Friday, November 24, 2006

Will people ever look at my website???

So, first of all, I'd like to say "Geaux Tigers" because I was just watching LSU beat its archrivals Arkansas and prevent them from being able to get to the BCS National Championship game!

Now, I also want to blog about our readings for this coming week...not going home for the holiday means I am actually ahead of schedule for once and read over 100 hours in advance of our class! Go me!!!

The website I am planning to create for my final project is based around the research I did for my master's thesis. I want to make a database that includes all the raw data that I used but put into 4 tables in the thesis. The main reason for doing this is (besides being required to do it of course) that I am often frustrated at seeing tables or graphs in an article or a book and not being able to see the data used to make those tables/graphs. And what if I want to do something different with the same numbers, how would I be able to do that without muddling through ALL the data that the author did? Wouldn't it be great if you could see that data without having to do all that leg work??

You will obviously hear more about this when I make my presentation on Dec. 5th, but the Digital History chapter for this week really speaks to the idea of who, if anyone, will actually look at my website! I see this site as a VERY specific website that only 17th century Virginia historians will probably use. So, based on this probable specificity of my proposed site, should I even care about reaching out to other non-Virginia historians? Or should I revolve it around that small, but focused group entirely??

1 Comments:

At 26 November, 2006 20:22, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Historians of 17th century Virginia are the most important so why would you care if anyone else looks at it? Seriously, I don't think every site can or should appeal to everyone. The point is that there is some information that you want to share and there are some - maybe only a very few - people who will need or want that information. If the information is readily available, it may well inspire others to do something interesting with it.

 

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