At the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey (an undergraduate and graduate college of the arts, sciences and professional studies) there is a man who walks a different path, the digital path. As a historian, he began his journey with a PhD. in early European history, but the story of John Theibault does not stop there. His published works includes books like A Short History of Europe, 1600-1815: Search for a Reasonable World and German Villages in Crisis: Rural Life in Hesse- Kassel and the Thirty Years’ War, 1580 -1720. He had a long career of teaching. He was not satisfied with the status quo and went to business school after moving to New Jersey. During the Dot-Com rage, John took a class in digital marketing and instantly fell in love with it. His passion for digital technology flourished as he began to work for a digital press for online college books long before the idea of digital reading media was popularized by amazon or apple.
Although his company closed its doors in 2002, John was inspired by the online textbooks of his past. I asked John about his thoughts on his old company and its failure. He stated that the small niche was created due to the overwhelming need for digitized media sources, but profit concerns, piracy, and online unsecure testing materials made it a hard buy for students and faculty.
John told me, he believes that we must expand the online environment through networking similar things in order to teach or lecture in the future. This virtual online environment can create a presentation that can not only be learned but also experienced.
John proudly works as the Administrator of Digital Products at Stockton College doing small end jobs for everyone who works with software. I asked him, what programs does he use normally. He replied to me with Zetero (a free endnote sharing), R (a statistical program), Omeka (for serious web publishers), and neatline (for timelines and maps). He procures best and the brightest software for the College. The best part is that it is usually free.
John still teaches a range of history courses on Early Modern Europe and a Visualizations in Digital History while grant writing. John told me that he is working on a new bibliographic visualization project. When ask what that does, he stated that the human experience can do more than just read along.
So in turn I asked him two last questions. What is the future of digital humanities? He answered simply, “I don’t know.” I did not accept that as a answer so he continued that he believes there is a hype associated with the term digital humanist. John thinks that in the long term that notion of digital will be part of an immersive environment that will become a natural and ordinary part of life. He predicts devises that would give individuals or groups a shared experience of an event whether in the past or present. Experience an audio tour or 3D theater that is a virtual world that user direct. “You are the experience!” John predicates that long before it comes to personal use, look for Hollywood to capitalize on the changes in the digital age.
My final question was the future of media and media storage. John brought up the shared experience of a movie theater today. Do we not think a movie is more funny by hearing others laugh? Movies may survive, but the distinction between movies, websites, and other digital media will begin to bleed together. However, John looks to the next few years and believes that the IPAD style tablet with continuous live streaming will begin to make waves in your home first.
Thank You Director John Theibault.
By Stephen Gentry