(Written and Mounted April 30, 2000)
Regular visitors to public history Web sites include historians and non-historians; academic and non-academic publics. Oft times, Web sites are used as the sole source of historical information on particular topics, particularly by K-12 and undergraduate students. Therefore, critical analysis of these sites is of the utmost importance. We as public historians have a responsibility to critique and evaluate these online resources, both to help improve the specific sites under review and to raise the bar for the entire field of public history. Site analyses provide benefits to several different groups:
- The user gains an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of a site and the validity and reliability of the information contained therein.
- The reviewed site benefits from a constructive outside appraisal.
- Un-reviewed public history sites benefit from having models of best practices and common pitfalls.
- Critical site analyses encourage better scholarship and more engaging presentations of public history.
- Ultimately, the historical record is served by site analyses; site reviews provide traces of presentations of public history on the Web during its first decade of existence.
