Musings on Public History

Lessons in Event Planning

2010-10-03T08:13:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, September 26 McDougall United Church celebrated the 100^th anniversary of their current building (the congregation is 139 years old). I was one of three people involved in planning for the centenary, and I must say, it is a relief to have it over. It was the first such event I have been involved in, and I learned a number of lessons, which I thought I would share.

1. Start early

It might seem like common sense, but the earlier you start the more you can do. We decided to have a bake sale at the church in April to raise money for our event. We had a high turnout and were able to raise almost $700. We also reprinted cookbooks as an anniversary-related fundraiser (which I have already talked about). The cookbooks took much longer than anticipated to get scanned and printed, so again, I’m glad we started early. Starting early also gave me the opportunity to develop an exhibit in the church’s “Heritage Corner” on anniversary celebrations at the church, using documents and artifacts from the church’s archives. The amount of work that needs to be done is usually more than you’ll anticipate, so start early.

2. Open the lines of communication

Although the Anniversary Committee was small, it was important to communicate our ideas and progress to the church staff and council. Not only were they indispensible when it came to the actual event, but they had their own ideas on what we could incorporate.

3. If you don’t ask, then you don’t get

In other words, think big. We created a list of all the organizations in the city that have been involved, or we hope to be involved, with McDougall and sent them invitations. We also invited local politicians. Partly because of these invitations, we had nearly 200 people come out to celebrate with us, including the Mayor of Edmonton and Premier of Alberta.

4. Do your homework

I was asked to say a few words on the history of the church near the beginning of service, so rather than regurgitate the information that everyone seems to know, I went to the archives and did some research. Good thing I did. Turns out that I was the last of several people to speak that morning, after the Chair of Council, the former Moderator of the Alberta and Northwest Conference, two MLA’s, the Mayor and the Premier. And of course, everyone addressed some aspect of the church’s history. Because I went the extra mile and spent a few hours in the archives, I not only spoke of aspects that no one else covered, I told stories that most people in the building were completely unfamiliar with.

5. Call the media

Like the speakers, it served us well to think to think big and contact the media. As a result, there was an article written in Saturday’s Edmonton Journal about the upcoming event, two articles (Journal and CTV) on Monday morning about the event, and even a short piece on CTV News on Sunday night.

6. Ask for help

When the big day comes, you may need help getting everything done, so don’t be afraid to ask for some help. We relied on volunteers to usher guest inside, a few outside in the parking lot to help our dignitaries find a spot and then find the chapel where they could wait for service to begin, and a small army in the kitchen to prepare the food and drink for after service. We found willing volunteers and worked to their strengths, with great results.

The above were all painless lessons to learn, as it went great. However, like every event, there were a few hiccups (although I may be the only one who noticed them).

7. Inclusivity without tokenism

About a week before the event, someone suggested we have an Aboriginal blessing to begin our service. This would be a nod to the church’s past involvement with Aboriginals in Alberta as well as our current involvement with inner city ministries. I contacted the Aboriginal Relations Office at the City of Edmonton and asked how I might proceed. An Aboriginal Relations Officer made some enquiries, and while a local elder said he would do it, the Aboriginal Relations Officer decided that there was not enough time to go through the proper protocol and squashed the idea. I’m glad he did. McDougall United Church currently does not have a strong relationship with the First Nations, Métis or Inuit community in Edmonton. To ask someone from that community to come and speak, and then when they are done shuffle them aside and keep going would be tokenism, and would trivialize their contribution to our history. Yes, we want to be inclusive, but true inclusivity starts with building bridges in the community.

8. Involve yourself in everything

This is particularly important for public historians, who know bad history when they see it, and who have an obligation to correct it. As odd as it might have seemed, I should have asked to see the minister’s sermon and prayer before the service to check for historical inaccuracies. While it was fine for the most part, I did have a cringe when in the opening prayer he discussed how happy the First Nations peoples were to see settlers on their land. The helpful Indian is a common stereotype that allows us to acknowledge their presence without acknowledging the guilt and injustices of our past. Had I asked to see it before hand, I could have helped him rewrite it. The worst part is that I was one of the few people who likely even noticed. I great opportunity to challenge people’s notions of their past was missed.

McDougall's Heritage Cookbook, or "Now You're Cooking with History!"

2010-08-10T19:17:00.001-07:00

Edmonton’s McDougall United Church dates to 1871, and is among the oldest protestant congregations in Alberta. The current building, located in the city’s urban centre, is 100 years old as of September 1, 2010. Being a century old, the current church has its share of problems, including a roof in drastic need of repair. The Anniversary Committee has reprinted a cookbook originally published in 1953 by McDougall’s Evening Women’s Association. 3000 copies were printed and sold, raising over $2000 for the Organ Fund, which had been established a year earlier. The organ was showing its age, and needed extensive refurbishment, including a thorough cleaning, repair and replacement of parts both inside and out, a new console with unbleached tusk ivory and birch and rosewood pedals, new electro-pneumatic actions fitted to all manual and pedal stops, and the rep[air and restoration of the pipework. Undertaken by Norman Beard and William Hill and Son, both based in England, the job cost nearly $3000. The work was completed in September of 1955, around the same time the choir loft was renovated to its current configuration by local architectural firm Rule Wynn Rule. The refurbished organ, made possible by the hard work of the Evening Women’s Association and the sale of cookbooks, lasted until 1976, when the current organ was purchased and installed.
The book is 128 pages, and includes recipes for breads, pastries, cakes, cookies, pickles and relishes, jams and marmalades, meats, salads, candies, puddings, sauces, soups, sandwiches and beverages. There is a section on frozen foods, reflecting the larger societal trend towards home-freezers rather than community storage lockers. Interestingly, there is a short section dedicated to home economics, providing instructions on making your own silver polish and hand lotion, among other household tips. What I also really love about this book is that it is full of the advertisements of the original sponsors. Many of these companies have become household names in Edmonton, like the Garneau Theatre, and in Canada, like Woolworths.

By reprinting this cook book we are promoting the history of McDougall (and Edmonton), preserving the intangible heritage found in period cuisine, and raising money for the roof by selling the books for $15 each.

Banff Park Museum

2010-06-19T18:03:00.000-07:00

I was recently lucky enough to spend a weekend in Banff, and while I was there I visited the Banff Park Museum, a national historic site operated by Parks Canada. Its reason for designation, according to its Statement of Significance, is because it reflects an early approach to interpretation of natural history in museums, as well as its architecture.

The front facade of the Banff Park Museum.

The rear facade of the Banff Park Museum. This photo was taken from an adjacent park, which from 1904-1937 housed a small zoo. The closure of the zoo was a reflection of a change in parks management approach from the presentation of captive animals to their preservation in the wild.

An illustration of the former zoo.

This detail of a post is an example of the ornate Douglas Fir interior that contributes to the building’s historical significance.

Built without electricity, the lantern style design of the building maximized the light levels inside. The fenestration remains, but there are now UV filters on the windows to protect the collections on display.

This exhibit is in the centre of the building, and has not been altered since the early 20^th century.

A veiw of the museum from the second floor.

I found the Banff Park Museum really interesting. For less than four dollars visitors can wander through a museum of a museum, which for me is a really neat idea. Unfortunately, after eavesdropping on many of the visitors there with me, few people bothered to read the interpretation, and therefore the museological significance of the site is lost on most people.

Cultural Mapping

2010-06-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

On May 31, 2010 I attended a talk at MacEwan University’s Centre for the Arts entitled “Rediscovering the Wealth of Places: Why Cultural Mapping Matters to the Arts Community” by Greg Baeker, a founder of the Toronto-based consulting firm AuthentiCity.

Cultural mapping is a systematic approach to identifying and recording a community’s cultural assets. While not a new idea (see Gogan and Mercer, and Landry, it is starting to get attention and legitimacy as a way to develop a foundational perspective before the planning process begins.

History is an important aspect included in cultural mapping exercises, and relevant resources include museums, historic sites, listed/designated buildings, interpretive panels, libraries and archives. As a result cultural mapping is something in which public historians should take an active interest. Moreover, cultural mapping can help preserve a community’s intangible heritage, as seen in projects like New York’s City of Memory or Washington’s Share Your DC.

Cultural mapping can be a useful tool in rethinking history and sharing and planning culture. Consulting firms like AuthentiCity offer cultural mapping services for a fee, but anyone can undertake such a project. The free Cultural Mapping Toolkit produced by 2010 Legacies Now and the Creative City Network of Canada is a good place to start planning your project.

For most organizations, the collection of data is the easy part. The mapping element will no doubt prove more difficult. GIS is an obvious choice, but not all groups can afford the software, or have someone on hand who knows how it works. There are free software options available that may be of use, and learning curve varies depending on how complex the user wants their map. Google Maps and Yahoo! Maps are two of the more basic examples. More flexible programs include OSGeo, an open source geospatial software, and MapChat, an open source tool for integrating local information and maps.

LEGO - The Building Blocks of History

2010-05-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

Growing up I loved playing with LEGO. From the first case of random blocks to the sets of castles, pirates and spacemen, the idea of creating buildings fascinated me. As I grew older, my love for LEGO did not diminish, and I actually received a set as a gift only a few years ago. Once in a while I still pull out my LEGO and see what I can build. So what does a grown man playing with children’s toys have to do with history? Possibly a lot.

As the volunteer archivist for Alberta’s oldest Protestant congregation I am occasionally called upon to raise awareness of the church’s history among the congregation. One day, with this in mind, I took out my LEGO and built a representation of the 1873 McDougall church (the first Protestant church built in Edmonton). I brought the Lego building to the church and wouldn’t you know it, people (and not just children) seemed drawn to it, and wanted to talk to me about the church’s history.

While this all might sound a little strange, it is not as odd as it sounds. LEGO is becoming mainstream for people other than children. Artist Nathan Sawaya has toured the world with his exhibit The Art of the Brick, which was at the Edmonton’s Telus World of Science in 2009. In 2009 the Southern Alberta LEGO User’s Group (SALUG – and yes, it really exists), submitted some model railways that were incorporated into the exhibit Vistas: Artists on the Canadian Pacific Railway. LEGO is also being used to raise awareness of built heritage. The Royal Alberta Museum, for example, held an exhibit in 2006 that featured local historic buildings created by the Northern Alberta LEGO User’s Group (NALUG). The LEGO Corporation itself is also getting in on the action, with their Landmark and Architecture series, the most impressive of which to date is Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, Fallingwater. It may not be long before LEGO sets of the Roman Coliseum or Machu Picchu are available to enthusiasts of all ages. While some may decry the commoditisation of world culture, LEGO has the potential of being a very interesting medium for public history.

*The above photo is of the Alberta Legislature in LEGO, and is available on MDV's Flickr stream.

Activehistory.ca blog post

2010-04-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

Active History is a website that seeks to engage historians with the public through collaborative blogging. They have just posted an entry I submitted regarding the interactive streetscape I created in a class in interactive exhibit design. Check it out here

Exhibit Design Website

2010-04-10T04:43:00.000-07:00

Well, my exhibit design class with Dr. Bill Turkel is over, so I thought I would give my website a final plug. I worked on two projects over the semester: 3D digitization of artifacts from the UWO medical collection, and an interactive streetscape.

The digitization project was a little disappointing, as I didn’t get nearly as far with it as I would have liked, however I now have a much better understanding of the 3D digitization process, and the value such an undertaking would have in terms of interpretation and research.

The interactive streetscape turned out really well. I selected the east side of Richmond Street between Dundas and Queen in downtown London, Ontario as my sample. I then researched the buildings at ARCC (the UWO archives) and created 3D digital models of the buildings since 1905. From these models, I recreated how the streetscapes looked during 5 time periods: 1905, 1915, 1928, 1965, and 2010. I then created a program where the user would turn a knob and navigate through the streetscapes, which is intended to provide a better understanding of the built environment. As a final component of the project I created scale paper models of buildings, recreating the streetscape from c.1905.

Also included on the website are brief descriptions of the technologies that I used during the class, and small projects I did with each, including Google SketchUp, Waybe, Arduino, 3D Scanning, Inkscape, GIMP, and Processing.

For a more in depth look at any of these projects, feel free to check out the website.

The American Revolution through stamps in 66 seconds

2010-03-08T16:00:00.000-08:00

In 1971 Richard Nixon announced the beginning of the United States Bicentennial Era to commemorate the American War of Independence. As part of the many commemorative activities that took place, between 1971 and 1987 the National Postal Service released around 30 issues of stamps, resulting in over 120 unique pieces. I recently examined these stamps and gave a brief presentation on their commemorative aspects. An invaluable resource to my research was the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, which has a fantastic online catalogue that anyone interested in philately must browse.

Many of the stamps issued for the Bicentennial portrayed important Revolutionary symbols such as the fifer, drummers, George Washington, Valley Forge, and iconic pieces of art by such artists as John Trumbull, Charles Willson Peale, and Emmanuel Leutze and Eastman Johnson.

Since the 1970s the United States Postal Service has maintained the policy that commemorative stamps will only be released for anniversaries in fifty year increments. As a result, stamps memorializing the 200th anniversary of the Revolution issued between 1971 and 1987 created a chronological timeline of the birth of United States. As part of my presentation I wanted to show how history might be told through those stamps alone, and prepared a slide presentation using iconic images in stamps to tell the story. This was the result.

American Revolution Through Stamps

How effective were the stamps in promoting an educated social memory about the American Revolution? Probably not very. Spread over 16 years, the stamps typically would not have been seen often enough to tell a historical narrative. Furthermore, only 4 of the 122 stamps that I looked at had any sort of explanation regarding the subject matter, which opens the door to misinterpretation and the reinforcement of preconceived, possibly ahistorical view on the period. The greatest achievement that can likely be said about the stamps is that they promoted awareness of the Bicentennial Era, and hopefully prompted some individuals to take a deeper look into their nation’s history.

Note:
Some of the technology I used to create this slide show include:

PowerPoint.
iTunes to download Stars and Stipes Forever by Knights Bridge (please don't sue me).
Audacity, an open source sound editor that I used to convert the song to an MP3, to cut the song down to 1:06 and to taper the ending.
SlideShare, to upload the PowerPoint presentation to the web and add music.

3D Scanning

2010-03-05T14:42:00.000-08:00

Anyone who’s ever seen a Bond movie knows that lasers are awesome, but it turns out that lasers can be used for more than cutting secret agents in half and blowing up the moon. In fact, one thing you can do with lasers is 3D scanning. 3D scanning uses a digital camera and yes, lasers, to create a precise digital representation of a three dimensional object, and is becoming increasingly common in museums and other cultural industries.

Other than a great opportunity to play with lasers, you might wonder why would anyone want to do 3D scanning. Well, there are a few applications which immediately come to mind. A 3D scan of an object creates an exact replica in a 3D environment, which can be turned into physical objects using various types of machines. A mould can then be created using this new object without the same concerns that would apply to the actual artefact, such as fragility. With a mould created, you could make as many reproductions as you want in a variety of media, which could be used in interpretation or sold in a gift shop.

Another application that pertains to interpretation is that, with a 3D scan, you can use a digital environment to display the artefact, and visitors can manipulate it by turning it over, spinning it around, and even making it larger. This allows visitors to engage with the artefact directly and provides a greater learning opportunity. You could even use 3D representations to teach visitors about the process through which certain artifacts have been created. 3D representations of scans also allow for greater access to collections, as geographical boundaries are no longer an issue.

So why am I telling you all this? Well, I am doing some 3D scanning of my own, and while it is a bit of a learning curve, I expect to have at least a couple of the UWO’s medial artifacts scanned and compiled by next week. If you want to learn more about this little project, I invite you to check out my exhibit design website.

2010-02-21T09:27:00.000-08:00

The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape was written by James Howard Kunstler’s and first published in 1993. Though tracing the development of place in the United States, Kunstler argues that America’s built-landscapes, both urban and rural, have declined for numerous reasons, central among them the advent of the affordable automobile and the political, economic, and cultural forces that resulted. Although the book is nearly twenty years old, the issues Kunstler discusses regarding the places we live continue to be problems in the United States and Canada. Sprawling cities, declining local economies, developments that ignore human scale, and architecture that ignores traditional relationships people should have with their surroundings are still resulting in the dislocation of people and communities.

Since the 1980s a school of design has emerged called New Urbanism, which promotes a high standard of living through thoughtful, common sense design practices. Many of the tenets of this people-centred design paradigm can be fulfilled through the conservation of heritage resources. Conserving buildings and landscapes keeps our communities unique and builds sense of place, fostering local identity and pride. Retaining open spaces like parks and town squares ensures a continued public realm that helps maintain community ties, an important consideration in an age when commercial and suburban building practices marginalize public space in return for creating more profitable private space. Furthermore, many historic buildings were constructed for mixed commercial and residential use on a human scale, creating integrated communities, walkable streets and meaningful interaction between people and buildings.

I would strongly recommend The Geography of Nowhere to anyone interested in the evolution of North American human ecology.

How Fire has Shaped Alberta’s Main Streets

2010-02-17T12:21:00.000-08:00

Amid leaping flames and clouds of smoke, Fort Saskatchewan lost its landmark Fort Hotel on the evening of January 18th, 2010. Situated in the city’s old commercial core, the hotel had provided lodging since 1914, and was a well-known watering hole in the small city north of Edmonton. Though tragic, fires have historically been a common occurrence in Alberta’s communities and were an influential factor in shaping the province’s Main Streets since the early 20th century.

In the early 1900s fledgling communities in Alberta were composed mostly of homes and businesses built using inexpensive wood frame construction. In commercial areas such as Main Streets, buildings were huddled together with shared walls, sometimes separated by alleyways cluttered with storage sheds, outhouses and debris. Local business owners and residents feared the hugely destructive fires these conditions regularly caused.

Communities took precautionary measures to guard against the possibility of fire by establishing fire regulation zones around Main Streets, controlling the use and storage of flammable materials, and requiring permits to burn trash. Builders were encouraged to include fire walls between buildings and to use non-flammable materials such as brick, stone, and later concrete block. Buildings constructed of these fire resistant materials provided higher rents to owners and spurred growth by giving communities an air of permanence, thus attracting more residents, commerce and industry. With the advent of municipal governments, local taxes could be raised to establish volunteer fire departments and municipal water systems, the legacies of which continue to serve their local communities today. Some residents opposed these precautions because they led to increased taxes, and because the fire-resistant buildings were more expensive to build. However, most people supported the measures because they limited the destructiveness of fires and lowered the cost of fire insurance.

Despite all of these measures, devastating fires still occurred regularly. This element’s destructive legacy has left its mark on almost every city, town, and village in Alberta. Particularly devastating fires occurred in Athabasca in 1913, claiming multiple buildings. Around that same time in Rockyford the south half of Main Street was reduced to ash. Almost an entire block was lost Olds in 1923, and a 1932 blaze in Peace River saw one third of downtown reduced to rubble.

Disastrous fires such as these enabled the construction of clusters of new buildings that helped to redefine their communities. Streetscapes of brick, stone and concrete block are common sights in Alberta’s towns and villages today, and few of the original wooden commercial buildings remain. Alberta’s scenic Main Streets are tangible representations of the community’s evolution. The recent fire that claimed the Fort Hotel, while regrettable, is a continuation of process.

CHIN Digital Heritage Symposium 2010

2010-02-14T11:32:00.000-08:00

On February 4th and 5th, the Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN) held a Digital Heritage Symposium at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Through the generosity of the Public History Program at UWO I was able to participate online. It was my first online academic event, and I was pleased with how it turned out. I had originally thought that not being there in person would limit my interaction and ability to network; however this was not the case. Symposium organizers included a box through which online participants could submit questions, and by Tweeting my way through the proceedings using the appropriate hash marks (#dhs2010) I was linked to other online participants, and had some meaningful interaction with not only other participants, but with some presenters as well.

Of the nearly 25 speakers those two days, the following talks stood out for me.

Agnès Alfandari, Head of the Multimedia Department at the Louvre, discussed some of the Louvre’s partnership with the DNP Lab in Tokyo. The exhibits the partnership is producing are extraordinary.

Chris Mathieson, head of the small Vancouver Police Museum gave a great talk on social media in museums, a fitting topic since he has built the second largest Twitter following for a Canadian museum. During his presentation Chris mentioned that social media is the great equalizer between large and small museums (evidenced by the fact that Agnès Alfandari of the Louvre asked his advice on social media) as well as between museums and their communities.

The very engaging George Siemens, currently with Athabasca University, summarized the first day’s proceedings in a talk that included the future of digital technologies in museums, particularly social media and visualization.

Graham Larkin of the National Gallery of Canada spoke about their Provenance Research Project relating to their Nazi gap list (works that might have been stolen during the Second World War). This project is now complete, and Larkin would like to see a similar project done throughout Canada with the support of CHIN.

Stephen Fai of Carleton University spoke of the Cultural Diversity and Material Imagination in Saskatchewan Architecture project, which deals with the digital conservation and presentation of ethno-cultural building practices on the prairies.

The Reciprocal Research Network, discussed by Museum of Anthropology’s Susan Rowley was an excellent example of the potential for collective intelligence in academic research.

Artist in new media (read “digital”) Rafael Lozano-Hemmer was also present. He spoke about the challenges museums face in relation to new media/digital art, but also discussed a number of his works, which I found fascinating, particularly as I am currently enrolled in an interactive exhibit design class. Two projects which I found most interesting were his works Pulse Room and Under Scan.

Dance Dance Education

2010-01-18T14:26:00.000-08:00

I feel like I have been pretty quiet about the whole Exhibit Design project I began writing about in early January, so I figured I would give an update. The title of this entry relates to my first class in Exhibit Design, where Bill Turkel asked us to think about some history appliances that we might construct to help people engage with history in their everyday life. The premise of a history appliance is an interesting one, which I recommend you read more about in the blogs Digital History Hacks and Old is the New New.

Anyways, the idea that Dana Johnson and I came up with is the Dance Dance Education machine (brought to you by the good folks at Dance Dance Revolution). The basic idea is a LCD dance floor that teaches users different dances. The floor would be paired with a wall-mounted LCD screen to show both instruction and demonstrations of the dances. Cameras in the room could capture the user's movements for playback, and could possibly even provide feedback on how to improve. The experience would of course be set to authentic music. What Dana and I really liked about this idea was that it would help conserve dance as intangible cultural heritage by maintaining the ability for people to learn the movements regardless of if a living being is available to teach them.

One of the things I really enjoy about the Interactive Exhibit Design class has been creating ideas like the one above; ways in which people can learn history in engaging, non-traditional ways. Some of my ideas have, for one reason or another, been unfeasible, but I think that some show real promise. These later ones I have posted on my Exhibit Design Website, and I welcome you to take a look. As always, feedback is encouraged.

Google SketchUp and Public History

2010-01-10T12:22:00.000-08:00

Google SketchUp is a free 3D modeling software that allows the user to model physical objects on their computer. SketchUp works in conjunction with Google Earth through the 3D Buildings layer, and adds a further dimension for fans of Google Earth to explore. SketchUp is fun and relatively easy to use once you get hang of it.

3D modelling of built landscapes seems to be in the early stages of catching on, based on the number that currently appear in Google Earth (Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto are examples of Canadian cities with a good number of 3D building, whereas Montreal and Halifax seemed to have relatively few). In his 2003 article “Following in Rabelais’ Footsteps: Immersive History and the 3D Virtual Buildings Project”, John Bonnett explains that constructing 3D buildings is a promising way in which to engage the public with history. Today this is occurring in a number of ways, including through Google Earth Tours, which include worldwide virtual tours of cathedrals, castles and palaces, universities, rail stations, and buildings included on the United States' National Registry of Historic Places. Some 3D representations of heritage resources include information relating to the history of their construction and associated people and events. However, some of these suffer from the same issues of authority that plague Wikipedia, where writers include a pseudonym and do not have to include sources. Unlike Wikipedia however, if one were to find inaccurate information it is not a simple matter to correct the entry.

A surprising number of buildings in Alberta have been rendered in 3D by various contributors. Notably among them is a user named newfangled who has provided over 200, many in the Edmonton area. If historic buildings included a simple link to an authoritative site regarding the building’s history, the issue of authority might be addressed. Canadian sites that should be considered include HistoricPlaces.ca (which includes site-specific information on nationally designated resources) or HeRMIS (which includes site-specific information on provincial designated resources in Alberta). An interesting public history project might be to focus on creating 3D models of buildings in areas with high concentrations of historic buildings, such as Calgary`s Stephen Avenue, or Edmonton`s Old Strathcona, and link the models to municipal Statements of Significance, which serve to explain the historical value of a resource.

To see my early ventures into the world of SketchUp, please see my Interactive Exhibit Design website.

Interactive Exhibit Design and New Website

2010-01-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

The New Year has come and gone, and I am back at UWO working towards an MA in Public History. This semester I am continuing to explore the digital world in relation to public history through a course in interactive exhibit design, taught by Bill Turkel. Unlike a tradition graduate course in history, this class has no formal written component. Rather, it will be a series of projects that I design, program and fabricate, the process of which will be documented through a dedicated website I have created. Feel free to check the website often and see my progress, and I hope to provide brief updates using this blog and Twitter. As always, I encourage whatever comments and advice readers might have.

Reflections on Digital History

2009-12-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

I began this blog in September of 2009 as a requirement in my Digital History course, which I am taking as part of my MA in Public History. As a final exercise, my professor, Bill Turkel has asked each of us in the class to write a post looking back at our experiences in the class, what we have learned, how we view things differently, and what we have discovered about ourselves as future historians.

What I have learned is an easy, though lengthy answer, as it reads basically like the course syllabus. I have learned the power of the digital world and its potential use for historians, something already being explored by a number of academics and organizations. I have learned skills like HTML, CSS, blogging, tweeting, website design, data mining, visualization techniques, and how to create mashups and georeference with services like Google Maps. Furthermore, it has been impressed upon me that the internet is by no means a perfect medium, and that its democratizing aspect is both a great strength and a great weakness. Amateur history sites and reference sites like Wikipedia compete with academic history sites for peoples’ time and attention. I have learned that the best way in which to improve the internet as a source of good history is through engaging with it, be it through starting one’s own site, collaborating with others on theirs, or even just creating or editing Wikipedia entries.

Over the past few months, as I waded into this largely new world, I began to view things differently. The implications of copyright (and copyleft) have wide implications on my future work in public history, and while by no means an expert, I now have enough knowledge to comfortably navigate those potentially treacherous waters. I have also gained an appreciation of free and open source software such as CutePDF, and the graphic design programs GIMP and InkScape. I am also now more likely to notice the computers that subtly permeate our lives, and I try to think of ways in which these new (or new to me) technologies could be used in history or heritage.

Most importantly this course has helped to shape what kind of an historian I want to be. Prior to starting this program, my experiences had been in heritage, rather than history, and I believe this has come across in my blog posts. (A few weeks ago I ran my blog through the Blog Discourse Analyzer available through the Text Analysis Developers Alliance webpage and discovered that I had used the term ‘Heritage’ 36 times, where as the term ‘History’ only appeared 16 times.) I am passionate about local history and built heritage, and by taking this course I now have a better idea as to how I might better engage with the public and make history as relevant as possible through things like online publishing, interactive websites and collaborative online projects, as well as trough emerging technologies like augmented reality.

When I began this course, I was competent with both computers and the internet, but I never imagined the possibilities that have been presented to me over the past few months. I am looking forward to a second course with Bill, Interactive Exhibit Design, where I can continue engaging with digital technologies in a heritage-related context. This post by no means marks the end of this blog, and I plan to continue updating it as often as possible.

Mapping Heritage Resources in Edmonton

2009-11-26T19:58:00.000-08:00

Recently my fellow students and I have been discussing data mining and its implications to public historians. One of the articles we discussed was Dan Cohen's blog post What Americans Did on September 11, which in essence is an explanation of how he created a simple map using Google Earth to represent regions of the US, and whether residents prayed or watched CNN on 9/11 using information from the September 11 Digital Archive.

This, among other things, led my classmate Catherine Caughell to create a map of her own, which she posted on her blog. She did such a great job that I really wanted to try it myself, hence this post.

I used the Inventory and Register of Historic Resources in Edmonton as a data set, which is available on the City of Edmonton's website. This document includes the City's register of designated resources, the resources that have been recognized on the inventory, and resources that have been demolished.

Using this data set I spent a few minutes with Google Maps and Batchgeocode.com to map out the locations of the City's designated heritage resources.

View City of Edmonton Designated Heritage Resources in a larger map

The above results represent only an hour or so of work, and now that I know the basics, maps I create in the future should take even less time.

Numeric vs. Values-Based Evaluation of Heritage Properties

2009-11-21T14:04:00.000-08:00

Picture this if you will. A world-famous architect has been paid an enormous sum of money to create a brand new structure at a highly visible intersection in downtown London, Ontario. When completed, the new structure is considered an eyesore that disrupts what was once a lovely streetscape. While an excellent example of a particular style and design, the structure is reviled by all who see it, and becomes a landmark for misspent money and poor planning. Unfortunately for everyone involved, according to London’s newly revised Built Heritage Resource Evaluation document this much hated building would be considered a top priority for historical designation. Why? Because this building could potentially receive a priority 1 ranking for 7 of the City’s 14 possible evaluation criteria, which according to the “Priority Level Recommendation Rules” would make it one of “London’s most important heritage structures.”[i]

This is an extreme illustration of only one of the problems associated with a numerically-based evaluation system for heritage resources. Let me first say that when London revised their system, they used several other municipalities’ systems as guides, so they are by no means alone in dealing with the potential problems caused by a numerically based system.

A common critique of the numerically-based system is that it only values what is “old and beautiful”.[ii] Other shortfalls of a numerically-based system include the following.

1. Architecture, particularly high-style architecture, becomes over-represented due to the inflated scores it receives.

2. Representative examples of vernacular and working-class structures remain under-represented because they receive too few marks in the Architectural Significance category (which in London’s case is 42% of the marks, 50% if you include Landmark, which is often the case with high-style residential architecture).

3. The emphasis on architecture makes the designation of cultural landscapes more difficult.

4. The use of a formula in determining significance (or degree of significance) obfuscates the fact that evaluation is a very subjective practice. Individuals will undoubtedly interpret terms differently if they are not defined, such as determining rank based on associations that are “very strong”, “strong” or “moderate”. Until somebody defines these terms and makes the definitions widely available, there is no way to ensure consistency in evaluations.

A possible solution to the issues raised in numerically-based evaluation systems is the increasingly common practice of values-centred significance. In this system, a resources is considered to be either significant or not. It can be significant for any number of reasons, all of which are included in the London evaluation system. The difference is that in the values-based significance model a resource merits designation if it fulfills even a single criterion (although most fulfill several).

Benefits of values-centred evaluation include the following.
1. It is easier to designate buildings that are not of high architectural significance.

2. It accepts and legitimizes a whole range of values apart from the “old and beautiful”. This also recognized that values can change over time, and that different people can value the same resource for different reasons.

3. It lends itself to the designation of cultural landscapes which may not have architectural features to evaluate.

4. While still subjective, it makes the process far more transparent because interested parties will know exactly why a resource was designated rather than have to explain the scores given by multiple committee members and the reasoning behind them.

5. Values-based evaluation “can yield much more detailed, sensitive appraisals of significance” because they are not tied down to pre-determined questions about what is significant.[iii]

Values-centered evaluation is widely practiced, and has been gaining increasing popularity for a number of years. The federal government, as well as most, if not all provincial governments subscribe to this system, as do many municipalities. Perhaps it is time the City of London did as well.

[i] London Cultural Heritage Resources: Building and Property Evaluation Sheets, 10.
[ii] Randal Mason, “Theoretical and Practical Arguments for Values-Centered Preservation” CRM; The Journal of Heritage Stewardship Vol.3, No.2 (Summer 2006), 35.
[iii] Randall Mason, “Fixing Historic Preservation: A Constructive Critique of ‘Significance’” Places, Vol.16, No.1, 2003, 68.

Digitized Books Online

2009-11-17T06:47:00.000-08:00

This week in my digital history class, my professor, Bill Turkel, charged us with a very interesting task. He asked that we select eight books as found in the 1913-1914 Eaton’s Catalogue and find full digitized copies of them online. The following is explanation of the books I selected and my results.

Going through the hundreds of books listed in the catalogue, I tried to select a wide range of titles and genres, and attempted to pick obscure titles, although to be honest, I know so little about turn-of-the-century literature, that most of the titles were totally lost on me.

One of the first books I chose was Gospel Hymns Nos. 1-6, a hymnal that I have seen in the archives of my church, and I was therefore naturally curious as to whether or not it had been digitized and made available online. I was not disappointed, and quickly found the resource on the Internet Archive. It was part of the Americana Collection, and had been digitized by the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois. Formats available include a page view digitization available for view or download in a PDF format as well as a text only version in HTML markup, though I am not certain if the text had undergone additional SGML markup. It was interesting to see the work in text only, with no sheet music, because it provided a very good example of how a textual representation of a work can result in the loss of meaning.

Another book I chose to search for was Radford’s Practical Barn Plans. My experiences documenting farm buildings in Alberta have led me to realize how little information is available on barns and outbuildings in the province, and I am therefore always interested in broadening the scope of my knowledge. Again, I was not disappointed by the Internet Archive, through which one can search Google Books, the project under which this book had been digitized in 2007. Again, both page view and HTML were available, and it was another example of how meaning can be lost, as anyone trying to build a Radford-designed barn would struggle with the lack of graphics provided in the text only HTML version.

I also searched for several novels, including The Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum, a sequel to The Wizard of Oz; With Wolfe in Canada by C.A. Henty; A Very Naughty Girl by Mrs. L.T. Meade, advertised as a “Well-known and immensely popular novel”; and the boys’ adventure novel The Boy Scouts in the Philippines, which turned out to be a fascinating look into American imperialism at the beginning of the 20th century. I was able to find all of the above titles with little trouble. The Land of Oz was included in the Americana Collection, With Wolfe in Canada was digitized by the Gutenberg Project, and the Boy Scouts in the Philippines had been digitized by Google, and all were accessible through the Internet Archive. L.T. Meade had a number of books available through the Internet Archive, but A Very Naughty Girl was not among them. I ended up locating it through both Google Books, and the Electronic Text Center of the University of Virginia. Meade’s book was presented in text only, though with proper formatting, page breaks and page numbers. This seems to me a very suitable medium for the digitized copy, as the textual content is of primary significance, and the loss of information seemed negligible.

The final two books in my search proved surprising. Neither The Mystic Dream Book (because dream interpretation from the 1910s sounded really cool) nor The Galt Cook Book (because I love to cook) were available through the Internet Archive, but I did discover that they are both currently in print. The Mystic Dream Book is listed through Google Books, leading me to believe it has been digitized, however it has been republished 1937, 1992 and 1998, and new copies are currently available through Amazon, which is likely which Google has not made the text available. The Galt Cook Book was re-released in 2001 as The Early Canadian Galt Cook Book. When I discovered this, I thought it was a lost cause, but I tried a quick Google search and discovered it has been digitized and made available through Library and Archives Canada, as part of their online exhibit Bon Appetite: A Celebration of Canadian Cookbooks.

Through the process of these searches, I came to the following conclusions:

The staggering number of digitized texts available through the Internet Archive, Google Books and other similar initiatives are an excellent source of information.
Aggregator sites such as the Internet Archives are great tools, but are not perfect. Searching within individual project databases may provide titles the Internet Archive missed. Also, Google’s algorithmic search is a very powerful tool for finding digitized material.
This process has reinvigorated my interest in copyright and its inherent limitations on the reader. If we could deal with the copyright issues on out-of-print books, particularly those for which the copyright holder can no longer be found, the possibilities for Google Books, the Gutenberg Project and the Internet Archive, among others, is astounding.

My new webstie, or, my shortest postever

2009-11-10T06:58:00.000-08:00

I would like to take this opportunity to unveil my new website: http://sites.google.com/site/timogradypublichistorian/.

I created it through Google Sites (a very easy process) although my rudimentary skills with HTML came in handy in a few instances. Feel free to take a look - any feedback is much appreciated, as I plan to continue refining and expanding the site as time permits.

GIS and Public History

2009-11-07T07:54:00.000-08:00

GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems, which integrates hardware, software and data to allow for the graphic representation of information in a variety of forms that reveals relationships, patterns and trends. For a more detailed explanation visit the GIS website.

I recently received an introduction to GIS from Don Lafreniere, a graduate student in the Geography Department of UWO. Don showed some of my fellow students and me the things they were doing with GIS as historical geographers, much of which related directly to public history. For example, my classmates and I are currently researching homes in London neighbourhood to determine whether they qualify as historic resources. One criteria of significance in Ontario is contextual value, where the property is important in defining, maintaining or supporting the character of an area, or is physically, functionally, visually, or historically linked to its surroundings. (Designating Heritage Properties, Ontario Heritage Toolkit). We asked Don to create a map including all of our buildings, all the buildings in the area that are already designated, and all the buildings in the area that were included on the most recent heritage inventory (meaning they have been identified as significant but not yet designated). The resulting map took him only a few minutes to make, but should prove very useful when we argue for the contextual worth of our buildings to the local heritage review board.

GIS is certainly not new technology to heritage planners, but volunteer heritage boards have likely not had as much experience with the possibilities presented by GIS. Having someone at the meetings manipulating maps in real-time would make their decisions of what to designate, particularly when it comes to heritage areas, much easier. Saving the sequence of maps they created and viewed would also help them explain their reasoning latter, and would help establish more concrete precedents for them to look back on in the future.

One project the UWO geographers are working on is using GIS to map historic photographs, which would be an amazing resource for archives and those researching in them. The basic idea is to scan historic photos, tag them using Picasa(free software from Google) and then plot them with GIS so they will appear as points on a map. This project employs two of the most commonly used archival resources, maps and photos, and will help archives make these materials more accessible both physically and intellectually.

Because many of the users of an online geographically referenced historic photo collection would be non-academic, it is worth discussing how we can get the public to engage in the project. One way in which this could be done is through folksonomies (see The Hive Mind: Folksonomies and User-Based Tagging). Many archival collections have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of photographs, and the volume is far too large for archives, which struggle for funding as it is, to do it themselves. Having denizens of the internet tag the photos with geographic locators and keywords is a reasonable solution. One of the major criticisms of such an approach is that there is no unified language used in the description. For this reason, I would advocate creating an extensive list of keywords from which the user would have to choose, based on a codified list of terminology commonly accepted by archives, such as the UNESCO Thesaurus. An “other” category could exist which would allow the user to create their own tag, but it could not be the only identifier used. The “other” field would allow users to create their own meaning out of photos while giving project administrators an idea as to any popular tags they may have missed. Controlling the tags would also eliminate spelling errors, and allow for both keyword searches and Faceted Navigation.

Unfortunately, GIS is proprietary software and is currently too expensive for many non-profit institutions. However, the potential is there for an extremely useful, interactive tool that would help promote and engage the public with their past.

A Quick Introduction to Intangible Cultural Heritage in Alberta

2009-10-26T17:42:00.000-07:00

Everywhere I turn these days people are asking me: “What in the world is intangible cultural heritage?” Well, maybe they aren’t, but they should be. This post is meant to help the uninitiated understand what is meant by intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and how to identify it in their community.

So, what exactly is ICH? The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (better known as UNESCO) is a good place to start, as they have been actively involved in the conservation of ICH for a number of years. In 2003 the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage was adopted at the UNESCO General Conference in Paris. The Convention defines ICH in the following way:

“The “intangible cultural heritage” means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage.” (Article 2.1)

In March of 2009 I attended a workshop on ICH presented by the City of Edmonton and conducted by Dale Jarvis, intangible cultural heritage development officer for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Over the course of the workshop, Dale explained to participants that ICH is manifest in many ways, but can be broken down into the following five categories:

Oral Traditions and Expressions

Performing Arts

Social Practices, Rituals and Festive Events

Beliefs

Skills and Knowledge

The examples I am going to use came out of this workshop, and represent types of ICH found in a range of cultural and religious communities throughout Alberta. As you read you will no doubt notice some examples that fit your community as well.

Oral traditions and expressions encompass a number of different things, most notably languages. UNESCO has developed a list of the world’s endangered languages, four of which are located in Alberta. Other oral traditions and expressions identified by workshop participants included place names, particularly those which were informal or colloquial; immigration stories; camp songs; hymns; joke; playground games; and saying and rhymes such as those contained in the 1913 Western Canadian Dictionary and Phrase Book.

Performing arts identified as ICH in Alberta included the Shumka Dancers, a representation of Edmonton’s large Ukrainian population, as well as the emerging ICH of Aboriginal hip hop. Non-traditional instruments such as the spoons or whistling were also mentioned by several participants.

Social practices, rituals, and festive events included community fairs, exhibitions, rodeos, farmers markets, tea dances, perogy suppers, sports days, camp revival meetings, corn mazes and the Chautauqua.

Beliefs were a very interesting subset of ICH, and included such things as the use of horseshoes for luck, sayings about the weather, children not stepping on cracks, and Ukrainian practices of never shaking hands over the threshold of a home, leaving an axe in the doorway of the barn on New Year’s Eve to keep out evil spirits, and not whistling at the dinner table (young ladies who whistle at the table are said to marry bald men).

Skills and knowledge identified as ICH in Alberta include the construction of thatch roofs (a traditional Ukrainian building technique), local gardening techniques and knowledge of native vegetation, knitting, cooking traditional recipes, midwifery, and home economy skills such as making homemade cleaning products.

What are some examples of ICH present in your community, and how is it being preserved? It can be as simple as pulling out one of your grandmother’s recipes, or as complicated as mastering Ukrainian dance. Whatever it is, I will echo Dale Jarvis’ closing remarks at the workshop, and urge you to go out and get involved with ICH in your community; to make a conscious effort to preserve the intangible cultural heritage that is relevant to you.

If you are interested some of the things Canadians are doing to preserve their intangible cultural heritage, feel free to browse the links below.

ICH Inventory, NFLD

ICH Inventory, Quebec

Preserving the Music of Cape Breton Island

The Leather Archives and Museum

2009-10-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

Anybody following me on Twitter likely knows that while searching for information on oral history tonight I came across the website of the Leather Archives and Museum. Needless to say, I had to blog about it (but don’t worry, it will be short). I found the Leather Archives and Museum interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all, although small, it is active in scholarship. The library and archives collection contains 5,000 books; 12,000 magazines; over 100 journals; and more than 5,000 DVD’s, videos and audio tapes. The library and archives also provides research assistance by volunteers and in 2010 a visiting scholar stipend of up to $1,500 with a $500 travel allowance was offered to a researcher interested in using the collection. Finally, since 2003 the Leather Archives and Museum has published a quarterly journal which contains thoughtful articles, and while perhaps not traditionally academic, they are by no means amateur either. For example, there was a brief article in Vol.1 2003 relating to Google archiving all Usenet discussion forums, which were a significant online meeting place for “kinky folks”, and the implications this has for historical researchers.

While scholarship is present at the institution, the material is not presented as a one-way dialogue between expert and novice. Rather, the public is invited to engage with the Leather Archives and Museum by recommending library material to add to the collection.

The Leather Archives and Museum is active in the local community, and has had an average of 53 meetings or events per year since opening their doors in 1999. This is pretty impressive for a museum that is only open 4 days a week. The museum is also active in the online community, and maintains profiles on LiveJournal, Going, MySpace, YouTube, LibraryThing, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter.

Another interesting thing about the Leather Archives and Museum is its use of the internet. Because it is a small specialty museum it does not get an abundance of visitors to the site (the yearly average according to the website is only 1,133). However, the website gets over 400 unique hits a day, and over half of the visitors bookmark the site (also according to the website).

I could go on and on, but I told you this one would be short (I lied). I will end by urging you to check out their website, and especially their newsletters (they’re under Resources). The Leather Archives and Museum is a great example of a number of things:
1) how the gap between scholarship and public consumption is being bridged;
2) how “amateurs” can be the “experts”, harkening back to the days before the professionalization of history;
3) how a dedicated group of people can create a truly unique educational opportunity;
4) how the power of the digital age can be harnessed to develop your cultural institution as a physical and online community;
5) and how someone interested in oral history can unexpectedly gain a new appreciation for leather.

Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum

2009-10-18T05:08:00.000-07:00

This past Friday I was lucky enough to take part in the UWO History Society`s 25th annual field trip, which took me to two sites, the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum and Dundurn Castle, both located in Hamilton. Although Dundurn Castle was disappointing, I was really impressed with the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. Located near the Hamilton Airport, what makes this museum special is that many of their aircraft are kept in flying condition and are flown on a regular basis. At the beginning of our tour, long-time museum volunteer Ted Lowrey asked us to contemplate during our visit whether we felt it appropriate for the museum to fly their artifacts, particularly as some are quite rare. In this blog post I want to introduce some of the issues inherent in his question and provide readers with hopefully enough information to make an informed decision for themselves.

Preservation
The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum has been criticized for flying their aircraft partly because it puts the artifacts under undue strain and risk. This is a valid concern, as every few years tragedies occur at air shows when vintage planes crash and their pilots are killed. On the other hand, flying aircraft ensures their preservation. Because of the dangers associated with flight the Museum`s planes must be kept in excellent repair through preventative conservation to ensure the pilot`s safety. Therefore, what better way to ensure their proper care than by flying them regularly.

Authenticity
To help ensure the safety of everyone involved in the flights, some planes have had their original engines replaced with different models. In many cases this increases not only the safety of the aircraft, but its value as well. However, does replacing the original mechanical components of the plane negatively affect its authenticity? Sometimes. It was common practice during the active service of a number of planes to replace their engines to make them more effective. One well-known example of this was the Mustang, which became a well-respected aircraft during WWII when its original engines were systematically replaced with higher performance models. Therefore, if the engines are changed to period appropriate models then I do not believe the integrity has been compromised. However, other practices are more suspect. For example, some vintage plane aficionados have been known to install autopilot systems in their vintage planes, a slight against authenticity not only in the eyes of many museum professionals, but among many vintage plane enthusiasts as well.

Cost
Museums are not generally known for their overflowing coffers, and the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum is no different. The vast majority of mechanical work is done by museum volunteers (there are 300 of them), yet still, 75% of the museum’s $5 million annual operating budget goes towards the preservation and restoration of planes, as well as the fuel required to fly them. One of the ways in which the museum raises funds is by selling rides to members on select aircraft , which run from $50 for a 20 minute ride in a Dakota DC3, to $2000 for a 60 minute ride in a WWII Avro Lancaster bomber (one of only two left in the world capable of flight). While the prices might seem steep (or not, depending on how much you like planes), fuel is expensive, and increased flights mean increased strain on the planes, which in turn requires more frequent maintenance, which for something like the Lancaster can cost over $100,000. With these associated costs, is continuing to fly the collection financially sustainable?

In flying their aircraft, the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum raises a number of issues, such as preservation, authenticity, and associated cost, but in doing so they differentiate themselves from other museums with similar collections. They also have the opportunity to use their planes as travelling exhibits, which was done in the summer of 2009 when the Lancaster was flown from Hamilton to Edmonton, stopping in various locations along the way, typically met by large and excited crowds. This gave a large number of people the opportunity to see an important part of Canadian history which they otherwise may never had had a chance to experience. Should the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum fly their planes? I would argue yes, they should, but I put it to you to decide.

Copyright is giving me a headache

2009-10-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

As a public historian working within a digital framework, copyright is making my life difficult. How can public historians make history accessible when they can’t post things online for fear of being sued? For example, I’m looking at a journal from the 1870s, but the only version to which I have access is a reprint from 1970, which is presumably protected under copyright. Now I say presumably because it says copyright in the book, although I am sceptical because the original work, created in the 1870s, is squarely within the public domain, and there does not seem to be any value added in the re-released copy. Furthermore, some companies have the habit of unjustly claiming copyright on works that are in the public domain. The current copyright system hinders users like historians because it is up to us to figure out what is copyrighted and what is not. While this sounds simple, it is anything but (see Cohen and Rosenzweig’s Owning the Past). First of all, there is no unified idea of copyright – it is a constantly shifting set of rules. In the tradition print medium, right-holders typically will simply charge someone a fee for the ability to use their material in a book or article, however many will not allow the work to be posted online, regardless of the cost. It also differs by country, and since the internet recognizes no political borders, this is an issue. Many copyrighted works are out of print, and tracking down the rights-holders can be tricky, if not impossible. Some historians say that when you do not know if a work is copyrighted, move on and avoid possible trouble. However, that brings us back to my original point: how can public historians use contemporary documents to help explain history when we’re told we don’t have the right to use the document. Copyright needs to be rethought. The free software movement and ideas such as copyleft (see Stallman’s The Free Software Definition) are taking hold. However, the traditional views of copyright are well-entrenched, and bolstered by corporations with deep pockets and a lot to lose. As such, proponents of free software and copyleft have their work cut out for them if they expect to either change the current system, or create a new one.

I would like to end with two related quotes, the first by Thomas Jefferson (taken from Paul Courant’s “Scholarship and Academic Libraries (and their kin) in the World of Google”), and the second from Banksy, a graffiti artist and author of the ironically copyrighted book Wall and Piece.

“If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.”
Thomas Jefferson (1813)

“Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It’s your to take, re-arrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.”
Banksy (2006)

Strategies in a Culture of Digital Abundance

2009-10-06T16:16:00.000-07:00

Roy Rosenzweig is an influential voice in the emerging field of digital history. His article Scarcity or Abundance? Preserving the Past in a Digital Era raises the issue of how to preserve the increasing amount of primary and secondary sources accumulating online, and if successful, how will the practice of history adapt to having an almost complete historical record. The scope of information Rosenzweig presents in his article is quite large, and he discusses a number of very important issues. Over the next few paragraphs I will address some of the themes in Rosenzweig’s article by contextualizing the “abundance” of sources, introducing the ways in which individuals and organization are attempting to manage them, and discussing the issues of ownership and authority that must be re-examined by those working in history-related fields if they wish to preserve and make use of today’s digital culture.

Understanding the abundance of sources is essential if historians are to assist in their preservation and future use. Born-digital and digitized versions of analogue materials are being created at an astronomical rate. According to Lyman and Varian's "How Much Information", in 2002 alone five exabytes of digital information was produced – the equivalent of the contents of the Library of Congress, multiplied 37,000 times.

A number of different groups are working towards the preservation of this overwhelming amount of information, including archivists, librarians, private individuals, governments and corporations, although historians have thus far not been well represented. Preservation attempts have included creating direct print analogues or migration to more easily preserved mediums, however these projects lose the inherent value of the digital medium such as links, hypertextuality and the interactive or experiential aspect. Others have salvaged original equipment to ensure future readability of their documents, but these machines have a limited lifespan. The technical solution of emulation software has also been suggested but currently it is only a theoretical solution. While some believe that a perfect solution of total preservation is possible, it is unlikely that such a solution will be discovered in time to save much of our current digital culture, which is constantly disappearing. Rather, a combination of all of the above must be used to create effective, practical solutions to the preservation of digital culture.

As a result of the rapid growth of digital resources, the issue of ownership must be rethought. Already the source of debate by archivists and librarians, historians must enter the discussion. Private individuals and companies such as The Internet Archive, Microsoft’s Corbis , and several large publishing companies such as the Thompson Company have taken an entrepreneurial approach to digitizing analogue material and preserving/creating born-digital material. While the results of some these projects are freely accessible (as is the case with the Internet Archive through its Wayback Machine, most of the resources are leased to users for a profit. The corporations that control digital versions of analogue material, even those in the public realm, effectively own them as they control their access and use. In turn this has created what some call the “second digital divide”, disenfranchising scholars without access to universities that can afford the licensing fees, as well as high school students and teachers, the general public, and economically underdeveloped organizations in North America and abroad.[1] Ownership by corporations also affects the will and legal ability of libraries and archives from preserving the material. This is worrying, as libraries and archives have traditionally been responsible for the preservation of the historical record, and the corporations, who see digital content as a means of revenue generation, have no long-term preservation plans for the materials and may cease their operations once it is no longer profitable, with potentially devastating results to the contemporary historical record

The idea of authority, traditionally seen as the prerogative of academics, must also be rethought as a result of the current digital age. The widespread availability of sources online is creating greater accessibility of scholarly work to the public (even though much of it is hidden in the deep-web), and is making the work of amateurs and enthusiasts much more prevalent, which serves to erode traditional scholarly authority. Another example of the erosion of traditional authority is Wikipedia, which encourages contributions from everyone. Not only does this new forum not defer to academics, but it enables members of the public to directly challenge academic authority.[2] Authority of documents themselves is also becoming a greater issue. While analogue materials have long been subject to forgery, the ease with which a digital document can be faked is far higher, and it will no doubt take some creative thinking to ensure the continued authority of the historical record, as well as building public and scholars’ trust in the new digital medium. The authority to preserve digital material must also be evaluated. As mentioned above, due to restrictions on use by the companies who control access to the material, the traditional keepers of our shared memory (libraries and archives) can no longer preserve material in their traditional manner. Government departments are typically understaffed and underfunded, and cannot be looked to as standard-bearers. Even the private companies such as the Internet Archives, which uses bots to crawl the web taking snapshots of web pages, are limited in their preservation attempts by the aforementioned gated access and copyright restrictions.

In order to begin actively preserving today’s digital culture cooperation is needed between historians, librarians and archivists; between academics and the private sector; and between academics and non-academics. Many historians have taken the view that preservation is the responsibility of libraries and archives, and have therefore stayed out of the digital preservation dialogue. However, historians will be directly affected by the outcome of current strategizing, and therefore have a responsibility to engage in the debate. Although historians would like to keep everything, whereas librarians and archivists must take a more practical approach based on available resources, the three parties have a common purpose – to ensure the preservation of at least some of our current digital culture. As a united front, historians, librarians and archivists should cooperate with the private sector, which has the potential to be an able collaborative partner through funding, technology, and access to the vast digital collections already assembled. Finally, academics must be ready and willing to cooperate with the non-academic public, because ultimately, the current digital historical record should be preserved not just for academics, but for everyone.

[1] Rosenzweig, " The Road to Xanadu: Public and Private Pathways on the History Web," Journal of American History 88, no. 2 (Sep 2001): 548-579. http://chnm.gmu.edu/essays-on-history-new-media/essays/?essayid=9; Rosenzweig, " Should Historical Scholarship Be Free?" AHA Perspectives (Apr 2005). http://chnm.gmu.edu/essays-on-history-new-media/essays/?essayid=2
[2] Rosenzweig, " Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past," Journal of American History 93, no. 1 (Jun 2006): 117-146.

Struggling to Define Public History

2009-10-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

This past summer I mentioned to my local historical resource review board that I was preparing to head to UWO to pursue my MA in public history. When asked the seemingly inevitable question “What exactly is public history?” I found myself at a loss to explain it. I remember mumbling something inarticulate about archives, museums and heritage sites, but it reinforced in me the notion that I was embarking on an educational experience I couldn’t readily explain.

I have recently read several articles attempting to define public history and its relationship to academic history and was relieved to discover I was not the only one struggling to establish a succinct and easily explainable definition of public history. Of the numerous definitions and explanations I came across, I would like to share those which, to me, seemed the most intellectually approachable.

Margaret Conrad, in her article “Public History and its Discontents or History in the Age of Wikipedia” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 18,1 (2007): 1-26 defines public history as “applied heritage” and the “adaptation and application of the historian’s skills and outlook for the benefit of the public and private enterprises.” She also quotes from Debra DeRuyver, main editor for the Public History Resource Center, who lists the following as main elements of public history:
· “theories, methods, assumptions, and practices guiding identification, presentation, interpretation, and presentation of historical artifacts, texts, structures and landscapes in conjunction with and for the public;
· the interpretive process between the historian, the public and the object; and
· the belief that history and historical-cultural memory matter in day-to-day life.”

Rebecca Conrad in her article “Facepaint History in the Season of Introspection” (The Public Historian 25,4 (2003): 9-24) also mentions public historians’ acceptance, or even their embrace, of shared authority in interpretation. She goes on the explain that public historians do more than simply disseminate the knowledge of academic historians to the public, and that public historians do not work solely in museums, archives and historical sites. She contends that public historians distinguish themselves from academic historians not by where they practice history, but by how they practice it. Citing Donald Schön’s idea of “reflective practice”, Rebecca Conrad states that public history is practiced first through a foundation of historical knowledge and past experience. Using this foundation, public historians identify the problem (whatever it may be) and design an appropriate intervention, creating a scholarly defensible answer to a real world problem.

Based loosely on my own experiences, an example of this might be the case of a rural fire department (not to disparage rural fire departments) who want to burn down an old schoolhouse to allow them to practice fire-fighting, but the local historical association is up in arms about the potential loss, and a county meeting is held to debate the issue. A public historian is invited to mediate between the two sides, and to develop an answer to what to do with the building. Like an academic historian, the first job of the public historian would be to steep themselves in the history of the area and the particular site. This would also be an opportune time to speak with the community and discover why they value the site – its history and significance from the public’s perspective. From this base knowledge, the public historian could explain what would be lost should the building be destroyed, and, based on their prior experiences with similar projects, what might be gained should the building be saved and rehabilitated.

After my first, albeit brief, foray into the world of public history, were I asked again by the review board, just what is public history, I would have a vastly different response, and while I know it would not be perfect, it might go something like this:
“In many ways public history is similar to academic history, in that both disciplines research, write and publish on historical topics. However, public history is different because it includes working with the public with non-traditional resources such as material culture and oral history, to identify, interpret and present their past in a way that is both meaningful to them and academically defensible.”

SenseCam

2009-09-27T13:27:00.001-07:00

I recently heard about a new gadget Microsoft is working on called SenseCam. The basic premise is that it is a small camera that hangs around your neck, which automatically takes photos of people you encounter, or can be set to take photos at specific intervals of time, such as one every 60 seconds. Life Logging, as it is called, is one of many examples of how digital technology is being used to help us remember. More information about the SenseCam and Life Logging can be found here.

Now when I first head about this technology, I was unimpressed. With such an enormous amount of digital information being created every year, how are we going to deal with large amounts of people documenting their entire lives? Just to put this "enormous amount" of information into perspective, in 2002 five exabytes of digital information was produced. To put this into context, this amount of storage space is enough to store all the information in the library of congress, which contains 17 million books, 37,000 times over. If you're interested in these numbers check out Lyman and Varian's "How Much Information".

My opinion of Microsoft's SenseCam was change today, while I was walking through an old neighbourhood looking at the home (one of my favorite pastimes). It struck me how much more I could get out of my hobby of exploring residential architecture if I could easily record everything I saw. It would enable me not only to permanently archive my travels, but I could easily compare and contrast different neighbourhoods within a city, a region, a province, the country, or internationally. This technology would make decisions about heritage conservation and planning easier because you could take conservation boards on virtual tours of the area so they get a better sense of what they are dealing with. You could even perhaps tag buildings as you look at them based on architectural details, materials, style, design, significance and integrity, to name but a few. What's more, the cameras can record GPS information about where the photos were taken, making it easy to trace where the buildings are located.

Although SenseCam is only a research project at the moment, I can't wait for them to become commercially available so I can get one.

Katyn

2009-09-26T14:49:00.000-07:00

I just attended a special screening of Katyn, a Polish film documenting the events surrounding the mass execution of 12,000 Polish officers by the Soviet army in 1940. Although a dramatization of events, the filmmakers in several places used authentic footage of events. The film brought up many issues, such as authenticity of sources and the difficulties in remembering in the face of government-sponsored misinformation campaigns. Katyn was shown at UWO as a special presentation commemorating the start of the Second World War, and in honour of the large Polish population that has resided in London, many of whom attended the screening. Once the film had ended, nobody in the theatre said a word, although a few cried quietly. Half of the audience sat until the credits finished, only then leaving the theatre, still in silence. The screening of this film was made possible in part by the Polish Consulate in Toronto, the Polish Congress in Canada and the Polish Community in London, and represents a conscious effort on the part of the Polish people to remember a painful past.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0879843/

Why Teach History

2009-09-21T17:54:00.000-07:00

I recently read a “The Purpose of Teaching Canadian History”, written by Peter Seixas, the Canada Research Chair in Education at the University of British Columbia. (http://www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css/Css_36_2/ARpurposes_teaching_canadian_history.htm)
Seixas’ articulation of why we should teach history was very enlightening. Being a student of history, I of course have long-know its study is important, but it was more of an innate sense of value rather than an easily digestible list, such as Seixas has provided.

He outlines a number of benefits to teaching history (and thus developing an historical consciousness), including that:

history helps to shed light on present realities;
history helps shape our sense of identity;
judging past actions can explain indebtedness of some groups to others based on past injustices;
history can serve as a benchmark for determining if our present realities are getting better or worse;
and an historical consciousness can help us to think critically about what stories about the past we should believe, and what stories about the past we should tell.

I would urge history-lovers to keep this list handy (as I plan to do), for the next time someone scoffs at the study of our past as an irrelevant.

Social Media Revolution

2009-09-17T15:55:00.000-07:00

The following is a video created by Eric Qualman. His blog, Socialnomics - Social Media Blog, along with more information about the video can be found at http://socialnomics.net/2009/08/11/statistics-show-social-media-is-bigger-than-you-think/

The rapid, wide-spread dissemination of social media technology as described in the above video is precisely why historians, educators, museums workers and archivists must embrace technological advances and work towards new ways of engaging with the public. If the discipline of history cannot stay abreast of technology it may prove difficult to maintain relevance to mainstream society. At present there are many people actively working on history in the digital realm, evidenced by the numerous history-related blogs being written. An excellent list of some of these blogs can be found at Cliopatria’s extensive History Blog Roll (http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/9665.html). History blogs are an excellent example of how the study of history can use digital technology to reach vast numbers of people. The adoption of this type of technology will no doubt have effects on both the practice and perception of history, and though many are reluctant to embrace the Social Media Revolution we must accept these changing realities or possibly be left behind.

"Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute.” J. G. Ballard

Public history is everywhere (even in cows)

2009-09-14T18:06:00.000-07:00

So I realize that I've only been to a single class and done but a handful of readings on museums, but it seems that I am already developing a greater awareness of public history because I now see it everywhere. I picked up a copy of the London Free Press today and looked through it as I waited to get my student card. Wouldn't you know it, the paper had six (6!) articles in it relating to public history. Page A2 had a brief article on London's newly opened Jet Aircraft Museum ("Jet museum soars to new heights"). Another was a photo and just a could of sentences on the Moulin a Parole, the event held in Quebec City to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the battle of the Plains of Abraham (page C1). Another article on the same page was a photo and caption in which a mother and son look at names inscribed on a cenotaph of Mounties who died in the line of duty, one of whom passed in 1882 at Fort Walsh. In the World section on page C3 were two articles, the first of which was "Search on for 'lost' moon rocks" about the recent discovery at the Netherlands' national museum that what they had thought was (and displayed publicly as) the moon rock given to them by the United States was in reality a piece of petrified wood. The other article in the World section was "Ex-convicts in Italian city get second chance as tour guides", which introduces the idea currently being used in Naples whereby ex-convicts are given jobs as local ambassadors, helping tourists navigate their way safely between the city's many historically and artistically significant sites.
The final article I saw relating to public history is "Calf birth is 'cool'". Bear with me! This article is about this past weekend's Western Fair, at which over 100 people witnessed the birth of a calf. Now a few days ago I would have just said neat, but it has nothing to do with public history. However, today I was reading Museums in Motion by Edward Alexander, in which he describes zoos and botanical gardens as museums in which the objects are living things. Furthermore, Elain Heumann Gurian, in her article "What is the Object of this Exercise?", states that a museum object could also be an experience. Following the logic of these two scholars, I would argue that the birth of a calf at the an agricultural exhibition falls under public history. Who knew.

Hello good people of the internet!

2009-09-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

Where to begin. How about this: I've never blogged before, and seeing the letters pop up on this little white screen kind of makes me feel like Dougie Howser, where he reflect on what he's learned at the end of each episode. However, as you have likely figured out (my observant reader), I am not Dougie Howser, nor Neil Patrick Harris, but Tim O'Grady, currently a student in the Public History MA program offered at the University of Western Ontario.

I have always loved history and museums, and some of my best memories growing up revolve around trips to Calgary's Glenbow Museum and the city's large living history museum Heritage Park.

I have been working and volunteering in museums and archives for the past several years, including stints at the Lougheed House, a national historic site in Calgary, where I acted as a costumed interpreter and spent a summer in the archives; the Lock 3 Museum in St. Catharine's where I assisted in the collections department cataloguing textiles; and for the past three years at Heritage Collaborative Inc., an Edmonton-based consulting firm specializing in heritage planning.

I am really excited to begin my studies in public history at Western. It is going to be a big change from Edmonton, where I left my beautiful wife and terribly-behaved (but really cute) dog Mika, but I am ready for the challenge.