HIST 390-001 The Digital Past Fall 2013

Here's a recent article published in April about where people get their news.

That's useful, Milan, thanks. Note, though that it's not super-clear what "get" means in this context -- I'm sure a lot of people, like me, get their news from several of these sources. I get news from radio, the Web (including newspaper websites and Google News), and social media, and I'm not sure which of those sources is primary.

A blog post (nearly a scholarly article) on common errors made by Optical Character Recognition, including the error of thinking that the medial S is an f.

A book about the history of microfilming newspapers after World War Two. Baker then set up his own newspaper repository, which he donated to Duke Libraries in 2004.

This infographic explains why the brain finds it easier to read information presented in this way. Every day, we're exposed to more information than ever before and visuals help our brain process everything.

Interesting article about Jimmy Wales and how he lives a modest middle class life, while running one of the most visited websites on the planet.

You should look up Craig Newmark, who founded Craigslist! Totally regular guy, although supposedly he's worth about $400 million.

This article gives a definition of Digital Restrictions Management in terms that everyone can understand. More importantly, it teaches us why we should avoid using business that use DRM and how to do so.

Huh, interesting that they say the "R" stands for "Restrictions" -- I always heard "Rights." Guess either makes sense.

There have been a couple of occasions when my Dad has been looking for an obscure book - this is the site he usually uses when he's searching.

Another one is AbeBooks, which was not created by but is now owned by Amazon: http://abebooks.com

This piece of writing shows the difference between Google books and other digital content repositories, Mirlyn and Hathi Trust. And she also tells you the most efficient way to find the best sources by using all three repositories.

Great link, Jimin -- explains better than I did in class why HathiTrust is sometimes preferable to Google Books.

Michael S. Hart was one of the founding members of The Gutenberg Project. He recently passed away and this is the link to his obituary.

Thanks, Erin! He'd be a good guy to do research on for the presentation and final project.

For those who have ever wondered how many different books are out there in the world.

Great minds think alike -- I posted the same thing. :) The estimate keeps going up, probably because more books keep being published!

I found this to be really helpful if anyone is interested in the history of wikis. Wikipedia is one of the most popular wiki websites, but not the first.

Another useful link, Paola! Thanks.

Since we were talking about the history of Google earlier today, I found this and I thought I'd share with you all. It gives a great detailed timeline (provided by Google themselves) on their history.

That is a good link, Paola, thanks.

This website provides a list of 20 shortcuts you can use google for. This list explains how you can maximize the google search engine in order to find a wide variety of information quickly. Enables the user to use google to answer everyday questions easily.

This article discusses the study of how Wikipedia is just as accurate as Britannica!

Yep, that's the one I mentioned in class -- thanks for finding it, Claire!

These are 12 must know tips and techniques for using Zotero.

Here are some interesting facts about wikipedia.

How to create a bibliography using Zotero.

Its Google's Birthday today and It seems like the giant among search engines is still continuing to push for better service. I noticed that my google format had changed and I found out it was because Hummingbird, its new search algorithm that gives better search results.