As digital editor of the Florida Historical Quarterly (a newly created position), I’m working with colleagues at UCF, Ohio State, and U.Va. on a project exploring the use of human-assisted machine reading to reveal historiographical shifts/lags and map significant patterns (geospatial, temporal, etc.) using the journal’s JSTOR-accessible 1925-2009 corpus. To date we’ve employed, in various combinations, Zotero Groups, Paper Machines, JSTOR Data for Research, and OpenAmplify/Open Calais. At THATCamp’s FHQ workshop (scheduled for 3 pm Saturday) we look forward to demonstrating these tools and reporting some very encouraging — though still very preliminary — results.

Faculty researchers on this project are David Staley, Ohio State; Bill Ferster, University of Virginia; Connie Lester, Dan Murphree, and Scot French, University of Central Florida. Research assistance is being provided by Ohio State Students Shauna Hann and Erin Tobin and FHQ intern Sarika Joshi.

This session will explore prospects for collaboration between university-based Digital/Public History programs, an emerging nationwide “History Harvest Movement,” and commercial photo/document scanning companies, which specialize in the preservation of personal collections at public scanning events. Confirmed participants include Rick Lippert, CEO of i/o Trak & E-Z Photo Scan; Rose Beiler, Associate Professor and Director of UCF’s Public History Program; Scot French, Associate Professor of Digital and Public History at UCF, and students in French’s Local and Community History graduate seminar.

Some Suggested Readings:

• William G. Thomas et al., “History Harvests, What Happens When Students Collect and Digitize the People’s History?” (Perspectives, Jan. 2013)
• “History Harvest Project May Spawn a New Kind of MOOC” (Wired Campus – Chronicle of Higher Education, 11-21-2012)
• Compilation of Tweets re Chronicle article on History Harvest/ MOOCs
• Omaha World-Herald Editorial, “Let’s Share These Stories” (1-16-2012)
• William G. Thomas III, “History Harvest in North Omaha: A Report on Digital Harvesting” (2011)
• William G. Thomas III, “First History Harvest Held – Railroad Materials Gathered and Digitized” (2010)