearly doubled in size in 2006 to 282,000 square feet after a $37 million expansion. Attendees at the conference will have an opportunity to tour the collections of the museum in addition to having the benefit of free admission to the exhibitions. To encourage family participation, the Strong National Museum of Play will extend a 50 percent discount to family members accompanying attendees (an adult needs to accompany visitors under 17). Rochester is also an attractive destination for American Studies students and scholars because of famed material and visual cultural institutions, such as the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Genesee Country Village and Museum, Susan B. Anthony House, Mount Hope Cemetery, and the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester. Significant nearby attractions include the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, Corning Museum of Glass, Hill Cumorah-Mormon Historical Site, Sonnenberg Gardens Mansion State Historic Park, and the Jell-O Gallery. The setting of the Strong National Museum of Play is also significant in its representation of the collaboration of public heritage professionals, academic institutions, and community scholars that has been a priority of the sponsoring organizations. The organizers especially want to encourage opportunities for exchanges among public and academic sectors and lively discussions among participants on the theme of play. It is a theme, the organizers want to emphasize, that merits interpretive work characteristic of American Studies as play affects significant aspects of American life and letters, including public policy, education, family and human development, environment, and media.

For more information, contact Simon J. Bronner at sbronner@psu.edu.

I’d like to propose a tag that Americanists mutually use to find related and new websites. From now on, if you have something related to American Studies that you’d like to tag on del.icio.us, tag it AMST in addition to your other tags. Some others have already been doing this, but recently that participation has waned.

I’m exploring a solution to ingest websites tagged amst on del.icio.us into American Studies Web, and attribute them to users who have accounts – more on that later this week.

Earlier this week Amazon released their new e-book reader, Kindle, which Newsweek has referred to as the “ipod of reading.” While that headline may be the hype Amazon needed to sell out their supply in only 5 ½ hours, many of us are left scratching our heads wondering whether or not this product could launch the e-book mainstream, or fall flat; I’d rather not buy into the hype right now. With that said, one thing I can buy into are the remarks given by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos in his appearance on the Charlie Rose show. Bezos sees the greater role of technology that Digital Humanists see. Fashioning his remarks to promote Amazon’s products, I’d suggest that Jeff’s perspective of the role of technology in business is directly applicable to the role of technology in education.

The internet is a horizontal enabling technology. This is why I know it’s still early in the development of the internet, because people still talk about ‘internet companies.’ If you go back to the early 20th century people talked about ‘electric companies,’ and they didn’t mean electric utilities, but they meant companies that use electricity. But electricity is a horizontal enabling layer - it helped all companies. […] What we’ve seen today is that the internet is still thought of [as] vertical, and that’s how I know it’s early because every company is benefiting from the Internet.

Jeff’s quote is incredibly insightful. The internet is a horizontal enabling technology, whose role isn’t limited to tech-savvy humanists, but offers benefits to all educators alike. While the competitive market may advance the increased use of the internet by companies (that Jeff discusses), what are the forces pushing the adoption of technology and paradigm shifts within academia? When will the term “digital humanities” become redundant, with the frequent use of technology in the humanities? Jeff has a vision of larger technology trends, and I would wager a guess that his insight is what likely makes him successful in running Amazon. It’s something worthwhile to keep in mind about our own jobs. That is in no way to diminish the role of Digital Humanists today, but rather to state the complete opposite. The increased role of Information Technology in the Humanities is inevitable, and the work that Digital Humanists are doing today will become much more commonplace in the future.

As pointed out by Sheila Brennan, the Brooklyn Museum has released a Facebook application called ArtShare to display their art collection using the Developer Platform. You can add pieces of their collection that rotate on your Facebook profile page, and share them with your friends.

The WPBook plugin I wrote for Wordpress that embeds your blog into the Facebook canvas could be adapted for an Omeka plugin to display a collection in a similar fashion. In addition to retemplating the content of the site, the plugin would push FBML to a user’s profile to customize the way item appears. I don’t have immediate plans to build this – it remains on a rainy day to-do list, but if there’s interest then I could be persuaded to create this sooner than later.

If a Facebook Application seems too large of a task, Facebook recently unveiled Pages, which allow institutions, companies, and products to essentially have their own profiles. Prior to this, Facebook had banned profiles for non-individuals. For an example of a page, I set one for CHNM that you can be a “fan” of. Similar to user profiles, pages can add applications designed for them, including have a wall where visitors can leave comments. CHNM will start pulling in future blog posts using a feed application added to our profile, and maybe we’ll toss in some other apps for good measure. Maybe superpoke? Well, maybe the virtual bookshelf is more useful.

At the time of writing this, 19 museums around the world and 145 libraries have already created their own Facebook pages. It will be interesting to see if these pages replace similar groups, which I previously suggested for libraries and museums that were looking for an easy Facebook presence.

Jeremy Boggs and I have officially launched ScholarPress, a hub for educational WordPress plugins. It currently features two plugins, including Courseware and WPBook. Check them out. We’re exploring a Gradebook plugin, and would love feedback on either what we currently have, or plugins that would help you out.

Courseware enables you to manage a class with a WordPress blog, including a schedule, bibliography, assignments, and other course information. Jeremy developed Courseware the summer of 2006 with Josh Greenberg, who is now the Director of Digital Strategy and Scholarship at the New York Public Library. Since then, Courseware has been tested and used by several professors at GMU – finally being publicly released with the combined effort of Jeremy and I to clean up some of the code.

WPBook works with the Facebook Development platform to create a Facebook Application (addable by users within the site) using a Wordpress blog. I’ve created my own Facebook Application for Finding America.

It’s possible to use these together, as Jeremy has done for his History 120 class.