Digitizing History…will it “really” always be available in a digital format?
I apologize for this late post. I left sick on the last day of class and completely forgot to do this! Oops!
Universities, museums, libraries, musicians, authors….everyone is jumping on th”digitization” bandwagon. And why not? After twelve weeks of reading article after article about the pros of digitization, it it easy to understand what the fuss is all about. Lets preserve the past for future generations. Lets make books, pictures, museum objects, etc. available to the entire public, not just a select few. Lets put all of the world’s information in one place so that whenever we need ANYTHING, from the writings of Plutarch to a bio on Saddam Hussein, we know where to get it. Of course, there is a slight problem….what about copyright? What can be reproduced for everyone to view and what is restricted? Roy Rosenzweig and Dan Cohen point out in chapter 7 of Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving and Presenting the Past on the Web, most anything that was published prior to 1923 is the “public domain” meaning it can be reproduced without violating a copyright law. But what about more current materials? Lets say something is created digitally today, and it is reproduced in a different format for preservation purposes. Does that violate copyright law? Copyright law has so many gray areas…there is no black and white. And what about “Fair Use?” Portions of new materials can be reproduced for educational purposes, say a professor makes copies of a part of a book for class. Where do you draw the line? It all gets confusing, and this could be a deterrent for people who are looking to digitize materials. People are not so worried about the poems of Callimachus. He lived over 1,000 years ago. But lets say for example, a professor wanted to make copies of chapter 7 of Cohen and Rosenzweig’s book for a class. Does that violate copyright? Not according the Fair Use act. But what it a professor made a copy of the entire book? What then? Again, there is no black and white, and while I don’t think anything should be COMPLETELY black and white, some things need to be concrete. I am not saying the law is bad…just confusing. I just hope it does not influence someone or some university who really wants to take on an amazing digitization project but is afraid of violating some vague copyright law.
So lets say we are allowed to digitize anything and everything. What then? What if the format it was created in is no longer usable? Remember 8-track tapes? Good luck trying to find a system that is compatible with them today. I think it is extrememly important that as new technologies emerge, which they do by the second, that we as historians, archivists, computer techies and the like make sure that any new technology that is created is compatible with the old. Some digitization projects take years….Can you imagine if after all that work, the stories, journals, pictures and what not that has been digitized would not be viewable? Now that is certainly much scarier than being in violation of some gray-area copyright law.
Thanks, Roy
Roy Rosenzweig is a name I have heard fairly often in the course of my graduate studies. I have read a number of articles by him or about him for class, and as a student in a Digital History class, it is only fitting that we read his textbook. When Roy passed away last year, it was certainly a topic of discussion among my fellow grad students. Roy was a pioneer for digital technologies and to lose him at such a young age was deeply saddening. As the founder of the Center for History and New Media, it is only fitting that those working there and those who looked up to him created ThanksRoy, an online site dedicated to the memory of Roy Rosenzweig. I have never met Roy but I feel like I got to know him by browsing through the website. There were photos, stories, information on memorial events. I particularly enjoyed the stories. There were stories from academics, colleagues, and his students. They shared funny stories and even funnier pictures. I learned about him as a friend, a teacher and a mentor. Like I said, I never met Roy, but I sure wish I had.
Want To Learn More About Digital Technologies? Check Out the Brooklynn Museum Website! It Has It All!
Obviously I am a huge fan of digital technologies. If I wasn’t, I don’t think I would have signed up for a Digital History Class. I love social networking tools; I love online exhibits; I like to look at other peoples pictures on the internet. And I really hope that non-profits, Museum’s especially, start taking a closer look at these digital resources. Many museums are. A lot of museum’s have their collections online, they have facebook pages… But I have to admit, I have NEVER seen anything like the Brooklynn Museum webpage. It literally has everything. It has a blog, online collections, a Myspace and Facebook page, YouTube videos and more. I was like a kid in a candy store when I was on their site. There were so many different things I could play with. There were even some tools they were utilizing I was not familiar with. I have never used YELP to write reviews about the Museum, and I certainly do not use my Google Reader to get up to the minute RSS feeds from websites. I mean, I can find out what is going on at the Brooklynn Museum all the time via the RSS feed! But while I thought the site was fantastic (I could even look at collections that are in storage), I could totally see how this website could get overwhelming for some site visitors. Not everyone is super computer savy. Some people just want to know the hours, the admission, etc. And with so much going on….some site visitors might get deterred. Even so, I think the Brooklynn Museum does an excellent job of utilizing the most current digital technologies. I think the site serves as an excellent example of how Museum’s can use technology to get people interested in museums again.
Still Learning A Lot About WWI: Polar Bear Expedition Digital Collections
When I was in high school, I found teachers has a tendency to breeze right through WWI and move right on to WWII. I don’t know why this is. Maybe because our teachers did not have a father or grandfather or someone they knew in the war. Maybe because preservation efforts were less than stellar in 1917. Whatever the reason, I don’t remember spending a great deal of time on WWI. WWII, however, was a different story. My grandfather fought in WWII and the Korean War, so he was always telling me stories. We always had such great speakers in class. We talked about Hitler, bombs, the Holocaust…you name it. But I have to admit, I feel a little shorted that I did not learn more about WWI. The Polar Bear Digital Archives, an online collection of letters, newspapers, songs, cartoons and more about the American intervention in Russia in 1918, is an excellent resource for anyone who feels shorted like I did. The Bentley Historical Library and the University of Michigan have worked extensively to make information regarding the War and the “Polar Bear Expedition” more accessible to the general public. I loved that I could search the archives, browse by region and even look at different cartoons from the area. The website, however, is certainly a work in progress, and it is not particularly visually stimulating. There is not a lot of flash and graphics and what not, but it truly has some solid and interesting information. I though the website was easily navigable and not confusing for the user. For anyone who wants to know more about WWI, this is an excellent resource.
Can Institutional Review Boards Doom Oral History Projects?
I feel like I am starting to sound like a broken record, repeating myself over and over again until I too get sick of listening to myself. Why are we scared of digital technologies? Digitital technologies have a lot to offer historians. Informational websites allow anyone with an internet connection to access information; online collections allow people all across the globe to view unique treasures from the privacy of their homes; blogs allow amateaurs and professionals alike to share information. As both Cohen and Rosenzweig continue to point out in Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past On the Web, the internet can be an excellent tool to collect and preserve the past. The internet is getting more and more people interested in history, and also getting people more actively involved in presenting the past. I mean, just take a look at the 9/11 Digital Archives. 9/11 was an event so profound, and so life changing that I can bet almost everyone can remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard two planes had hit the world trade center, a third plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and fourth plane came crashing down in am empty Pennsylvania field. The 9/11 Digital Archives serves to preserve and present those very memories and those very experiences. The site includes over 150,000 first hand accounts of what people remember from that day. The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, another site dedicated to collecting first hand experiences and images during Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, continues to preserve these important memories in American history. More and more websites are using blogs and other electronic media to collect and preserve difference events and expereinces. Even Barack Obama’s new website, Change.gov, allows visitors to share their experiences during the campaign as well as share their visions for the future direction of the country. Yes, digital technologies do have their faults. People are weary. Who knows if what is being posted on the web is accurate? Online collections can be unorganized. Digital technologies can be expensive. But for all of their faults, think about all of the thoughts, ideas, oral histories, etc…that we have been able to collect because of web? That information is invaluable! But people are still skeptical, apprehensive, and nervous about the web and other forms of oral histories. So nervous, in fact, that even traditional oral history projects are being highly scrutinized.
The United States Government Office of Human Resource Protection protects the rights of people who are interviewed. Many people that are interviewed, especially for medical research purposes, could be mentally unstable due to a number of traumatic events. As a result, much of the information that is given by people being interviewed by medical professionals is kept private. This is not the case, however, in many oral history projects . As the American Historical Association points out in its Statement on Institutional Review Boards and Oral History Research, Institutional Review Boards (IRB) are applying rigid criterias to the interview processes, as well as to oral history practices. Many IRB’s insist on a specific set of questions to be asked to the interviewee, and also request that the intervieweee remain confidential. That pretty much goes against everything oral history projects stand for. Oral histories are meant to encourage dialogue between the interviewer and the interviewee so that the interviewer can capture a story. It is also important that some of the interviewees personal information be known. If you are doing an oral history on WWII and you are interviewing a retired vet, that information is important. It puts the event into perspective. Who was this person? What was their role in the war? What do they remember? How has it affected them today? Unfortunately, many Institutional Review Boards are limiting what information can be asked. Some IRB’s have become so limiting, in fact, that students and historians alike are foregoing oral history projects all together. To me, this is frightening. So much of what we know about historic events is by listening to and studying first hand accounts. That is how we truly understand an experience. It means so much more to hear about an event like 9/11 by reading or listening to how it affected certain individuals, not by reading a general description in some crummy text book. So if historians are fearful of conducting interviews because they fear the wrath of many Institutional Review Boards, where does this leave oral history projects? Will the web, a technology that so many people still fear, become the primary tool for collecting oral histories? Only time will tell.
Podcasts Are Fun and Easy to Use
I had never heard of a podcast until last year. I was watching Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN and I was getting ready to go out the door to work, and Mike and Mike suggested going to the ESPN website and downloading their daily podcast. So naturally when I got to work, I googled “podcast” to find out what the heck they were talking about, and then went to the ESPN website to check it out. My husband is a huge sports fan and is always listening to AM sports radio, and I always complain because the reception is awful and you can never hear what half the people are saying. So I told him about the podcast. And now he is hooked. He listens to commentary on the computer, and he can download podcasts to his ipod so that I don’t have to listen to the awfulness of bad reception on long rides home.
However, it is only very recently that I have started to download podcasts to my iphone. Podcast.com has an excellent selection of more than 60,000 podcasts, ranging from daily news to Christian commentary. I have become a fan of the Drunken Politics podcast, which features aggressive and many times down-right-dirty politics. (Its great when they they pick my “my friend” Sarah Palin). Now I know politics is not everyones cup of tea, but with over 60,000 podcasts, there is certainly something for everyone.
If you don’t know what a podcast is or you still have not downloaded one to your computer or ipod, I highly recommend it. I am sure you will get hooked. I am.
Review: Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives
When I was in high school, I learned a lot about Russian history. I couldn’t tell you much about South American or African history, but I remember spending countless hours learning about the rise of Stalin, WWII and trying to decipher Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto. I cannot begin to fathom how scary the Cold War was, but my father tells me that “nuclear bomb drills” were common during the 1960’s, and when the “drill” would go off in the schools, the kids would get out of their chairs and hide under their desks. I don’t think sitting under a desk is going to save anyone from a nuclear weapon, but you get the point…up until the fall of the Communism, tensions between the United States and the Russians were turbulent. I have a pretty good understanding of how Americans felt about Communism and the Russians, but how did many of the people living in Russia feel? Were they scared? Did they find Communism oppressive?
Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives, is an online exhibit that features the varied experiences of those who lived in the Soviet Union and the Gulag, the Soviet prison camp system, between 1917 and 1988. Many Days, Many Lives is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to truly understand what life was like in Communist Russia. The site includes prisoner biographies, audio and video clips, a primary source archive, and even a recreation of the Gulag prison camp. In addition, the site also included a changing online forum, as well as a featured exhibit. I was particularly interested in the online forum: Episodes in Gulag History, which featured a question and answer session with Lynne Viola, author of The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World’s of Stalin’s Special Settlements. The book looks at the lives of millions of Russian peasants who were exiled to Siberia in 1930, and the Russian government’s attempt to eliminate the peasants, or “kulaks” as a class. The site also included a teaching resources with a downloadable curriculum, and a bibliography that is useful for looking up additional sources. Unfortunately, the question and answer session with the author was postponed to the fall. I think the discussions with the author will certainly enhance this aspect of the site.
I also particularly enjoyed the featured online exhibit, Days and Lives. Days and Livesprovdes a first hand account of the experiences of prisoner Alexander Dolgun, a U.S. citizen who was working at the embassy in Moscow. He was arrested in 948 because the Russian government considered his “dangerous” and he remained in prison for over 10 years. The exhibit contains videos, pictures, brief but in-depth descriptions of how Soviet police treated citizens, the arrest and interrogation process, interviews with prisoners, and more. Days and Livesis an excellent online exhibit that highlights the plight and hardships of those who passed through the Gulag.
Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives, is an excellent resource for anyone who wants to understand Communist Russia and the Soviet Prison system. Over 18 million people passed through the Gulag, all with different experiences. This exhibit finally gives those people a voice.
What About the Little Guy?
I consider myself a computer person. Not a “professional” computer person; I don’t have a degree in Computer Science and I certainly do not spend my days creating or perfecting complicated software programs, but I’m a computer person in the sense that I am good with computers. Computers are a huge part of both my personal and my professional life. Working for a museum, I spend the majority of my day checking email, using word processing programs to write grants, fidgeting with Excel and QuickBooks to create grant budgets and generate monthly financial reports, and if I cannot find an answer to something…oh, the power of Google. The computer is not just a technology that helps to make my job easier…it is a necessity. Grant applications must be typed; budgets almost always need to be created in Excel; and for a number of federal grants, applications must be submitted via Grants.gov…no more hard copies. But up until two years ago, these technologies that most of take for granted were not available to me at the Museum. When I started working at the Carousel Museum in 2005, all of the computers were running Windows 98, there were only two working printers in the office, only one computer had internet, and if you can believe this, it was dial up. That’s right…dial up. When I sat down at my desk on my first day, I honestly thought I entered the twilight zone. How could such a fabulous cultural organization be so primitive? Well, it did not take me long to figure out the non-profit world. It is not that the Carousel Museum, or other Museums without computers or high tech gadgets did not want to incorporate technology into the work place…they just couldn’t afford it.
The emergence of the web has allowed museums to present their collections and other archival materials to a larger, more diverse audience. Thanks to the internet, collections that are housed in a museum in Georgia can be viewed by anyone with an internet connection, if the museum in Georgia chooses to publish its collection online. Now, please keep in mind that creating an online exhibit is not an easy feat and certainly takes time and money, but for the museums that can afford to do so, they are making their collections more accessible to the general public. And with new tools such as social tagging, museum collections are more searchable and accessible than ever. The Steve.museum: An Ongoing Experiment in Social Tagging, Folksonomy and Museums, provides a detailed and cohesive overview of the benefits of social tagging. According to Susan Chun, social tagging, or the creation of key words to categorize content, is making searching online collections easier and more efficient. Tagging tools such as Flickr and Delicious can be accessed and edited by the general public, and tagging tools similar to these can help to make museum collections more accessible. The general public can give a voice to pieces in a collection by assigning vernacular keywords to pieces in a collection that are more understandable to the general public. The steve.museum project has proven that many individuals are utilizing social tagging to enhance museum collections, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to enhance social tagging software. Chun argues that if the software is easy to use, is affordable, and fosters an environment in which the general public and the museums work together, than social tagging can greatly enhance museum collections. Matthew MacArthur also points out in, Can Museums Allow Online Users to Become Participants, that while social tagging and other internet tools such as blogs and wikis, help to enhance museums collections, the general public and the museum must work together to create content that is accurate. Museums are a trusted source of information, and while the general public can contribute to and enhance museum collections, in essence it is still the museum voice that must remain the strongest voice. Museum curators are still the professionals, but they are able to better do their job with the help of the general public.
I think social tagging is fantastic. I love the fact that the general public can contribute to an online collection, and add value to the collection by pointing out keywords that some curators may not have thought of. My fear, however, is that many small museums will not be able to afford to digitize their collections and make them available online. Again, if small museums cannot afford to keep up technologically with other museums, will they suffer?
The Council on Library and Information Resources conducted a survey on Digital Cultural Heritage Initiatives and Their Sustainability Concerns in order to determine what types of organizations were initiating digital projects, what kinds of products and services were being utilized, where the financial support for the digital initiatives was coming from, and whether or not the projects were sustainable. Now, based on some of the examples I looked at, such as the American Council of Learned Societies history e-book project and the Americans for the Arts Reference Database, these projects appear to be very well organized and very well funded. Many of the foundations or organizations that fund digital projects, such as the Institute of Museum and Library Services, provide large sums of money to many organizations to implement digital projects. Which, of course, is fantastic and wonderful and funding from organizations such as these has lead to the creation of many fantastic digital projects (who doesn’t enjoy the 9/11 digital archive or the American Memory project?) I hope the funding keeps coming. What does concern me, however, is the lack of funding for smaller institutions who need small tech grants to purchase basic necessities such as new computers and maybe a website redesign. I remember the first grant I ever helped write for the Carousel Museum was to the Institute of Museum and Library Services. I cannot remember the name of the grant, but it was for small museums who were trying to upgrade their technological infrastructure. Perfect. Exactly what the Carousel Museum needed. So I spent hours getting price quotes, talking to different computer networking companies and doing other research until I had a pretty good idea as to what the Museum needed in terms of technological infrastructure; five new computers, peer to peer networking, a wireless router and so on. I was excited. And disappointed when the Museum got a rejection letter back from IMLS. The reason the Carousel Museum’s grant was not funded was because the reviewer did not think our proposal was “ambitious enough and could not figure out how an organization our size could be so inept technologically.” I wanted to call that reviewer up and call him/her a number of horrible names I only reserve for Sarah Palin. Inept? I didn’t think we were inept. I just thought we were a small organization that needed help. And we needed someone to give us the start up money to get on the right path. I think I only asked for like $7,000. So after I got rejected, I took a look at the IMLS website to see the kinds of projects that got funded. All of the projects were like $30,000 projects. I was so confused. I thought this grant was supposed to be for small museums and other non-profits who were trying to upgrade their outdated infrastructure? Nope. I think the reviewers at IMLS just “assumed” that all organizations already had that capability (only six months later, you were no longer allowed to submit hard copy applications…everything had to be done online, and while I was using dial up internet, the stupid server continued to time out on me and I was unable to submit any more proposals) and therefore asking for funding for new computers was hardly “ambitious” enough.
I don’t know what is going to happen to small museums. I embrace technology. I love it. I think online collections, podcasts, searchable archives and museum Facebook pages are going to revolutionize the way we think and use museums. But I still fear for the little guy…and that would be me.
Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day…Digital Libraries Won’t Be Either!
I can honestly say, “I Love Libraries.” When I was in elementary school, library day was by far my favorite day of the week (recess day doesn’t count because every day involved some kind of recess). Music day was a drag because I couldn’t read a note or carry a tune; art day was the worst because I had no artistic skills and I used to have to give this girl Meghan my leftover lunch money to draw my pictures for me. But library day…library day was great. In fact, my friends and I even had a “Ghost Bookclub.” Every week we would read different scary books about witches, vampires and other undead creatures, and then skulk around the library looking for abnormal things (Jimmy, the only boy in the club, swore the library was haunted). However, my love for the library slowly but surely disappeared when I reached high school thanks to an anal English teacher who could only be compared to Satan and my lack of free time to go there anyway. I probably only visited the library a handful of times in high school. But thanks to late hours, Starbucks and nice comfy couches to take naps on, my love affair with the library was rekindled in 2005 when I started college at the University of Pittsburgh. I mean, what was there not to love about the library? There was always someone to talk to, always someone cute to stare at, always someone I didn’t particularly like to talk about, and always someone to take a smoke break with. So when I hear that academics and librarians are fearful that “digital libraries” may replace “physical libraries” I have to admit, I get a little sad and rather nostalgic.
I am not, however, naïve. I completely understand we live in a world where our technology changes on a daily basis. I understand we live hectic, busy lives and technology helps to make our lives just a little bit easier. I mean, in today’s current economic crisis, who doesn’t use their computer or their cell phone to check their stock quotes, visit CNN.com to see the late breaking news regarding Wall Street, or find out the latest idiotic thing Sarah Palin and John “the Maverick” McCain have proposed to fix the sub prime mortgage mess? Maybe we don’t all do it, but a lot of us do. And for those who don’t feel the need to constantly have technology at their fingertips, they certainly understand that option is available to them if they want it do be. So if technology can help to make our lives easier, why are so many librarians and historians fearful of “digitizing the past?” We’ve heard the arguments; Cohen and Rosensweig point out in Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web, as does Marilyn Deegan and Simon Tanner in, Conversion of Primary Sources, digitization is not always as simple as scanning a book. In fact, the digitization process can be lengthy and very expensive. High end scanners or fiber optic cameras that are needed to digitize rare and fragile documents could run thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Optical Character Recognition Software (OCR), which is used to convert letters and words into machine readable text (machine readable text is text that can be searched by doing a keyword search), can not only be expensive, but it can also be riddled with mistakes. If the machine readable text needs to be perfect, then it may be in the best interest of the organization or the company who is digitizing the materials to hire someone to just retype the text. And that can certainly take a long time and cost a lot of money. Not to mention, certain aspects of the materials being digitized may be lost in the analog to digital conversion. What about the look and feel of the original document? What about the page layout or any handwritten notes in the margin? Could a lot of these important aspects be lost?
I totally understand why librarians and historians are worried. In order to best understand the meaning of a historical text, object, etc… it is best to look at the original first hand, not a scanned copy on the computer. But I think what is gained is so much greater than what is lost. As Howard Besser points out in The Past, Present & Future of Digital Libraries, researchers can utilize the internet as an important research tool to consult “rare works residing in a host of different institutions without having to visit each one.” He does argue, however, that in order for a “digital library” to be successful, it must employ the same characteristics and standards of traditional libraries. Digital libraries must remain stewards over their collections; the digital library must guarantee access to the general public; digital libraries must have a strong service component; digital libraries must be sustainable. I completely agree with Besser. Digital libraries must possess the same general components of traditional libraries. And I also understand we are not quite there yet. But that is not to say we will not get there. The library I used when I was in elementary school is much different than the library I use now. It is called progress. And progress takes time. We cannot expect digital libraries to equal their physical counterparts in just a few years. Not when we have been perfecting the physical library for thousands of years. I mean, the Dewey Decimal system, which is used by most libraries when classifying books, has only been around for about 150 years. Is that to say that before the Dewey Decimal System, books were just stuck on shelves and anyone visiting the library would just have to wander aimlessly until they found what they were looking for? NO! There was just another system, and a system before that, and a system before that. Again, it is called progress. The digital information that is available to us online is not perfect. But it will continue to get better. And better. We need to embrace its potential, not hide from it because it is “not quite perfect yet.” Librarians and academics should understand this. Think about how much easier the lives of anyone writing a book has gotten over the last twenty or thirty years. Oh the joys of word processing! But word processing was not always perfect either. Should we say, “lets just keep using our pencil and paper because the computer crashed?” Absolutely not. As Michael Jon Johnson says in, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Climate Change & the Scholarly Ecosystem, the nature or “ecosystem” of libraries and books has changed. He argues that is the “designers,” the publishers and librarians need to enhance access and readability of important materials and to improve comprehensibility and organization of books, manuscripts, papers, journals, etc. That is their jobs. But what if people are turning somewhere else to get their information? Should the libraries and the scholars not adapt? If people are turning to the web for information, which makes complete and total sense in today’s busy world, isn’t it the job of those scholars and librarians to adapt to change, and get the information out there in a form that is easily accessible? Like Johnson says, the job of the librarian and the scholar in this new “ecosystem” will not be less important; it will just be different. Again, it is called “change” or “progress.” If librarians and scholars truly want to fulfill their obligations of disseminators of information in the 21st century, they need to acknowledge that people are getting their information in different ways. And they need to recognize that “different” does not mean “bad” or “inferior.”
There are librarians and academics who are doing this. According to Richard Cox in Machines in the Archives: Technology and the Coming Transformation of Archival reference, many librarians and archivists are utilizing the power of email, blogs and instant messaging to answer general research questions. This saves people from having to come to the library, or gives them a place to start when they arrive. Cox also points out that many archivists and librarians are using high end scanners and digital cameras to preserve their collections. If so many libraries, museums, archives, etc. are already utilizing this technology for preservation purposes anyway, why are so many scholars and librarians still so scared of making it available over the internet? Copyright Issues? Distorting the images? I am sure there are a whole host of answers. And like I said, I completely get it. It is new. It is unfamiliar. It is not perfect. Then lets keep working at it. Rome wasn’t built in a day. We cannot expect digital libraries to be built overnight either.
Wikimapia…It Needs A Wicked Amount of Work
I purchased an iphone back in August, and for the first week I had it, I got a daily kick out of going to the maps icon and using the GPS to locate myself and then watch the little blue dot move as I drove my car down the street. Pathetic, I know, but I still do not own a GPS for my car and I am notorious for getting lost. I was expecting Wikimapia to to capture my interest equally as google maps on my iphone. Unfortunately, I was less than impressed. Sure, it is cool to click on the map and zoom in a street, but I was disappointed at the lack of information on the site. There were very few big cities specified on the maps, and the ones that were specified lacked any really earth shattering information. I decided to view Pittsburgh since it was where I went to college (and my favorite city), and I was expecting to zoom in on my college dorm, the Museum that I worked at, and the Cathedral of Learning, the gorgeous 36 floor 1930’s building that housed the majority of my college classes. While I was able to zoom in to street level, when I clicked on many of the landmarks, the information on wikimapia was sparse. I was also hoping there would be additional photos, like there were when I clicked on Forbes Field, former home of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Unfortunately, many of the landmarks and buildings that I clicked on had no photos and very little information.
Don’t get me wrong, I think wikimapia is an innovative and informative invention. Where else can I look at France sitting on the couch? I think the idea is genius, but it still needs a lot of work. I am sure that as I am posting this comment, someone over at wikimapia is addressing my very concerns. Oh, the beauty of the web!
