Introduction: Has this Ever Happened to You?
By the summer of 2015, over 71,000 people had watched it. The video appears to be haunting, archival footage–a documentary? a newsreel?–of work in a Parisian studio, circa 1918. But this is no ordinary studio. Instead of making busts of famous poets or rich patrons, the artists are sculpting new faces for soldiers gruesomely mutilated by World War I.
Art, medicine, war, movies: this is the sort of source that makes connections, that shows the lived past in all its power and complexity. It's the kind of thing anyone who wants to explore real history would find meaningful: from classroom teachers to specialist researchers to the public at large. But there's a catch.
Like millions of other digitized historical artifacts now available on the Internet, we don't know enough about this film to really use it in scholarship, teaching, or public history. Who made this document, when, why–and for what audience? Is this digital copy authentic, has it been edited? Where is the original now, who owns it–how can we use it or cite it? Will it be there tomorrow? Brilliantly successful at providing access to new sources, the Web all too often serves them up in a format–stripped of contextual information–that makes them difficult to rely on, for serious thinking about the past.
In the Fall of 2014, students, faculty, and staff in the Department of History at the University of Illinois began to imagine a new, student-centered model of publishing, that would help higher education address this basic flaw in how historical artifacts are often presented online.
Called SourceLab, this initiative seeks to train students to create reliable, critical, free editions of previously digitized material, preparing the Internet's new historical records for classroom use and research. Along the way, we're learning how to build basic bibliographical and editorial skills–along with newer, digital publishing techniques–back into history education, with benefits for our students both before and after graduation.
This online brochure describes some of the ideas behind this initiative, currently under development. We'd love to hear your thoughts, ideas and suggestions for possible collaboration. Follow the path below to learn more.
