"Can you do serious history on the web?", Carl Smith

The title of Carl Smith’s article is pretty much self-explanatory: “Can You Do Serious History on the Web?” wonders whether or not historical websites can be a relevant source of information and, as such, be considered as “serious history”. Smith’s point of view is that it is, indeed, possible to produce significant content on the Internet and he proceeds to prove this with the example of an online exhibition he curated on the Great Chicago Fire. Smith gives extensive examples from that experience to show how that type of history making is valid. The online-exhibit is made of two main chapters, each having galleries of images, libraries of texts as well as interpretive essays. Smith, in collaboration with others, worked on selecting images and texts, referred to and used some of the main research that have been produced on that question, and attempted to include some original approaches on the subject.
Early in his article, Smith offers to define “serious history”: it is an “original work that is responsibly based on primary sources, is intelligently informed by relevant scholarship, and makes a clear argument or group of arguments.” Smith admits that it might be a simplified definition, but it seems to cover the main and general aspects of what an in-depth historical work might be. In addition to being a significant work, the use of the web also brought some interesting opportunities for the exhibit. For instance, it enabled Smith to make available a large variety of texts. The form and the structure of the website also allowed the opportunity to bring together different texts, ideas and images in a way that might not be easy in a book or in a museum. Furthermore, because the website is going to be available online for an unlimited amount of time, it makes it possible for its visitors to come back, read the different texts at their own pace, or print what they want. Thanks to the evolution of graphic web designing, such intense texts and information can be presented in a very readable and visitor-friendly display. For Smith, not only is it important that it is a form of serious history, but the fact that people are encouraged to interact with history by themselves, explore and interpret it.
One of Smith’s central points is that he is not trying to sell a substitute way of making history, but rather a complementary one. Because of the new and different possibilities it conveys, the web is something that should be used by historians, and not rejected. The question that historians – teachers as well as scholars – should keep in mind is what they ultimately want to achieve, especially in the field of public history. If one of the goals is to reach a larger public, and transmit a qualitatively serious and comprehensive history, maybe using the web as a tool should be taken into account. Smith’s conclusion points at a very valid and crucial concept: “The only way to see to it that there is serious history on the web is to put it there ourselves.” The problem maybe lies in the fact that too many historians are still reluctant and doubtful about the digital and the online worlds. But is this based on reasonable judgment, or on some lack of knowledge on those new technologies and possibilities? The question has been thrown in the debate arena.