CHNM Essays: Lessons Learned from Building the Famous Trials Website

This essay describes Douglas Linder's experience in creating a history reference source online, which covers famous trials in history. He goes over a few major points on what he discovered made his site successful and accessible. Many of the points he goes over seem like very common sense advice. Much of his pointers run along the lines of make sure you enjoy what you are doing and go all out or do not attempt it at all. However, the sheer fact that a concept for a historical resource website became as successful as Linder's did is inspirational by itself. The main point of the article in making sure that the resource created is actually utilized by people online is one that I believe is an important concept for any history project that will be placed on the Internet.

One point I found particularly interesting was the concept of networking. While this is one of the common sense points in the article, I thought it was interesting how Linder seemed to emphasize selective linking. That is, he advocated not linking with everyone who asks to become a part of your project. In the scramble to make sure that one builds up a network these days, it may be prudent to stand back sometimes and ask oneself if associating with anyone with event he most remote connection to your topic may be ideal. Though one may share aclot of similarities, goals and practices can be completely different, even counter to what one is trying to attempt.

Interesting how the article starts out with a "Go Big" message and ends with "Enough's Enough".