Here is new format for digital scholarly publishing I an considering for my new “book” project : a “perpetual history” that would be released serially and then refined and expanded for an indefinite period, rather like a one author Wikipedia article. Is this good idea? How could such a work be made interesting and useful for both scholars and Internet users, and legitimate as a form of scholarly publication? What platform should be used to create it? Citations would be the big problem. They have to be there, and it would be so exciting to have readers be able to click through to actual sources, but how could that be accomplished?

Discussion of this idea could easily be grouped in with other people’s idea for new formats.

So we’re on Twitter, Facebook (some of us are on Google+), We blog, use Tumblr or  post on Pinterest. But as historians, how do we use these tools to tell our story, our vision of the past in a very public realm?

When we do research or write a paper we use a variety of sources to tell a particular history. Each of these sources gives a different perspective supporting or negating each other.

In our work in the non-profit sector, the federal government, as consultants, students and educators, how do we make these tools work for us–how do we use each element to create a personal/organizational brand?  How exactly do we brand ourselves as historians online?

I would propose that we spend this session talking about lessons learned, and figuring out what the best way is to set up a digital brand dealing with history. I recently attended a conversation on personal branding for the DC Social Media club and I thought that it might be worth having a similar conversation at THATCamp about what works, what doesn’t work, and how to avoid obvious pitfalls.