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Before embarking upon the subject of using computer database management for organizing historical materials, we should first ask the most basic question, "Do we need to use a database?" Do we need to organize our historical materials, our photographs, letters, objects, books, diaries, scrapbooks, journals, etc., into a database?
To answer this question, we shall apply the Kitchen Table Test. If we can take all of our materials and spread them out on the kitchen table, in such a manner that we can see everything at the same time, then we can easily find what we need just by the traditional method of rummaging around.
In the same manner, you do not need a database to find your shoes. You know where your shoes are. But if you were in charge of a warehouse full of shoes, that would be a different matter.
Last year's shoe styles might be out of date, but a photo of Abraham Lincoln will never be. Therefore, over time, the materials on our kitchen table tend to pile up, until we can no longer spread everything out before us. The quantity of our material has exceeded the Kitchen Table Test.
As our documents and objects fall off the edges of the table, we finally decide to place the materials in filing cabinets, or on shelves. But having passed the Kitchen Table Threshold, we have unwittingly made a huge leap into a different style of organization. We can no longer see everything at the same time. Our old methods of shuffling through the materials are no longer sufficient.
We have a photo of an orange tree, in front of a Spanish Colonial style house, in Glendale, with a trolley car passing on the street. Where do we file the photo? Under orange trees, Spanish Colonial architecture, Glendale, or trolley cars? Or under the name of the owner of the house, name of the architect, or name of the photographer? Or the name of the trolley car company? Or the time period? Or the style of the photograph? Or the type of negative and preservation required: glass plate, safety film, or nitrate?
The physical document or object is going to reside in only one place. Yet there are many different access points that we would want to that document or object. The issue of access points did not occur when we could see everything at once, on the kitchen table.
The reason that we would want to organize our materials into a computer database is for access. When we can no longer spread everything out before us, we need flexible means of finding what we want.
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No computer term is more widely used, and more widely misused and misunderstood, than the term "compatible." The question "Is it compatible?" is asked with fear and trembling, as if the non-compatible item might spread a skin rash.
Hardware compatibility will be the first and the most obvious issue. To accept floppy disks from the authors and insert those disks into the editor's computer, the devices must be "hardware compatible." Disk drives for 3 1/2 inch diskettes and 5 1/4 inch diskettes are not hardware compatible, because they will not accept the same diskettes. To overcome that obstacle, the editor would need to have a computer that included floppy disk drives in both sizes.
Software compatibility will arise as the next issue. The different authors may write their articles using different word processing programs. Perhaps some members of the society use the program Wordperfect, while others use Microsoft Word. The simplest solution will be for the authors to send in their articles in "plain text" format. When you save a file in a word processor, you have the choice of saving the file in a format unique to that program, perhaps including instructions to print some words in boldface or italics, or of saving the file as plain text.
If the authors make extra copies of their files in "plain text" format, the editor will be able to use all of the files, even though different programs were employed to create them. (There are also available programs such as "Word-for-Word" which will convert files from one format to another, but that solution requires that someone purchase and learn how to use the conversion program.)
The task of collecting articles for a newsletter illustrates the three types of compatibility: hardware compatibility, software compatibility, and information compatibility. In the course of attempting to achieve each of the different types of compatibility, two issues will arise: the use of common standards, and the amount of work required.
The adoption and use of common hardware standards will allow, for example, a 3 1/2 inch floppy disk to work in 3 1/2 inch disk drives created by different manufacturers. Standards for text such as ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) will allow the exchange of plain text files between different programs.
Information compatibility, whether on paper or computer, is also based on the use of standards. We do not each make up our own version of alphabetical order, spelling, punctuation, and grammar. We spell the word "committee" not as we might wish to, but as Noah Webster's dictionary tells us to.
As for the amount of work required for each type of compatibility, it is the last issue described, of information compatibility, which will demand by far the most human effort. Sending data from one type of computer to another, or from one program to another, may require the expense of purchasing additional equipment or a conversion program, and it may require technical expertise to operate the equipment or program. But these efforts or expenses cannot compare to the work of an editor going through a confused manuscript, word by word, to make sense of an author's unclear intentions. Although automated spelling checkers and grammar checkers can help, the help that they provide is limited. They cannot figure out what the author meant to say.
If you do not adhere to common standards for writing, do not expect your articles to be accepted. The editor will probably have on hand authoritative guides to writing standards, such as the Chicago Manual of Style. The greater the deviation of your article from the prevailing standards, the more work the editor will have to do, and hence the less chance that the editor will be accept your article for publication.
In Database A, the names of persons have been written in the format First Name then Last Name: "John Smith" and "Mary Jones."
In Database B, the international cataloging standard known as the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules has been followed, and the names were written in the format Last Name, comma, First Name: "Smith, John" and "Jones, Mary."
In Database A, a field called KEYWORDS was employed, into which was dumped all sorts of different subject references. These included personal names, names of organizations, names of geographical places, and topical subject headings such as "Harbors" or "Ships."
In Database B, following the cataloging standard known as the MARC (MAchine-Readable Cataloging) format, separate fields were designated to hold names of people, places, organizations, and topical subject headings.
In Database A, the person entering data simply wrote down whatever subject heading occurred to him or her at the time. A single subject category, such as trolley cars or water development, might appear under ten or twenty different headings. Finding all of the relevant material for a given subject would be very difficult.
In Database B, the cataloger employed the standard known as Library of Congress Subject Headings. The subject of trolley cars would appear as "Street-railroads" and the subject of bringing water to different areas of the arid West would appear as "Water-supply." Finding all of the relevant material for a given subject would be very easy, you would simply use the appropriate Library of Congress Subject Heading, just as the cataloger had done.
Are Databases A and B compatible? No, they are not. Could they be combined together into a single database? Only at the cost of a great deal of work, similar to the work of an editor cleaning up articles which do not adhere to the prevailing standards for grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
The answer? Stick to the standards, not only for hardware and software, but most importantly, for the information that you enter into a database.
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It is a superstition of our time that computers possess magical powers capable of overcoming the dilemma of information overload. Discussions held today on the subject of computer information retrieval remind me of the conversation in William Shakespeare's Henry IV (Act 3, Scene 1) between Glendower and Hotspur. Glendower, in the manner of a proud computer owner bragging of his equipment's ability to retrieve data, declares "I can call spirits from the vasty deep." The more pragmatic Hotspur retorts, "Why, so can I, or so can any man. But will they come when you do call for them?"
In today's terms, "Your computer may hold the information, but can you find it when you need it?" Anyone can cram information into a computer. But to call up that information later is another matter.
"Help! Help! Help! I can't find the trolley car photos. The people who cataloged the photos are no longer available, and no one knows how they did it."
I have seen and heard the same story over and over again. In one California community, a woman has spent the past 30 years of her life cataloging all of the newspaper articles for the locality. But she did it in her own idiosyncratic way and no one can find anything. She cannot even remember what subject headings she assigned 30 years ago.
Individual researchers have the same experience. They cannot find crucial pieces of information, because subject headings were assigned in a random and idiosyncratic manner. When it comes time to write the book or article, the researcher cannot remember what he called a particular subject.
I came to this subject as a historian, writing a history of Los Angeles. My experience was that when I would go to ten different places for photographs, I would find that they each organized their photos in a totally different manner. The only way to find anything was to find the person who had set up the system originally. Sometimes even finding that person was of little help. In one collection, for example, there was one folder for "College and universities" and another for "Universities and colleges."
The case described was from pre-computer days, with the photos in file folders. Continuing to use the same sort of homegrown, idiosyncratic filing system on the computer would bring the same result.
Is the work that you are doing today going to be of permanent value? Or are you creating something that will never be of practical use?
If you were a sculptor, would you use a material that would crumble in a few years? If you were a painter, would you use a paint that would dissolve?
If you are engaged in organizing historical materials, whether as a cataloger in a library, museum, or archives, or as an individual researcher and writer, and you wish to have the ability to retrieve five years from now the materials that you organize today, then you should use international cataloging standards, just as you would use standards for weights and measures, for spelling and grammar, and for alphabetical order.
We all accept a single version because it allows us to take one body of knowledge and to apply it universally. We accept a single version for the practical reason that it allows us to find what we are looking for.
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Will you be able to do it? When approaching the subject of using a computer to catalog a collection, or to organizing research notes, there is often an element of fear involved. Will you be able to do it successfully? If there are other people working with you, will they be able to do it?
There is a very simple test. If there are volunteer workers at your historical society or museum, give each of them a shopping list and send them individually to the grocery store. (At this point in the computer-cataloging workshop, the students start laughing, because they recognize what is coming.)
Some of those whom you send to the grocery store will go through the list item-by-item, check off each item, and get everything on the list. If the person cannot find an item, he or she will consult the store directory.
Others will glance at the list as they put it in their purse or pocket. Others will lose the list.
If the list says "1 pound of butter" some will get "1 pound of butter". Others will get a pound of margarine or something else.
Anyone who can follow a shopping list successfully can computer-catalog successfully. The three magic words in either case are: "Follow the Instructions".
How am I able to use the bread machine, if I know nothing about cooking? You guessed it. I just follow the instructions:
"Open the machine. Put in 1 1/8 cups of water, 3 1/4 cups of flour, 2 tablespoons of butter, 1 1/2 tablespoons of dry milk, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 2 teaspoons of yeast. Close the machine. Press the START button. Result: One loaf of bread."
If you put in 2 "tablespoons" of yeast rather than 2 "teaspoons" as instructed, what will be the result? The bread will rise out of the top of the machine and spill over the kitchen. To use a machine, any machine, whether a bread machine, telephone, elevator, or computer, it is necessary to follow instructions.
If you asked me for advice, as to whether you should get a bread machine, I would answer your question with a question: "Are you willing to follow instructions?"
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Millions of us own Video Cassette Recorders, but we do not know how to program them. And to be honest about it, we do not want to open the manual and learn how to do it.
What we want is to say, "Hey Joe. Tape the Science Fiction Theater program on channel 5 at 3AM for me. And while you're at it. Tape all of the other episodes too." Joe answers, "Sure boss."
But if we are honest with ourselves, the truth is that we do not want to open the manual at all. We want someone to take care of it for us.
In the 1920s studies of the telephone system showed that at the rate at which calls were increasing, by 1950 everyone would have to become a telephone operator in order to handle all the traffic. In a way, that is what happened. Today we each have to act as our own telephone operator, dialing the number and area code ourselves.
One result of self-dialing is many wrong-number phone calls. Notice that no one seems to blame the telephone for making the wrong connection. In similar circumstances when using a computer, if a person pressed the wrong number, the computer would be blamed.
What the Internet does not have is the equivalent of your local library's friendly Reference Librarian, who became personally involved in individual projects. That function requires not a program, but a person. Yet people who obviously know how to use computers will leave messages such as "Please describe the role of cats in ancient Egypt" or "Please send a genealogical chart for my family."
Each of these requests would require a person. The answer is: Do It Yourself.
In reaction to such requests, many Internet sites do not provide any method of getting in contact with them. No street address, no E-Mail, and certainly no telephone number.
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To create your own Home Page on the Internet, you would rent space on the computer of an Internet Service Provider for a cost of about $20 to $100 per month. The History Computerization Home Page, which includes a directory of historical resources, historical photographs, advice on organizing historical materials, and an order form for the visitor to request a free database tutorial, costs us only $50 per month. The requests come to us in the form of E-Mail, which we can take into our database of contacts without retyping.
Cheap and easy accessibility has made it possible for any individual or organization to create an Internet site. Sites have sprung up devoted to historical topics ranging from ancient Egypt to the history of computing. Many of the best sites are created by individuals with little or no institutional support.
On the Internet, distance and time are irrelevant. For example, the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland has an online database of 60,000 photographs on the history of medicine and public health nursing. You do not have to travel to Maryland to see the collection. You can see it on your computer at home. Nor do you have to pay for the cost of a long distance telephone connection. Your connection is to your local Internet Service Provider. Once you are on the Net, it makes no difference whether you are visiting a local repository or one far away.
When you make your virtual visit, to a local site or to a distant one, the doors are always open, at any time or day or night. If photos or documents are posted on the Internet, they are always available, because the machines never sleep.
We will come back to the subject of cataloging later, when its importance has become more clear. At this point, for many people, to hear that there is no equivalent to their library's card catalog will not cause an upset stomach. When they walk into their local library, they do not head for the card catalog, to look up the materials themselves, they head for the librarian, to have the librarian do it for them.
As Dear Abby would say, "Wake up and smell the coffee." The Age of Automation is the Age of Do-It-Yourself.
There are many who resist recognizing the obvious. The Internet thus abounds in messages of the genre "Help! Help! Help! My term paper is due tomorrow! Please describe the role of the movie industry in Los Angeles." Such messages might as well be put in a bottle and thrown into the ocean.
International cataloging standards already exist. The purpose of the History Database computer program is to make the standards easy to apply. In the course of teaching 60 workshops over 5 years, primarily to historical society volunteers with no previous cataloging experience, we have developed the program to the point that anyone willing to follow simple instructions can catalog successfully.
Future versions of the program will make extensive use of artificial intelligence. The figure on our logo, which you will see on our Home Page, is Thoth, the Egyptian god of history. For the researcher or cataloger, interaction with the program will resemble a dialogue with Thoth.
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The subject of this article is the use of computer database management, in combination with international cataloging standards, for historical research and writing. The procedures described are those which were used to write two institutional histories:
A computer database program allows a far better method. The researcher and project director or committee can review the research accomplished at any time in clear, legible, report or first-draft manuscript form. The researcher can easily print out reports containing the information gathered each month, or information on particular topics.
If you have already done a fair amount of writing, and you are well organized, when you sit down to write a chapter or article you probably start with a stack of three-by-five note cards. You spread the cards out on the desk like a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas. Then you work your way through the cards, translating your notes into first draft text. The cards in many cases are difficult to decipher, either because they are hand-written or because you have used abbreviations the meanings of which you do not recall several weeks, months, or years later.
Computer database management can make the writing process much easier and more efficient. When I sit down to write a chapter or article, I start with a first draft. The draft includes the footnotes, index, and bibliography. There are no note cards. The stage of translating from and re-typing note cards has been eliminated.
During research, I enter the information directly into a computer database. Information collected in the field, away from a desktop computer, is gathered with a portable computer. After collecting the information at libraries, archives, and other locations on my portable computer, I transfer the data directly into a database on a desktop computer.
Whether I am using a portable or a desktop machine, I type the information into a data entry form. Default Choices eliminate from 50 to 90 percent of the typing on the form, as the computer picks the most likely entry and offers it to me to accept or to change.
The last Field on the data entry form is a long DESCRIPTION Field. Here I type the material that I later want to use in the text. I type this material in first draft manuscript form, with complete sentences, rather than in cryptic, note-taking style. The data entry program includes all of the features common to word processors for entering and editing text.
When I am ready to write the chapter or article, I simply tell the database program to send the information over to the word processor.
I always considered writing footnotes to be the most aggravating part of scholarly writing. I do not have to write footnotes anymore. The database program does it for me. The program takes the bibliographic information, such as author and title, and creates a properly-formatted footnote. The Avery History contained 675 footnotes, and the California Club History held 494. I did not have to write any of them.
The organization will have access to all of the information gathered during the project, including those items that did not find their way into the final book. The information is easily understood, because it has been written in draft manuscript style.
The information can easily be retrieved, because it follows international cataloging standards. Five years later, no one will have to guess what term the historian used for trolley cars. The standards are clearly documented in Library of Congress Subject Headings and other publications, which are available at any library as well as distributed in print, on microfiche, and on CD-ROM. (The Library of Congress term for trolley cars is "Street-railroads.")
The database can also produce a list, in alphabetical order, of all of the subject headings used, and show how many times each subject appeared. The data collected by the project can be made available in printed form, with printed indexes for names, subjects, and sources. With the database immediately at hand in either printed or electronic form, the organization could easily look up, for example, the history of its policy positions on a certain issue.
Most of the information gathered will not find its way into the eventual published work. The unpublished material still has value, however. And particularly in the case of historical materials, the information does not lose its value over time. When a researcher gathers information about the founding of a Spanish mission or a Civil War battle, that material does not grow out-of-date five years later.
Even one lone researcher or writer, over the course of years of work, will build up a considerable inventory of information. But can you find a particular quote or fact which you recorded five years ago? Would you welcome the opportunity to write an article on a topic which you researched several years past? How much work would be involved in getting to those materials?
Your note cards are probably in the garage or attic where they were rained on last winter. If you can find the notes, and they are still legible, they are probably full of abbreviations which you made up at the time and whose meanings you have long forgotten.
The combination of computer database management with library and archival cataloging procedures will allow you to use the information that you have collected in the past in the same way that a business uses its inventory. The data will be there for you to draw upon. You can call it up immediately from the database whenever you have a question.
Unlike an inventory of goods, information is not exhausted through use. Instead, you can take advantage of each new project to add to and to deepen your understanding of the information collected previously. You can treat the total body of information which you have collected as a coherent whole.
Having the information available in database form greatly facilitates the research process. During research, information is most often collected in small, isolated, bits and pieces. Computer database management will allow you to explore quickly and easily many different possibilities for connections between the individual pieces.
An example of the need to bring together isolated pieces of information occurred while I was writing the California Club History. I pulled thousands of individual bits of data from one hundred years of the minutes of the board of directors. The items, when viewed individually, held little interest. But through database searching and manipulation I was able to pull together like items stretching over a one hundred year time span and weave them together into a story.
Publications such as the Harvard Business Review are available electronically, in full-text form, via online databases which are accessible over the telephone lines. The online services also offer bibliographic information, which the researcher can store for further investigation.
One specific example of the employment of machine-readable information was the use of oral history interview transcripts for the Avery History. The Avery Corporation had not maintained many of its written records, but all of the principal figures in its 50-year history were alive and available for interviews. Approximately 90 percent of the materials eventually used for the book were gathered through oral history interviews.
Secretaries at the Avery Corporation typed all of the interview transcripts from the recordings which I made. The secretaries typed the transcripts into a word processor. I then took the computer files into my word processor, cut out the quotations and excerpts that I wanted, and sent them over to the database.
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Last changed: January 15, 1996
