History Harvests (Internship Week 7)

So, I have some exciting news….

I FINISHED THE METADATA FOR MY SCRAPBOOK! Isn’t that exciting? I think so! Now that my metadata is finished, I’ll start scanning the pages in my scrapbook next week.  Yay!

Then, along with the exciting news of finishing my metadata, this week I got to learn more about what my final paper will look like for this class. After talking with Dr. French, I learned about some things to begin considering for my paper – more specifically, history harvests, the Digital Public Library of America, and citizen curators. For this week’s blog post, let’s explore the idea of a history harvest.

The history harvest is a new initiative started from the University of Nebraska. The purpose of a history harvest is to “harvest the history,” often from a local community. So, as described by the University of Nebraska, as part of a history harvest “community-members are invited to bring and share their letters, photographs, objects and stories, and participate in a conversation about the significance and meaning of their materials” (Universityof Nebraska). As community members bring their artifacts to the harvest, each item scanned or photographed for the purpose of educational study and historical archiving.

History harvests are neat in the way they promote “family and local histories” by challenging the “traditional elite sources” in the way that history harvests expand the number of sources available to the public (University of Nebraska). History harvests are unique in the way that they are often organic and occur at the grassroots level (Historians.org). As William Thomas, Patrick Jones, and Andrew Witmer share, history harvests advance “a movement to democratize and open the nation's history by inviting citizens to share digitizations” of their personal items (Historians.org). By inviting people to bring out their personal artifacts, historians have access to items they might never have access to otherwise.

Thinking about the scrapbooks collection at First Baptist Winter Park, I believe that the church could benefit immensely from a history harvest. While the church has scrapbooks that help tell the history of the church, I have no doubt that there are many church members who have artifacts and more pictures that would help to create a bigger picture of the church’s history. For example, I know a couple in their 60’s who interned at First Baptist Winter Park when they were in college. Knowing that this couple has old pictures and stories to share from their time at the church, I am confident that there are other people in the community who do as well.

To host a history harvest, the church would need to establish a date and time to hold the harvest. After that, the church would need to consider what types of artifacts they wanted to collect. Would they want pictures? Journals? Diaries? Old church t-shirts? The church would need to identify the types of items it wanted the community to bring in. Then, the church would need to consider how they would handle the items collected at the harvest – would they can them? Photograph them? Collect oral histories? Simply take notes on the items? Then, once all this was established, the church would need to get the word out! Just like you have to plant seeds before you collect the harvest, the church would need to spread the word about the harvest so the community would be aware of the event. Finally, once all that is done, its time to harvest the crop!

Environmental Scan and Project Review (Digital History Week 6)

Being in a digital history class this semester, I would love the chance to collaborate with others and produce a project that would be better than any of us could do on our own. With this in mind, the group I will be collaborating with plans to create a digital project that traces a soldier’s experience during WWI. Thus, my group is looking at using some kind of online tool to map a soldier’s travels and document his experiences/letters/journal during the Great War.

In doing an environmental scan, there are several different digital projects that reflect similar work being done in the field. First, the National WWI Museum and Memorial’s online exhibit Make Way for Democracy, which “portrays the lives of African Americans during the war through a series of rare images, documents and objects,” uses historical content (America during WWI) that is relevant to my group’s proposed project (Make Way for Democracy). Another digital project that reflects work similar to my proposed project its For King and Country’s John Cartwright’sGallipoli Campaign 1914-1915.  This online exhibit is relevant to my proposed project in two ways. First, it relates to my project in its historical content, being that it focuses on a soldier’s experiences during WWI. Second, it relates to my project in its use of digital tools, being that it uses mapping technology to trace the soldier’s journey in addition to using pictures to present relevant artifacts. Finally, a third digital project, which relates to my group’s proposed project, is Travels Across the Plains. This project, which maps the Oregon Trail Journal of Elizabeth J. Goltra, relates to my project in the technology that it uses. For my group’s project, I envision my group using similar technology to map a soldier’s letters during World War I. Since this last project is relevant to my group’s proposed project, presented below is a review of Travels Across the Plains as based on the guidelines form the Journal of American History.

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Travels Across the Plains, http://dsl.richmond.edu/oregontrail/?page_id=2. Created by Robert K. Nelson of the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond. Reviewed February 22, 2016.

Created by Robert K. Nelson, Travels Across the Plains is a project that purposes to map the journal of Elizabeth J. Goltra and her journey on the Oregon Trail. Considering the content of the project, the project presents sound scholarship being that the information presented represents the unaltered archived journal of an individual. Considering the way the archive is presented, users can see the author’s interpretation of the evidence: that the challenges of traveling across the plains are evident not only in the writings of Goltra, but also in the absences of Goltra’s writings. For example, looking at the map of Goltra’s journal, one will notice that just after Goltra documents what she calls a “hurricane,” she stops journaling for about a week and a half. Thus, from the user’s point of view, Goltra likely experienced challenging times during that week and a half which prohibited her from documenting her travels. 

Considering the form of the project, Travels Across the Plains is presented in a very clear way. The mapping, journal entries, and background information have a simple, but effective structure. Users are able to easily navigate their way throughout the project and will not get lost with any of the project’s hyperlinks. Whether users click around the site’s navigation tabs or click on specific journal entry dates, the map of Goltra’s travels remains as a large heading across the website. Employing Google maps to document the location of the journal entries, the project allows users to see exactly where Goltra was when she wrote each journal entry.

            While the project is strengthened through its content and form, it is weakened in the fact that it is not directed at a clear audience. While professors, students, teachers, and researchers can benefit from this project, it is not clear whom the project is intended to serve. If the project had a clear target audience, it might be able to serve that audience better. For example, if the project is intended to serve college students, the project might provide a citation for college students to use in their research.   

            Yet, while the project lacks a clear audience, it effectively makes use of new media technologies using WordPress and what I believe is Google Maps. Through its mapping technology, this project allows users to view both journal entries and entry locations at the same time. While theoretically one could print off a map of the United States that includes the journal entries as part of the map, the map would have to be so incredibly large that it would likely be difficult to produce and use. Thus, through the use of new media technologies, this project allows the archived journal of Elizabeth Goltra to be viewed in new ways that allow it to be easily and freely accessed by the public.

Typos, Robbery, and Interns... oh my! (Internship Week 6)

This week’s internship activities felt a lot like the past couple of weeks – I spent my time typing up my scrapbook’s metadata. The exciting news, I’m almost finished with my metadata!! Check back next week and I’ll have a new adventure to report about. But, until then, here’s some takeaways from this week:

1. It’s important to transcribe items as they are, mistakes and all.

           

            One interesting thing I have noticed with my scrapbook is that the article clippings in it have a surprising amount of typos and errors. Granted, the errors are minor – often times I’ll find a word used twice. But still, the scrapbook is full of minor errors like this. So, while my computer’s autocorrect would like to fix all of these errors, it’s important to type them in as they are, because even typos can tell a story. For example, while I am used to living in an age of computers, it’s important to remember that computers were not common in 1979. Thus, many of the print articles in the scrapbook were likely created using a typewriter. As a result, it’s possible that with the amount of articles being printed by the church, minor typos were ignored because it would be too much work to go back and re-type.

2. Sometimes I feel like an investigative reporter.

            One article I transcribed this week talked about a church break-in. According to the article, Monday morning church staff found the offices ransacked. Yet, because nothing was missing, the church believed that the robbers were looking for tithing money but could not find it, given that the Sunday offering is not kept on the church premises. As I read this, I couldn’t help but think that most church members were aware that the Sunday offering was not kept on the church premises. Any church I have attended, I have always been made aware of the fact that the tithes and offerings are deposited immediately after the service. With this in mind, I couldn’t help but imagine that the people who broke into First Baptist Winter Park did not know this and were not church members. Reading stories like this and thinking about my personal experiences makes me feel like an investigative reporter as I imagine the way the puzzle pieces might fit together.

3. Speaking of personal experiences, there is always something in the scrapbook that relates to me!

            This is one fact I have been both surprised and intrigued by. Each week, as I am transcribing my scrapbook, I find something that relates to my life personally. For example, this week I read an article about the church hiring a new intern.  The new intern, Tim Benson, was a graduate of Winter Park High School where he was an active member in the student ministry, Campus Crusade for Christ. Furthermore, he was active in the college ministry Intervarsity Christian Fellowship during his time at the University of Florida. This article caught my attention given that I have been involved with the Campus Crusade for Christ ministry here at UCF and then have several friends involved with UCF’s Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.

Visualization (Digital History Week 5)

For this week’s reading in my Digital History course, the class looked at Computers, Visualization, and History: How New Technology Will Transform Our Understanding of the Past by David J. Staley. I really enjoyed reading Staley’s work as I found it to be a phenomenal survey of visualization. What really struck me about Staley’s work was that while he is an advocate of digital tools such as visualization, he is still an advocate of traditional prose.

Out of all the digital humanities/digital history/GIS books and articles I have read this semester, I have yet to encounter an author who describes visualization as being equal, but different than prose. Staley, however, masterfully demonstrates that prose and visualization are equal, but different. For example, after describing the characteristics of visual history, Staley states, “visual history should not be viewed as “superior” to written history, only as an alternative. Visual history will be qualitatively and structurally different from written history” (Staley, 55). So, in order to understand how visualization and prose are equal but different, it is important to define visualization.

According to Staley, visualization is “the organization of meaningful information in spatial form intended to further a systematic inquiry” (Staley, 36). Similar to prose, visualization can be viewed as a medium of presentation, a “template for ideas” (Staley, 37). Yet as a medium, visualization must be distinguished from artistic expression. For example, where artistic expression prioritizes “decoration,” visualization prioritizes “inquiry” (Staley, 36). Thus, when using visualization for academic purposes, it must be more than artistic expression – visualization must be based on inquiry and research. Being rooted in the sciences, “which have a long history of simplifying, abstracting, labeling, marking, and schematizing,” visualization requires inquiry and research (Staley, 36).

Further analyzing visualization, Staley states “visualizations may be categorized on a continuum between the representational and the abstract” (Staley, 37). Representational visualizations convey data that is already in visual form, such as maps. Abstract visualizations, on the other hand, create the visual structure for data to be conveyed; examples of abstract visualizations include diagrams (such as the periodic table of elements), company organizational charts, music notation and more.

With this definition of visualizations in mind, we can begin to consider ways in which visualization is an alternative form of communication when compared to written history (Staley, 31). First, where written history depicts scholarship linearly, visualizations can depict scholarship nonlinearly. Due to visualization’s “multidimensional syntax,” as a medium, visualization can portray ideas simultaneously as opposed to individually (Staley, 44). In addition to being nonlinear, the multidimensional aspect of visualization allows one to see “the whole and the part at the same time” (Staley, 46). For example, when looking at a visualization such as a graph of stock prices, one can see the stocks’ value that day (the part) along with the stocks’ value over time (the whole). Furthermore, the ability to see both the parts and the whole makes visualization a better medium for synthesis instead of analysis; as analysis promotes the breakdown of the whole into parts, synthesis promotes the assembly of parts into the whole Additionally, using the pattern of connectedness needed to engage in synthesis, one is forced to “note common patterns, thus drawing associations and analogies” (Staley, 47). This, consequently, makes visualizations more conducive to analogy where written history is more conducive to logical, linear thinking. Moreover, thinking about ideas simultaneously allows one to look at history from a synchronic perspective; written history, on the other hand, allows one to look at history from a diachronic perspective (Staley, 54). This ability to view history in both time and space allows one to consider “holistic structure” through visualizations as opposed to considering events over time through written history (Staley, 54). As noted by Staley, focusing on holistic structure would allow historians to engage in what he calls “thick depiction” (taken from Geertz’ “thick description”), allowing one to spatially view history from an Annales-like perspective (Staley, 55). In more general terms, visual history is more conducive to networking ideas whereas written history is more conducive to chaining together ideas. For a direct comparison, presented below is Staley’s chart contrasting the characteristics that make visual history different, but equal to written history (Staley, 55).

Written History        Visual History

Logic                           Analogy

Analysis                      Synthesis

Chains                         Networks

Causation                    “Thick Depiction”

Event                           Structure

Diachronic                   Synchronic

Linear                          Nonlinear

Before reading Staley’s book, my biggest questions about using visualization involved introducing visualization training in undergraduate courses along with evaluating visualization as scholarship. Reading the book, however, I was pleasantly surprised with the wonderful answers Staley provided to my questions. With my main questions answered, I believe my only question about digital scholarship would be: What ways can visualizations receive the credibility/reliability/trust that comes with the name recognition of university presses?

Who Knew (Internship Week 5)

This week for my internship, I spent my time entering metadata for the church scrapbooks. As I entered metadata, a few things caught my attention:

1. The scrapbooks are not in perfect chronological order.

            For example, throughout the scrapbook the church had called its senior adult ministry “JOY.” I had my own guess at why they called it joy, but never knew for sure. Well, being a little past half way though entering metadata for my scrapbook, I came across an article that described how the senior adult ministry was changing its name to JOY. In this article, I came to find out that my assumptions were right – JOY stands for “Just Older Youth.” (Isn't that cute?!) All this to say, just because an article is in the scrapbook, it does not mean that it is in perfect chronological order.

2. Sometimes its worth taking a minute to look up background information about something in the scrapbook.

            For example, one of the items in the scrapbook talked about having guest speaker Cecil Day at a men’s prayer breakfast. Compared to the other items in the scrapbook, the prayer breakfast did not seem that important. Important events usually have several articles, but there was only one article about the prayer breakfast. Then in my personal experience, important people do not usually speak at prayer breakfasts – important people preach on Sunday morning or speak on Sunday night. So, with that said, I had no reason to believe that Cecil Day was that important. But, one thing on the article about Cecil Day caught my attention – the fact that he was the founder of Days Inn. I wondered, what was the founder of Days Inn doing at a prayer breakfast for a church in Winter Park? So, I looked him up!

            After doing a bit of research, I discovered that Cecil Day was a Christian philanthropist. His reason for starting the Days Inn hotel chain was to provide nice, affordable lodging for travelers. Moreover, I learned when Cecil was in charge of the hotel chain, he made sure that all his hotels encouraged their guests to take home a paperback Bible free of charge. The most interesting thing I learned about Cecil was that by the time he passed away, he had given half of his multimillion-dollar fortune to churches and Christian ministries, including New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I found this to be incredibly cool given that my fiancé is currently attending New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and will be graduating with his Masters in Christian Education this May.

            So, all that to say, what seemed like an unimportant article in the scrapbook turned out to be really cool. While at first glance it didn’t make sense why the founder of Days Inn would be speaking at a prayer group, after doing some research, it makes perfect sense. Cecil Day had a heart for the Lord and was active in giving to the Southern Baptist Community, which First Baptist Winter Park was (and is) a part of. Thus, researching Cecil Day not only provided insight into how he related to the church, but it allowed me to discover that this seemingly unimportant article in the scrapbook actually had a personal connection to my life. Who knew?

Historical GIS (Digital History Week 5)

In this week’s digital history course, the class explored GIS as we read parts of Knowles & Hillier's Placing History: How Maps Spatial Data, and GIS are Changing Historical Scholarship. So what is GIS? Well, technically, GIS is stands for geographic information systems, and as Richard White describes it, GIS is “software, which enables one to display and analyze any kind of information that can be located on the face of the earth, or any other place with known location” (White, XIII). With this definition in mind, one can understand that historical GIS, using GIS as a research method to make scholarly arguments, might be both a superb tool for the field of history. Containing great potential, GIS is a promising “tool for mapping and geographically analyzing census data, social surveys, and other kinds of systematically collected information” (Knowles, 2). Yet, as Knowles shares, the “precision” that makes GIS such a wonderful tool for research and analysis can just as easily be a difficult tool when one’s sources cannot be condensed into a database (Knowles, 2). Knowles shares how GIS is also problematic given that GIS is a visual tool and historians tend to favor words and texts in narrative form. Furthermore, GIs is problematic in that it draws greatly from the fields of history and geography, yet unfortunately, there exists an “epistemological divide between geography and history”; where historians like to study the series of events through time, geographers like to study events within space (Knowles, 3). Yet, despite these potential problems, many researchers have used GIS to further the field of historical scholarship.

For example, consider Geoff Cunfer’s research on the Dust Bowl project. Traditionally, historians believe that the Dust Bowl of the 1920s-30s was caused by capitalism’s demanding pressure on the mid-west’s ecosystem. Then, recognizing the potential for GIS to reevaluate the traditional narrative of the Dust Bowl, Geoff Cunfer realized that “incorporating data about all of the counties on the southern plains into a GIS allows the researcher to view the [historical] questin at a different geographic scale” (Cunfer, 101). Where previous historians had based their arguments about the Dust Bowl on the studies of two counties, Cunfer sought to use new methods to widen the spatial scale of his research. But, not only was he able to expand the spatial scale of his research, GIS technology allowed him to expand his temporal scale as well (Cunfer, 109). Thus, using GIS technology, Cunfer was driven by the historical question: was the Dust Bowl really caused by capitalism’s demand on the ecosystem of the Midwest? Through GIS technology, Cunfer was able to look at the cause of the Dustbowl on a large scale spatially and temporally that could not have been done with traditional methods. As a result, through his research he concluded that dust storms are “a normal part of southern plains ecology…Dust storm activity can be exacerbated or locally enhanced by plowing for crops, but that was not the sole and simple cause of the Dust Bowl” (Cunfer, 118).

Still, even with path breaking projects like the Dust Bowl, there are still methodological and pedagogical issues with GIS. For example, as mentioned earlier, most historians prefer the “medium of words and narratives” instead of digital projects (Bodenhamer, 224). Bodenhamer explains this methodological concern as being rooted in a historians’ primary sources; he suggests, that since a historian’s evidence is usually from words within texts, historians are most comfortable using a narrative methodology instead of a digital, GIS methodology (Bodenhamer, 225). Another issue raised by Bodenhamer is the reality that GIS requires information that can be measured with precision, and historians, unfortunately, often deal with imprecise evidence. For example, historians might deal with temporal descriptions such as “a day’s ride from the capital” or “close to the river,” consequently making it difficult to translate such evidence into GIS format (Bodenhamer, 226). Additionally, as historians typically work with nations or people who live in a geographical area with changing boundaries, some boundaries are never formally established, consequently making it hard to translate to GIS mapping (Bodenhammer, 22). Along with the methodological concerns raised by historians, there are also the pedagogical concerns raised by individuals in the digital humanities. For example, the “scarcity of financial and technical resources” creates an impediment to the development of GIS in the humanities (Bodenhamer, 228). In the same light, not only is there a lack of resources needed to use GIS, but there is also a lack of individuals trained in such technology. This is a problem in that it requires historians (and other academics) to learn a new, specialized skill in addition to their established area of expertise. Nevertheless, in looking at all the potential GIS has to offer, I hope that digital humanities eagerly embraces all the opportunities provided by this new, emerging technology.

Slowing Down (Internship Week 4)

This week at my internship, things began to slow down. Overall, it was an uneventful week.  But, sometimes that’s how things go. Even so, here are a few highlights of my rather relaxed week:

As usual, I spent Wednesday working at UCF. Just after lunch, I stopped by Ms. Sample’s office to pick up my scrapbook. As always, Ms. Sample greeted me with a smile and encouraging word! Upon getting my book, I went next door to my office where I began going through the scrapbook to catalogue its metadata. Before long, my co-worker Rebecca showed up and we worked on our scrapbooks together.

As we were both working, at one point in time Rebecca asked if I had noticed anything in the church scrapbook that was related to social events outside the church. It was an interesting question. Reflecting on all the articles I’ve read, I couldn’t think of anything in the scrapbook that was not church related. While the scrapbooks talked about social events like VBS, or Senior Adult Day at Bok Tower Gardens, or Mission Conferences, all the events that I read about thus far had been church hosted/related. That was an interesting realization. Now, from here on out, I’m keeping my eye open for any thing in the scrapbooks that talk about social issues outside of the church.

After that one question, we got back to work and busied ourselves with our separate jobs – me with metadata and Rebecca with labeling. Then, a little while later, Rebecca shared that one of the articles in her scrapbook talked about the church hosting a six-week seminar on cults. This was an interesting discovery that sparked a fun conversation about cults. On a more silly note, Rebecca also found an article in her scrapbook that warned church members about beehives on the church property. We laughed that the church would have to make a formal announcement about beehives, and then, that someone found that announcement important enough to include in the scrapbook.

After my uneventful, but fun day working with Rebecca, I spent the rest of my internship hours looking up historical background information on the items in my scrapbook. One of my favorite things I discovered was the history of First Baptist Church Sweetwater.

In my scrapbook, I found a bulletin titled “Day of Dedication” that described the ceremony for the dedication of First Baptist Sweetwater. Reading the bulletin, I discovered that First Baptist Church Sweetwater was founded by First Baptist Church of Winter Park. I thought this was pretty cool to see a local church like FBWP branch out and start a new church in a new location. So of course, when I started doing historical background research, the thing I wanted to learn about most was First Baptist Church Sweetwater and its connection to First Baptist Winter Park! Well, sure enough, if you go to First Baptist Church Sweetwater’s website, you’ll find the history of the church which includes its connection with First Baptist Winter Park.

Here’s a screen shot of the website. But, I encourage you to read it for yourself! You can do so by clicking here. 

Discovering Digital History (Digital History Week 3)

            To me, since digital history is filled with buzzwords like scholarship, methodology, technologies, etc, looking at the pros and cons (promises and perils) of digital history provides greater insight into the field.

             First, one of the pros of digital history is its storage capacity. With a 120-gigabyte hard drive costing only $95 and providing storage for a 120,000-volume library, historians have the ability to store scholarship like never before. In addition to storage capacity, digital history offers historians more accessibility to resources than previously available. For example, while the Library of Congress has never welcomed high school students into its reading room, digitizing the items in the reading room opens up library’s resources not only to high school students, but also to the entire public. In addition to being more accessible, digital history is flexible. Being a flexible medium, digital history allows scholarship to take various forms such as texts, pictures, sounds, and movies. Along with being flexible, digital history supports diversity. Whether its the number of authors on the web, or the ethnicity and genders of people searching the web, digital history supports diversity as it engages with the public. Furthermore, another pro of digital history is its manipulability; for example, the word search on JSTOR allows individuals to manipulate their research agendas. In addition to having manipulability, digital history has an element of interactivity to it. Such interactivity allows communication between students, teachers, parents, and more. Finally, due to its digital aspect, digital history is nonlinear. Being nonlinear, digital history allows individuals to look at history in new ways both narratively and spatially (Cohen and Rosenzweig).

            Considering the cons of digital history, Cohen and Rosenzweig address several problems with the field. First, there is the issue of quality; often times searching the internet provides links to inadequate sources. For example, I once knew a student who was writing about Fredrick Douglass and decided to cite someone’s tweet as a primary source for their essay. Along with the problem of quality, there is also the issue of durability. Unlike printed books, which can remain for hundreds of years, digitized items can become out of date and unable to function with current technology. In addition to the problem of durability, digital history faces the issue of readability. For example, reading a book, an individual can often pick out the book’s thesis and argument. Looking at a digital history project, however, it may be more difficult to identify the author’s arguments. Another interesting issue in digital history is the idea of passivity. While digital history does provide users an element of interactivity, often times such interactivity comes in the form of yes or no decisions, keeping the user from thinking critically and processing the scholarship. Finally, along with passivity, there is the issue of inaccessibility. For example, less than 2/3^rd of the world does not have access to a telephone, let alone the internet (Cohen and Rosenzweig). In addition to these cons, authors like William Thomas explain that while historians used to fear a scarcity of resources, now they live in a “culture of abundance” that might be overwhelming to sort through and difficult to archive (Computing and the Historical Imagination).

            After looking at the pros and cons, I believe that digital history is a valuable field that academia should embrace. As Ayers compares digital history to narrative, theater, and film productions, he writes, “Eventually all successful storytelling technologies become transparent: we lose consciousness of the medium and see neither print nor film but only the power of the story itself” (The Past and Futures of Digital History). With this idea in mind, I believe that academics should embrace the new opportunities provided by digital history and strive for a scholarly product that highlights the story itself.

            So what does that look like? Well, one phenomenal example of digital history is The Valley of the Shadow project. Going to the main page of the project and reading the description, one might interpret the project’s argument to that the voices of men, women, blacks, and whites, in both north and south, matter. As Dr. Jeffrey McClurken remarks, digital projects are evaluated for their scholarly value; to be a true digital project, it must be more than a companion to a book or a website with scans of texts, it must have a scholarly argument. Additionally, digital projects must be evaluated for their audience. If a reviewer cannot identify an intended audience, the project needs to be improved (The Junto). Looking at the Valley project, I would suggest that it is intended for undergraduate and graduate students along with educators and researchers. Finally, looking at some of the points raised by Cohen and Rosenzweig, the Valley project demonstrates great capacity (holding over 12,000 files), accessibility (open to anyone), manipulability (being able to search texts), and more. Thus, just from considering just these few aspects of the Valley project, I believe the project proves to be a successful, scholarly example of digital history.