The impact of HTBAR comes from its reliance on the power of visual language. Information transfer is much quicker and more complete through visual language than through textual language. In fact, the visual transfer of information is so powerful that it occurs before we are conscious that anything has happened – and therefore we can think nothing has happened. We can often assume that unless textual language is used, no learning has taken place.

This is very noticeable in most museums. Objects are often used as illustrations to large amounts of text, rather than as unmediated three dimensional objects, able to convey all the physical information that they hold. Of course, some text can bring out even more information latent within an object. However, the discipline of only using essential text as a secondary form of information transfer rather than a primary means is rare.

For most people, text is seen as more important than visual information. I take the opposite view, and intentionally reduce the importance of text across HTBAR in comparison to the visual. Adding detailed citations to a post would suggest to people that they ought to read the text, because that is the more important, serious and scholarly information provision. I take the opposite view.

I am also reluctant to add a separate citations page for three reasons: for the reason above – I do not want to suggest that the citations are the more scholarly and serious information; because I often have very minimal information available at all; and because I currently have no additional time at all in which to compile it to any satisfactory level. We expect to permanently increase the number of daily capsules from 3 to 6 very shortly.

I do of course understand that some people may be so interested in specific material as to want to explore further. To that end, we always place a link to the source at the end of each capsule – the ‘Thank you to…’ link. When I first began HTBAR, I only linked to the parent page of the source, rather than the specific child page. This was because I wanted people to keep stay on HTBAR rather than going to other sites. HTBAR’s audience is now strong enough for that not to be a concern, so we will now make sure that each ‘Thank you…’ link goes to the specific source for each capsule, wherever possible.

I am also extremely happy to correspond with anybody seeking more information, if I can possibly help.

Although one might expect to find detailed citations on a conventional history site, HTBAR is not a conventional history site. In fact, I would argue that it is not actually a history site at all. History is about the past, and I agree with William Faulkner:

‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’

Would a “Citations” page, perhaps hidden away beneath “Consulting” and “Privacy Policy”, which would contain, in date/posting order, whatever info you have in your possession about each post, be a possible compromise? That way the detail-fetishists like myself who want to chase off in pursuit can do so, but the integrity of the site’s overall appearance is undisturbed.

Anyway, thanks again -

I’m very much with the others on the topic of citing sources for your wonderful finds. I appreciate your preference for a clean and simple design, but a lack of sources equals a lack of essential context, to me at least.

Even a brief citation at the end of each post would be most useful. In the example above something as terse as “Source: Digital Collections section of the Library of Congress” would be unobtrusive enough.

In this particular instance, the images were sent to us with only the note that they were held by the Library of Congress, hence my comment. To find the images at the Library of Congress site, search for ‘New York panorama’ on the Digital Collections section of the Library of Congress.