“Open source” encapsulates the idea that knowledge should be free, and that people should be able to hack, modify or improve upon existing products. Can we imagine historical work “without owners and with multiple, anonymous authors,” as Rosenzweig puts it? What will that mean for the future of the historian’s craft?
Readings for Discussion
Cohen, Daniel J. “![[WWW]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/sycamore-www.png){kind=small}
The Wikipedia Story That’s Being Missed,” dancohen.org (20 Dec 2005).
Cohen, Daniel J. and Roy Rosenzweig. “Owning the Past,” Digital History. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2005.
Cohen, Daniel J., Michael Frisch, Patrick Gallagher, Steven Mintz, Kirsten Sword, Amy Murrell Taylor, William G. Thomas III, and William J. Turkel. "Interchange: The Promise of Digital History," Journal of American History 95, no. 2 (Sep 2008). (N.B. You have to log in to the UWO library to access this paper).
Cohen, Patricia. “At Harvard, a Proposal to Publish Free on Web,” New York Times (12 Feb 2008).
Jordan, John. “For a Canadian Wikipedia,” Participant Historian (7 Nov 2006). N.B. John wrote this blog post for this class in 2006, and won the coveted Cliopatria Award for Best Post.
Lessig, Lawrence. “Protecting Mickey Mouse at Art's Expense,” New York Times (18 Jan 2003).
Lessig, Lawrence. “The People Own Ideas! Do We Want Music, Software, and Books To Be Free -- Or Not?” Technology Review (Jun 2005).
Lessig, Lawrence. “Creatives Face a Closed Net,” Financial Times (28 Dec 2005).
Rosenzweig, Roy. “The Road to Xanadu: Public and Private Pathways on the History Web,” Journal of American History 88, no. 2 (Sep 2001): 548-579.
Rosenzweig, Roy. “Should Historical Scholarship Be Free?” AHA Perspectives (Apr 2005).
Rosenzweig, Roy. “Digital Archives are a Gift of Wisdom to Be Used Wisely,” Chronicle of Higher Education 51, no. 42 (24 Jun 2005): B20.
Rosenzweig, Roy. “Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past,” Journal of American History 93, no. 1 (Jun 2006): 117-146.
Schiff, Stacy. “Know It All,” The New Yorker (31 Jul 2006).
Stallman, Richard M. “The Free Software Definition,” (2004).
Unsworth, John M. “The Next Wave: Liberation Technology,” Chronicle of Higher Education 50, no. 21 (30 Jan 2004).
