Storia e web

II semestre
a.a. 2020-2021
Fabio Guidali
fabio.guidali@unimi.it
Incontri in programma

Federica Vignati (Biblioteca di Scienze della Storia e della

31 marzo
Documentazione Storica): Servizi, strumenti e strategie per la ricerca
bibliografica in Unimi

12 aprile Giuditta Cirnigliaro (Università Roma Tre): La dispersione dei codici e

l'interoperabilità digitale: parole e immagini dalla biblioteca di Leonardo

13 aprile Arturo Gallia (Università Roma Tre): Historical GIS e fonti storiche. Gli
strumenti cartografici per la ricerca storica

19 aprile Gregorio Taccola (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca): Dal fronte

al web. La Grande Guerra del pittore Max Guala tra storia museale delle
fonti e storia in digitale
Prova intermedia

3-4-5 maggio

secondo modalità da concordare

Andrew McMichael-Michael O'Malley-Roy Rosenzweig, Historians and the
Web: A Guide, «Perspectives on History», 1 (1996), pp. 11-16, https://
www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-
history/january-1996/historians-and-the-web-a-beginners-guide
Brave New World or Blind Alley?

Michael O' Malley-Roy Rosenzweig, Brave New World or Blind Alley?

American History on the World Wide Web, «Journal of American
History», 1 (1997), https://chnm.gmu.edu/resources/essays/
bravenewworld.php
 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andrew-Carnegie

The majority of the sites come from the many institutions Carnegie’s money made
possible—libraries, the famous concert hall, the Carnegie Corporation of New York,
the Shadyside Bed and Breakfast. They too do not bite the hand that fed them. On
at least half a dozen sites, individuals have posted one or more of Carnegie’s
inspirational essays on success, mostly in connection with free-market ideology.
Students will find little balance, little historical depth, and little more than laudatory
bromides, and they will learn that Carnegie’s money seems to have enabled him to
control his representation in history, at least on the Web.
The Road to Xanadu

Roy Rosenzweig, The Road to Xanadu: Public and Private Pathways on the
History Web, «Journal of American History», 2 (2001), pp. 548-579

…while many of the creators and owners of Web content still come from
what could be broadly called the public sector—whether grass-roots
enthusiasts, grant-funded university-based projects, or government agencies
such as the Library of Congress—private corporations (giant information
conglomerates selling their wares to libraries, entertainment corporations
trying to turn the Web into an advertiser-supported medium, and Internet
startups with a range of business plans) are coming to control some of the
most valuable real estate on the history Web. Such private control raises
questions about what history we will see on our computer screens and who
will be able to see it. If the road ahead leads to Xanadu.com rather than
Xanadu.edu, what will the future of the past look like?
JSTOR (Journal Storage: The Scholarly Journal Archive)
https://www.jstor.org

«…is there a stable basis for the continued funding of public

sector efforts to create a public, free historical archive?
The continuing erosion of the “public domain” further
threatens the public Web.»

Project MUSE
https://muse.jhu.edu
«Despite their foundation funding, groups such as JSTOR and
Project Muse argue—quite reasonably—that they need income to
sustain their operation, to add new journal articles, and to maintain
the service. Thus, they charge substantial subscription fees to
libraries. Unfortunately, when nonprofits enter the private Web, they
not only restrict access but also incur substantial costs; JSTOR and
Project Muse spend a considerable part of their income not to create
or post content, but to market their services and keep out
unauthorized users. Michael Jensen, who helped develop Muse,
estimates that “over half of the costs of the online journals project
was attributable to systems for preventing access to the articles.”»
Historians have a great stake in shaping the roads and cars that will populate the
future information superhighways. We need to put our energies into maintaining
and enlarging the astonishingly rich public historical Web that has emerged in the
past five years. For some, that should mean joining in eclectic but widespread
grass-roots efforts to put the past online—whether that involves posting a few
documents online for your students or raising funds for more ambitious projects to
create free public archives. Just as “open source” code has been the banner of
academic computer scientists, “open sources” should be the slogan of academic
and popular historians. Academics and enthusiasts created the Web; we should not
quickly or quietly cede it to giant corporations. For all of us, shaping the digital
future requires a range of political actions—fighting against efforts to slash the
budgets of public agencies such as NEH and the Library of Congress that are
funding important digital projects; resisting efforts further to narrow the “public
domain”; and joining with librarians who have been often alone in raising red flags
about the growing power of the information conglomerates.