Found History

In an interview on the most recent Digital Campus, PublicDomainReprints.org founder Yakov Shafranovich notes that one of the most popular uses of his print-on-demand service for public domain Google and Open Content Alliance books is to supply out-of-print manuals to latter day blacksmiths, pigeon breeders, and others still working in ancient, but declining, trades. Last [...]

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On Monday Dave Lester pointed to the release of Google’s new timeline view of search results. Found History has often commented on the importance of timelines in public understanding of history and amateur historical practice, so this seems like it could be a big development in that space.
Google points out that the timeline view [...]

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Today Google marks the 46th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s space launch with another one of its commemorative logos. Clicking on it takes you to search results for “yuri AND gagarin”.

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Yesterday software engineer Matthew Gray from Inside Google Book Search posted a mashup/geo-visualization demonstrating how place name frequency changed over the course of 19th century publishing history. Gray’s four maps—one each from the 1800s, 1830s, 1860s, and 1890s—clearly point to a growing publishing industry and broader shifts in center of gravity from Europe to [...]

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He doesn’t call it historical archaeology, and there’s nothing to suggest he thinks of it that way, but that’s definitely what Michal Migurski’s “scar tissue” is. It’s also a very cool example of how web technology is democratizing history, helping ordinary people do some serious work.

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