Eventually there will be a number of sites where papers, bibliographies, lectures, maps, and graphics will be stored, accessible to the ever-widening number of people with net access. Presently, there are two history-related FTP sites, at Mississippi State University and at the University of Kansas. The History Network was developed at the same time as another similar effort known as H-Net was being planned at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Richard Jensen, professor of history, and two graduate students were planning a project for training historians about the nets, and using history materials drawn from the networks. Jensen argued that half of the academic historians in the US have a powerful computer on their desks.
Many graduate students have one, or have convenient access.
The analogy is the Model T Ford, whose owners owned a wonderful machine, but used it only to drive to church on Sunday. H-Net is working with the American Historical Association and other established history groups, and with college and university history departments, to provide faculty training in the communications capabilities of PCs. Its training materials will be published on the History Network. H-Net has been officially endorsed by the AHA, the Organization of American Historians, and the Southern Historical Association, and will run training workshops at their annual conventions. The major new source H-Net will create is a combined retrospective index to the major history journals.