Dating, Dancing, and Riding in Cars
A Scrapbook Archive of Teen Culture in the 1930s
Why hello again. Another tip. Click on Design to change your background, fonts and colors. It's really fun. And of course you can delete me.
It is crucial to situate this archive within the fast growing field of digital humanities. Researchers in the humanities — from history to sociology to literary studies — are producing more and more work online as web-publishing software becomes more user-friendly and database/archiving/scrapbooking software is available at more affordable prices (sometimes free!). Jerome McGann recognizes that it is not only the affordances of digital publishing that have drawn scholars to the web, but also an ongoing crisis in print publishing: “scholars are producing larger and larger amounts of content and passing it to a delivery system with diminishing capacities to sustain publication of the work” (183). McGann, and other digital humanists, acknowledge that although the need to consult original (print) materials will always remain, the bulk of humanities scholarship in the 21st century will inevitably take place online.
It is important to recognize that although massive amounts of online scholarship are being produced in the humanities, it does not mean that (a) digital media somehow solves all of the ‘problems’ of print publication and does not carry with it new constraints/problems, or (b) digital humanities is currently taking advantage of all of the affordances of digital media.
Digital humanists must resist the impulse to either ignore the constraints of digital media or, oppositely, profess to be taking advantage of digital media to the fullest extent. For instance, the variety of web browsers (Internet Explorer is no longer the reigning browser, and people now use a variety of browsers, no one more dominant than the others) raises issues of accessibility and readability of digital content. While constructing this archive I could not open my Wix website in my version of Safari and was forced to work on the project solely in Firefox. As digital technologies evolve, old limitations are surpassed while new limitations simultaneously emerge. Thus, it is essential that digital humanists remain critical of the ways in which digital technologies shape and constrain their work.
One major limitation of digital media that digital humanists should maintain awareness of is that it removes readers from the original material even more so than print publication, in many respects. Handwritten items (like most of the items in this archive) are severed from their original tangible, paper forms and transformed into ephemeral, digital files. According to Anna Chen, “digitally manipulable representations of handwritten documents … couple viewers’ emotional reactions to the sight of handwriting with the perception of digital transparence” (para. 29). Digital technologies (primarily Photoshop) have allowed me to present Jane’s scrapbook artifacts larger than their original sizes and with altered contrast for improved readability. While it is my duty as editor to provide clear, readable facsimiles, manipulations of facsimiles can disguise the complexity of the original, physical artifacts. While we may herald the capability of digital media to provide extensive access to rare and fragile physical artifacts as a breakthrough for humanities scholarship — which is certainly the case — we must be mindful of “digital transparence” and what it means for how digital humanists create, and how readers experience, online texts.
Perceived transparency of form can hide the fact that what online texts present is necessarily a replication, an imperfect and imprecise stand-in for original documents. Additionally, the more transparent the form of an online text, the more it may (incorrectly) imply comprehensiveness and/or appropriateness to content. For instance, my digital archive requires the presentation of some three-dimensional, tactile artifacts through JPEGs viewed on a computer screen. The flat, paper artifacts represented in this archive are undeniably more compatible with the format of the screen than other artifacts, such as little cardboard spoons, that are characterized much more by their physical forms. The experience of holding a spoon or touching a tissue paper craft cannot be replicated in digital space.
Digital humanists must take measures to communicate to readers the essential removedness of print documents translated to online formats. Jeff Rice suggests a hermeneutic approach to interrogating the digital— “teas[ing] out the networks that construct any digital moment” — that can force digital humanists to question “how meaning is structured, operates, and convinces” in digital contexts (376). He implores digital humanists to reconsider how meaning is “programmed” into digital texts so as to generate a particular reaction, or interpretation, from the reader. We must take care not to read the digital text as mere text; rather we must take a critical stance toward reading the digital text as digital text.
In order to combat the limitations of digital media, we — digital humanists and readers alike — must first and foremost ask questions. We must always question why a particular medium was used; what choices led to the inclusion of certain materials (and the exclusion of others); and what reasons the author may have for organizing materials in a certain manner. For instance, I made the decision to move this archive from its original format, Adobe Flash website, to a new format, HTML5 website, because HTML5 allows for more page scrolling, which enabled me to place entire exhibits (multiple facsimiles and transcriptions) on a single webpage. The Flash format required me to separate exhibits across multiple webpages. I asked a handful of my peers and family members which viewing experience they preferred, and they unanimously chose the HTML5 format. This type of critical awareness of online forms is essential in order for digital humanities to continue to evolve and sustain itself as a serious form of scholarship.
Just as digital humanists must confront the limitations of digital media, we must also continue to expand our knowledge of and expertise with digital media. Just because we use digital media, does not mean that we use it well. Many digital humanists (McGann; Earhart; Siemens et al.) have observed the tendency for digital humanities scholarship to either replicate or slightly modify print forms online. Most scholars accept that early online editions did little more than mirror print forms; however, we must be hesitant to suggest that we have moved past a rudimentary understanding and implementation of digital media.
Some digital humanists are questioning the use of digital media by problematizing current forms of online scholarship and proposing specific movement toward new forms. Ray Siemens et al. advocate the evolution toward what they call the “social edition,” which would utilize social media platforms in a drive toward more community-driven online scholarship. They argue, “the types of electronic scholarly editions we see prominently today … do not accurately reflect the full range of useful possibilities present for academic engagement and interaction” (Siemens et al. 2). Although the social edition does not exist yet, Siemens et al. hypothesize the types of collaborative annotation, user-derived content, and shared textual analysis that would take place within the social edition. This type of forward thinking is crucial in digital humanities so that we do not get too comfortable with the technologies we currently use (as they will inevitably become outdated, and sooner rather than later) and have a greater hand in shaping the technologies we will use in the future.
Affordances and Limitations of Wix
The digital medium I have elected to use for this archive, a Wix HTML5 website, has presented me with numerous advantages and disadvantages throughout the construction of the project. Since this project was born digital — it was composed for the web — I perhaps confronted fewer challenges related to form than editors attempting to transition traditional print work to a digital format. Nevertheless, limitations of the medium emerged at all stages of the editing process, and I would never suggest that the form of this archive is anything but sufficient; for I do not, unfortunately, live in an ideal world and must work within the parameters of the tools that are available to me. The following list is an examination of significant affordances and limitations I encountered during the construction of this archive in the Wix HTML5 website medium:
Affordances
(1) Personalization and ease of website design
One of my primary reasons for choosing Wix for this archive was the opportunities it offered for individualizing the design of the website and the relative ease with which I could construct that design. I was able to build my website from scratch, choosing where to place menu bars, where (and in what size) to place text and images (notice it allows for collage/overlap in images), and how the site is navigated. Additionally, I was able to upload my own background for the website (which I designed using Photoshop).
(2) Multiple forms of navigation
Wix allows the user to create multiple pathways for navigation of a website. In addition to the main menu bar, I was able to create icons and text buttons that allow the reader to view the scrapbook exhibits either in a linear or nonlinear manner. Furthermore, I was able to provide backward buttons to allow readers to return to previous exhibits.
(3) Storage and presentation of high-resolution images
Wix allows non-paying users to upload single images as large as 10 megabytes and store up to 500 megabytes under one account. As such, I have been able to provide large, high-resolution facsimiles of Jane’s scrapbook artifacts, and I have experienced no issues uploading all of those facsimiles to the Internet. This affordance of Wix is extremely valuable for my archive since it contains sixteen exhibits with over 60 images.
Limitations
(1) Text editor
The Wix text editor is unfortunately limited in its ability to replicate the functions of more powerful word processors like Microsoft Word. I drafted the website’s text content in Word and then copied it into the Wix text editor. Unfortunately, in this process, the Wix text editor removes quotation marks, italics, apostrophes, hyphens, and dashes, which meant that I had to re-edit all of the text in Wix. Additionally, the Wix text editor has no spell-check function, which makes the original drafting in Word all the more important.
(2) Interactivity of exhibits
Unfortunately, in moving my archive from a Flash website to an HTML5 website, I lost some of the interactivity within the scrapbook exhibits. The Flash format enabled readers to click on facsimiles and transcriptions to enlarge them, allowing for closer examination of artifacts. Additionally, the Flash website enabled me to simulate the original scrapbook format by presenting a digital “book” wherein readers could click on the corners to turn each “page.” Although the scrapbook simulation was more of a novelty and did not necessarily contribute to the archival content, it enhanced the interactivity of the website. What I may have lost in interactivity, however, I have attempted to make up for by providing easier access to full exhibits. The scrapbook simulation, because it did not allow for scrolling, forced me to separate parts of exhibits, making each exhibit span multiple “pages.” With the HTML5 website, however, I am able to provide access to entire exhibits on a single webpage.
Digitizing scrapbooks
Within digital humanities very little has been written on the subject of scrapbooks. The majority of scholarship focuses on the literary edition, as opposed to the documentary edition and/or archive, which can house artifacts (or full pages) from scrapbooks. Nonetheless, a multitude of digital documentary editions exist as models for scholars like myself who are undertaking such a project for the first time. The UC Berkeley Mark Twain Project, for instance, served as a major source of inspiration to me. The Mark Twain Project houses picture, letters, journals, and other documents that help narrate Twain’s life. The editors include explanatory notes to elaborate each facsimile in the edition. By providing a wealth of background information and narration, the editors create an edition that is accessible and useful to a wide audience — everyone from Twain scholars to students who may be reading Twain for the first time.
Although an abundance of digital archives exist, very few of them are digitizations of scrapbooks. One such project, however, is the Library of Congress Lewis Carroll Scrapbook. This archive presents the full-length pages of an original scrapbook kept by the Victorian-era children’s author, which primarily includes newspaper clippings and photographs, along with a few manuscript materials (130 items in all). The editors do not, however, provide much introductory or contextual information to accompany the scrapbook. Two major strengths of the Lewis Carroll Scrapbook are the large size of facsimiles and the comprehensiveness of the collection, which is something that I would ideally like to work towards with this archive in the future.
Editorializing scrapbooks poses a variety of issues regarding digitization, annotation, and preservation. Scrapbooks come in diverse shapes and sizes and may contain not only flat paper documents (printed and handwritten) and photographs, but other visual and tactile artifacts including pressed flowers, tobacco products, human hair, animal skins, plastic objects, textiles, and food (Teper). The inclusion of such nonverbal, often three-dimensional, items poses more concerns regarding preservation and digitization than flat paper products. What’s more, nonverbal artifacts typically require additional textual commentary to elucidate their significance.
Standardizing methods for working with scrapbooks is problematic, as each one will inevitably pose a unique set of problems. Therefore, it is up to the editor to make the best editorialization and digitization decisions for his/her specific scrapbook. In the following section on editorial policies, I address the challenges concerning structural failure of Jane’s scrapbook and the assembling and editing of digital facsimiles of scrapbook artifacts in this archive.
Digital Humanities and Digitizing Scrapbooks