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)

I like what Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost do with the Atari VCS in Racing the Beam, and following their lead, consider pinball platform studies. Concurrent to the first decade of videogames, hundreds of thousands of electronic pinball machines were created using a small number of discrete architectures. Pinball platforms like the Bally AS 2518-35 exemplify one such platform (search for Bally Electronic Pinball Games Theory of Operation to find an interesting 1982 technical document that introduces the platform; various websites exist that introduce the platform as well). What is it like? What affordances and constraints can be intuited from its design, and how do they play out in various games? How can the study of pinball platforms contribute to an overall awareness of computer technology, as well as their cultural and social milieu that is part of a recent past now forming the mythical foundation of the Internet age? What can we do with pinball as humanities scholars who also solder and write software?