Things Caught Outta the Corner of My Eye

by Cliopatria

While Ralph belts out I'm Too Old To Be A Scab with his fellow wobblies, I thought all of you might like a few links and stuff:

Today is oral historian Studs Terkel's 95th birthday. May he be around for another 95.

Art Historian Victor I. Stoichita has a wonderful interview in Cabinet Magazine about the history of shadow in art.

The Darwin Correspondence Project has gone and put 5,000 letters of Darwin including all the surviving letters from the Beagle voyage and all the letters from the years around the publication of Origin of species in 1859 - online. Hip! The interface could use some work, though.

I had read Paul Bremer's mind-bendingly horrid defense [invoking Godwin's Law no less] of his time in Iraq, What We Got Right in Iraq, WaPo, May 13, 2007. The only statement in there with any value:"I was wrong here."
Nir Rosen's What Bremer Got Wrong in Iraq, WaPo, May 16, 2007, is an apt and appropriate rejoinder. It just boggles my mind - the ignorance we took to Iraq and implemented there.

Please add more links to things you see around the Internets in the comments below. No one alone can match Ralph Luker's reach for historian fodder.

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More Comments:

Ben W. Brumfield - 5/17/2007

Thank you for your review, Manan-- your points 4 and 5 address traps that are especially easy to fall into.

You might also be interested in Darwins personal 'Journal' online", which solves some of the UI problems you mention (most elegantly when presenting the journal images), while raising its own. In particular, I find the transcription page breaks on the 'Journal' site to be glommed together somewhat unpleasantly, at least until you get used to the frames-based navigation.

Manan Ahmed - 5/17/2007

I was asked to specify further my comment about the interface for the DC Archive. Here goes:

To explore the letters in the Darwin Correspondence Archive:

1. You get to the homepage: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/
2. You click on The Letters on the left menu: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/content/view/15/108/
3. You click on Explore the Letters in the selection, which is just an empty link. Goes Nowhere.
4. Then you scroll down and you discover that there ISN'T any actual way to explore the letters. There is a link buried in the middle of the text that says, Search the complete list of correspondents [http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwin/search/described?name=correspondents] which produces a rather unhelpful list of correspondents unadorned with any index or category groups of correspondents. Such annotation and grouping would surely be helpful to the user [e.g., Read all of Darwin's Correspondents with Fellow Scientist, or Clergymen or Publishers]
5. Then there is text that says, "Advanced search will allow you to find letters by correspondent, by date, subject, or even by the occupation of the author. To find out more see the search tips": http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/content/view/111/106/ which is again, unhelpful because while it assures us that we can search by subject, there is no subject index. Should we just search for random words? Guidance, again, is very helpful to the Archive browser. But, finally, let's say you made your way to an individual letter - http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendar/entry-2086.html - you will discover that, lo and behold, they do have extensive subject index links [on the left, bottom of the menu]. Why hide it folks? Lets put this index front and center.
6. There is no way to simply browse the letters chronologically, either.
7. I would really have liked them to show a scan version of the original letter. But, thats just a Feature request not a bug report.

Most of these interface jumping hoops are a result of the wiki-software they are using - Joomla - which is rather clunky. Though, one of the better ones out there and even I am using it for a digital archive.

I think simple prominent links on their main left-menu would help. Browse the Letters Chronologically. Browse the Letters by Subject Index. Browse the Letters by Correspondent [To or Form]. The best thing about any digital archive is the Archive - and users should have clear and clean - and Guided - access to it - in as few clicks are possible.