"Isn't All History Public?"

A Touch of Professional Development

2010-10-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

On Monday, October 18, 2010, I was able to attend the Southwestern Ontario Past Perfect User Group Fall Conference 2010. The meeting was held at the Dufferin County Museum and Archives, which is a very beautiful and well-funded institution out in the middle of the Ontario countryside, just between the small towns of Shelburne and Alliston.

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of representatives at the meeting. There were staff members from Huron county, Bruce county, Guelph, the Canadian Air and Space Museum, etc, and it was really great to be able to get out and meet working museum professionals from other parts of Ontario.

Many of these people had been using the Past Perfect database for close to seven years (!) and really knew how to use the software effectively and to its fullest potential. This was especially mind-blowing for me, since both institutions I've been working in have mainly consisted of me and a few other colleagues trying to fumble our way through establishing a basic cataloging system. The prospects of using this software to keep track of donations or to put our exhibits online were so far from my mind that I'd more or less forgotten those options even existed!

With that said, many of the topics that were discussed did not really "apply to me" necessarily. For example, many institutions that had been working with Version 4 were just getting acquainted with Version 5 - though I think it was really good to see all of the upgrades and new features of the most recent version and how these changes were introduced to make the software more efficient I got to see how making "lists" can be used for a variety of different functions. Another neat feature is the option to put a slideshow of your own collections images on the main menu of the program!

Other topics that were discussed included security settings, assigning function keys, backing up data and putting your collections online. On that last topic, I really wished that the collections I'm working with were at the stage where we could put them on the internet for everyone to see. Our cataloguing system is just not quite there yet. But I learned about the different options for putting collections online: hosting your own website, using Past Perfect online for a fee, or exporting data to Artefacts Canada. I had never been exposed to this website before, but lots of institutions have put their collections up there for cyberspace to browse!

Another important topic that we discussed was Past Perfect Training. Bruce County was wondering what the best way would be to train their entire staff. The best methods were the online options. The online training is done live, giving users a chance to interact directly with the instructor. In addition, being connected with this Southwestern Ontario Past Perfect Users Group is an excellent resource in itself. Chances are, any glitch that we come up against, someone else has seen it and fixed it in the past. Who says history professionals aren't team players?!

So, how can I use what I've learned at this conference to help out smaller museums that are just warming up to the software? Well, with Banting House in particular, first and foremost, there needs to be someone else besides ME who is a) helping to catalog the collection and b) is trained on Past Perfect. I think that there really should be one big group training seminar so that all of our volunteers on board can work toward bringing the catalog up to date. It's not the most exciting work and most of the time, our volunteers are busy with public tours, the gift shop, and special events - those things quite rightly take priority. Unfortunately, in places that are understaffed yet always have a lot going on, cataloging is the first thing to be put on the back burner - but in that case, you only fall farther and farther behind with regards to maintaining accurate records.

Hm. This is frustrating. This is a frustrating cycle.

I really do feel that I've gained quite a bit from participating in this User Group and attending the Fall 2010 Conference. Thanks, all - if you're reading. :)

It Would Appear I've Dropped the Ball...

2010-10-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

...but who says I can't pick it up again?

Many many things have happened since I last updated at the beginning of August. Part of me wishes I could erase the time between. Those were simpler times.

Anyway, my internship officially ended on August 20, 2010. I handed in a 20pg report of things I had learned and spouted on and on about how fantastic my program and co-workers were. I sat through a debriefing meeting with my boss and my supervisor. My strengths and weaknesses were really closely examined, which I really appreciate.

I've discovered a few things about myself and where I fit in to the professional world through the whole process. For one thing, I have a severe attention deficit (!!!!). I really need to work for someone who is firm and gives deadlines and specific instructions. But at the same time, this means that I'm really good with project management, seeing the larger picture, and getting ideas off the ground.

Anyway, since then, I've definitely not been out of the public history scene altogether. I'm still volunteering a few days a week at Banting House and I'm still gathering hours at the JP Metras Sports Museum. I figured that there's no reason I shouldn't be trying to take full advantage of the learning experience and resume building that these institutions have to offer me while I'm still here.

Speaking of which, I'm not in Canada for too much longer at all (one month today!). I've been keeping busy with work, but trying to balance that with soaking up as much of Ontario as I possibly can before moving back to the far-away land of New York.

As I mentioned in my last post, Banting House has been buzzing, as we've been preparing for the 90th Anniversary of Banting's idea for insulin. We are celebrating with a sculpture unveiling and a "soft opening" of our latest exhibit "Stamping out Diabetes," which is really a history of diabetes that explores what it would have been like being diagnosed before, during, and after the discovery of insulin and even includes the lastest in diabetes research! Our curator is invisioning something wonderful, and no doubt, it will look fantastic in the end. I'm really glad to be witnessing the process of writing and designing a nationally significant exhibit. I also gave a group tour for the first time since June. Collections management has certainly been my most extensive area of experience, so I tend to get stuck in the basement quite frequently. Anyway, I had a rather large group of "gifted" grade 8 students.

Those types of experience don't make my choice between teaching and museums any easier....

I guess now is as good a time as any to admit that I don't really have any plans for when I go back to the states. That's the most frequently asked question as graduation approaches - "what are you going to do now?"

I don't know! I know that they say you really shouldn't expect a job to fall into your lap, that finding a job is a full time job, etc....My only game plan at this point is to make sure that every company that would even consider hiring me has my resume and then to just continue on with what I'm doing - volunteering and gaining work experience. Something will come up. Substitute teaching, contract work - those types of jobs have potential to become full-time, secure positions.

Am I worried that it will never happen for me?

No. My general answer to that question is always no.

Weeks 7-10: The Overcast of a Fundraising Event

2010-08-03T07:24:00.000-07:00

After another delightful two week vacation, I'm back to finish the final stretch of my internship at Banting House. I'm experiencing several emotions at the moment, but at the front of my mind is how I am going to reflect upon this entire summer and make myself sound accomplished for my 15-20 page final paper. There are several projects that I set out to accomplish that I have not finished, some that were never even started - but at the same time, there are some projects that grew very organically as I grew into the position. So that's all okay, I suppose.

Even this blog was not kept up the way I had intended. Let me explain the reason why I have not updated in over a month:

Banting and Friends II.

This fundraising event turned our office absolutely upside down - in a brilliant and exciting sort of way that really turned out to be worth it in the end. It was an experience unlike any other that I've had before in a professional setting. Two months ago, I had no idea...how would one even go about planning a special event of this magnitude? How many details are there to consider? How much money can we spend? How will it all physically come together? How in the world do we get people to come?

To someone who's a rookie in this sort of work, the past month was chaotic and overwhelming - but I learned SO much! It was especially helpful to experience how the office really worked as a team to pull everything together. I got to see the role of the advisory committee - the process of problem-solving and coming to a consensus and how important it is for members of the community to be involved. Once more, I got to see the curator of a small museum wear many many hats, as he was responsible for everything from tent assembly to opening remarks.

The two day event was such a success. It felt really good to know that we had created something from nothing and to watch people enjoy something that we had worked so hard for. The artists who were showcasing their work were wonderfully talented people. The chefs from Braise Food and Wine put out a delicious spread and were so much fun. All of our generous sponsors - the event just flowed so naturally and we couldn't have done it without these people.

Of course, our Saturday public event was cut a bit short due to the blackest clouds I've ever seen and lightning and some of that wet stuff from the sky. That day, I had a lesson in improvising and coordinating a plan in a matter of seconds. It's not that we hadn't considered bad weather - we just planned on good weather! Everything that we had constructed over the course of two days was taken down in about...ten minutes. We moved the artwork into the museum galleries and finished out the day! Magic.

It was really awesome to see that event take shape and to see people from the community come out and support their local artists and local heritage. It's reassuring to know that the work I'm doing is really appreciated by the public. These next two weeks, I'll definitely put the focus back on my projects that I had outlined in my workplan - but if there's one thing I've learned, that's not how the real world works. Things come up and interrupt your plan - that must be embraced.

Not to mention - September is Doors Open season, October is the 90th anniversary of insulin, and November is Diabetes Awareness month! Never a dull moment...

Week 6 - Midway Thoughts

2010-06-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

Ok - while it's true that I've been at Banting House a lot longer than six weeks, I really can't believe my internship is officially halfway through! We're actually having our Public History program reunion tomorrow afternoon. Has it really been over two months since I've seen some of these people?! The transition from student to professional does remarkable things to a person. A PROESSIONAL?! Is that really what I am now? Soon I'll have the business cards to prove it... :o)

In other related news, I have started putting hours in at the J.P. Metras Museum again. Summer projects include mostly a continuation of what our class was working on last semester - cataloging using the Past Perfect software. Hopefully, this skill will make me marketable in the future - because it's an awful lot of data entry - but this is how one gets her foot in the door in this field, no? Hopefully between Jordan and myself, we'll be able to get through the photograph collection and the artifacts that are on display already in Alumni Hall. This may be a completely unrealistic goal, but it's what we're working on. It will be interesting to see how much we can actually accomplish - and also pretty neat, since I have been working with this collection since September and I've been able to actually see what the application of our craft can do in terms of organization and accessiblity.

We had some pretty high pressure tours through Banting House this week. The regional directors of the CDA came for a visit and naturally, the curator was out for the day at a meeting, leaving me as the hostess. There have been quite a few occassions where CDA officers and staff come to Banting House for an official meeting place - it only makes sense that they return to where it all began, eh? They all tend to generally be in awe of the museum (and a little bit jealous that they don't get to have their offices in the actual birthplace of insulin) and leave with a feeling of inspiration and purpose. I think the tour went well.

One of the goals I have for my time here is to integrate more of a diabetes education into the museum tour. The first step is, of course, better training our tour guides and museum volunteers on the topic. When visitors ask questions in museums, they are usually about topics in which they have some sort of prior knowledge. At this particular museum, which is owned by a health charity, people are going to come in with their own opinions and sense of curiosity about diabetes - things they've grown up hearing, trying to relate to that one person they know who has diabetes. Now, while the museum staff is not there to provide health counseling, I personally don't feel right about not being able to answer questions about the disease that is central to the story of this house - I mean, that's why Banting House is here, isn't it? Other than the obvious historical value of the man and the story and the discovery, there is a flame burning outside our museum that really truly means something to a lot of people.

Anyway, I'm taking steps to further educate myself, at the very least.

Another noteworthy opportunity I had this week was to edit The Isletin, our quarterly newsletter. In addition to seeing my own article included as the first story, I got to observe what kinds of topics and stories go into a newsletter and I got to break down the strategy used by museums through the use of something like a newsletter. I got the sense that our target audience was made up of reliable donors - the people that sit on committees and are involved in events and promote the institution in the community - our members. There was a whole lot of "Get Involved" vibes that were radiating from this newsletter. I feel better prepared to put together or manage a newsletter in the future...

That's just another part of my buffet-style learning experience here!

Weeks 3 and 4 at Banting House - with a tiny Irish Interruption

2010-06-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

It is occurring to me at the moment just how lucky I am to know exactly what inspires me and to have the opportunities in several areas of my life to engage with those things. I'm not just having an emotional moment - it's entirely true. Let me explain.

I spent Week 3 of my internship plugging away on my current projects - not a lot of tours through the museum- which is okay because everyone at the office was getting excited for Victoria Day weekend plans.

Me - I was trying to mentally prepare for the adventure of a lifetime. I crossed over the lines of tourism and took up the role of "tourist" on a week long journey through Ireland with the incredibly talented band, Enter the Haggis and several of their closest friends, family, and fans. Now, if you've read up about me, you'll know that this was certainly not my first time traveling(it's one of my deepest passions), but this trip was so very unique for several reasons - and it was certainly the first time I ever REALLY felt like a "tourist" - in a good way!

First of all, I've never had the opportunity to take official tours or pay for tour guides, etc. All of my previous travels have consisted of sketchy hostels, a diet of bread and jam, and marveling at the sites from the outside. This time, I was traveling with a tour group on a trip that was planned out thoroughly by a travel agency. Everyday, we got on the tour bus and were whisked away to some scenic area of the Emerald Isle, oohing and ahhing and snapping thousands of photographs.

Perhaps my favorite part of traveling with Hammond Tours was our fantastic tour guide, John. Not only was he so adorable and charming that I wanted to take him home with me in my pocket - but the man knew EVERYTHING about his country. Being a tour guide myself, I was deeply impressed (and appreciated every word he had to say). I can honestly say I picked up some good tips from him - simple things, like the use of humor, and realizing that people are more comfortable around someone who's going to make a tour personal and fun. I really think I learned more than the average tourist on this trip - so thanks, John, if you're reading :o)

Another reason this trip was a little different is that it was really my first major travel experience as a Public History student. Throughout the week, I was having revelations of just how much my education has changed the way I see everything in the tourism industry. Thanks, Western! But seriously, I found myself extremely intellectually engaged - which only inspired me to further delve into a career in the Tourism and Heritage field. It may just be perfect for me, combining elements of history, culture, travel, and education. Now, if I could just find a position that combines all of those things, with a heavy emphasis on the travel part - as in, I would get to travel...a lot...as part of my job. Magic.

A girl can dream, right? If there's one thing I've learned in life so far, it's that you'll be shocked to discover the kinds of opportunities that can find you if you just keep yourself open to them.

So yes, after what was probably the most memorable experience of my life, I returned to Canada with several new friends, numerous photo albums, and a fresh new attitude.

Week 4 at Banting House has certainly proven to be dynamic and interesting. I came back to immediately discover that my article about Banting's beaker had been published in Western News. Awesome. Mission Write for the Public: Complete.

I've actually started accessioning the 2009 artifacts into the collection using the new Past Perfect software and getting my hands on the objects, labeling and such (wearing white gloves, of course). I've been finding a lot of neat stuff in the collection, for example, the old magazines - one from Vichy France mentioning Banting's plane crash and another from 1930 that includes a short story by Erich Maria Remarque, the author of "All Quiet on the Western Front" (that one had some seriously HILARIOUS old-timey adverts in it)

In addition, I have managed to actually complete a project (hooray) - I made an accessioning procedural checklist. I figured I shouldn't be the ONLY person who knows how to use Past Perfect - I won't be around forever, you know...

The most noteworthy accomplishment for this week was, again, tour-related. We had a group of elderly people with diabetes come through the museum (not unusual) - they were a multi-lingual group (unusual) who spoke Spanish and Polish and brought along two different translators. This was slightly intimidating for me. My Spanish is more than rusty, but the group seemed to really appreciate my efforts and that I could understand their questions and comments directly. I reflected upon what I had observed during my time in Ireland and remembered that most of the time, visitors just want to have an enjoyable experience, and perhaps learn something along the way.

In no time, I had forgotten the language barrier and was focused on conveying the messages of Banting House in a conversational manner. We had a ball!

It's amazing how little people (even those affected by the disease) know about diabetes...myself included. I love that I'm learning about health and nutrition and helping others educate themselves as well. For more information, check out the CDA website.

***Note: NEW BLOG DESIGN!! Enjoy the image of the famous and beautiful Cliffs of Moher in Ireland - reasons for the change, I hope, are obvious at this point... :o)

Work Week #2 - Banting House National Historic Site

2010-05-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

Week #2 started a day early for me. I ended up working on my first Monday off (let's be honest, I have zero other commitments for the time being). I'm really glad I did though! There was a bus tour coming in all the way from Kingston. One of the guests sits on our National Board, so it was kind of a big deal. Also in attendance on this tour was Frederick Banting's great niece! I took a lesson in museum/donor relations on that day. Who gets the ultimate authority? With whom do these artifacts belong? Museums really are sometimes at the mercy of the donors and thus must keep a decent relationship - especially with descendents who are still around. My boss couldn't get to me in time to warn me - so here I was taking her through the house and rambling off facts that she most definitely knew already.

Tuesday, I had the honor of experiencing a board meeting - and not only that, but I'm now apparently sitting on the Committee for two different fund raising/special events: Banting and Friends and the 90th Anniversary celebration. I've never worked in an office setting before. I've never sat on a board. I've never participated in a conference call. It was really interesting and exciting (not to mention, intimidating) to experience the business side of working in a museum.

We are launching a 5 million dollar campaign for renovations and it's the committee's job to seek out potential partners. Timing couldn't be better because we're working with three years of major anniversaries that we can capitalize on - but I suppose we need experts in the fields of marketing and business in order to make all of this happen. The most support I can offer is providing a networking presence online. This is where my task of setting up a blog comes into play. I've also been spending a lot of time researching the Twitter (follow me) community in order to find potential contacts and to see how other museums and historic sites are putting themselves out there.

I spent almost all day Wednesday dedicated to online marketing research. I found some pretty interesting and exciting stuff. First of all, there's http://museumblogs.org/about, which is a directory of museum-related bloggers - and also connected to a ton of other valuable resources such as podcasts, online video and exhibit editors, and a company that creates multi-touch, computer-based interactives for educational organizations (Ideum).

Also, I've been thinking of making a proposal for a foursquare account(a location-based social networking site and software for mobile devices that is also a game). This will allow visitors to "check in" when they visit our museum and then keep track of frequency, rewards, visitor comments, tips, etc. via text messages, twitter, and facebook. I'm planning on looking into the details of becoming a registered site.

How fun would it be to start a Twitter account for Fred Banting?! If he were still around, I'm almost certain he'd be an avid micro-blogger - plus, I've got access to daily diaries and memoirs, etc. I think it would be a good online presence.

My day was interrupted by a suprise tour group. They were from a "Young Men with Special Needs" facility in London. I scrambled to remember all of my special education training from undergrad...and stressful though it was, with guys wandering off the tour and wanting to test the antique medical instruments, it turned out to be the most fun tour I've done so far! The guys were really interested in what I had to say, had questions about absolutely EVERYTHING in the house, and were so appreciative of my time and energy! It was an extremely rewarding experience that put a smile on my face for the rest of the week...

The other big project that I've started turning wheels on is the PastPerfect accessioning process. It's a slightly newer version than the one I've worked with before, but I'm starting to master it quite quickly (or maybe I just feel that way because I'm the only one here who's even vaguely famililar with it). It's a far more involved process than the one I went through at the Metras Museum, as we've got a lot more information, documentation, and legal issues with the CDA Banting collection, so it's moving along quite slowly.

But, I suppose that's what the rest of the summer is for! Though I can hardly believe two weeks have already gone by!

Life after THE END - Week 1 AKA: The Baptism of Fire

2010-05-11T07:30:00.000-07:00

I realize that the title of this post may be a bit dramatic - but honestly, school is the only life I've ever known. Sitting here at my 9-5 job and knowing that as of now, I will not be going back to school in the fall is a very new feeling for me. In a way, this is fresh and exciting - in a way, this is terrifying.

Now that this blog is no longer graded or part of my participation mark, I'm feeling inspired to use it for ME and my own reflection on my work (yes, I realize this was the point all along, but I can be strange about these things). So...I'm hoping to make this a weekly ritual. It'll be good for me - and the reading won't be half bad! As it turns out, working at Banting House is a LOT more dynamic and lively than I anticipated!

Week 1 Mission: complete. My first week was a bit of a whirlwind. Despite all of the hours I spent at Banting House before my internship even started proved to be useful. In fact, I don't know how I would have pulled it off if I didn't jump the gun! My boss has been referring to my first week as "The Baptism of Fire" (which is so very, very encouraging).

My first day on the job consisted of a school tour, grade 7 and 8. I was mostly in charge of crowd control, since behavior managment is actually one of those areas of teaching that I'm pretty good at. But I watched and observed the content that was being given in each room of the museum tour, hoping that one day, I'd be able to know the material well enough to lead tours myself.

The middle of the week was spent on getting the wheels turning on my first project here, which is revising the volunteer manual. I realized, in trying to learn the tour myself, that the manual was even more outdated and overwhelming than I thought. It was last revised in 2003 and since then, whole galleries have been rotated, split up, removed, added, etc. - not to mention that the way it's set up requires volunteers and tour guides to commit an entire narrative of info to memory. I know that there are more effective ways to break this information down to make it more manageable.

Friday was the second tier of my Baptism of Fire. We had 97 people come through the museum in just one day! I never realized that historic homes could get so much traffic. There was a tour of boyscouts in the morning - to whom I gave my very first group tour! The volunteer that I was stationed with misunderstood and thought that I'd been working here since August, and thus left me to give the tour on my own - but it worked out because he didn't realize that it was only my fourth day on the job until I told him afterwards (at which he was quite embarrassed and impressed). Nothing like diving in head first! Later in the day, we had a bus tour of elderly people. This was more a of a "doors open" tour, in which I kind of floated around answering questions and telling random stories to people who looked interested. Just before closing, a couple from Jamaica came in and I gave them my first private tour of the house. I felt a bit more exposed during this tour, but I figured that I should take on the challenge because I would have to be in charge of the museum on my own sooner or later.

That day turned out to be sooner rather than later! The next day was my first Saturday duty. Museum staff is off on Saturdays and the museum is only kept open when there are volunteers to run it (they often have to close down due to lack of volunteers). They no longer have to worry about this (for the summer at least). It was very quiet for hours (I felt the anxiety of being alone in a very old house during a wind storm), but then about ten people came through the doors within an hour of each other!

It was actually a really neat experience. I had two families come in at the same time by coincidence who both had children with diabetes working on projects about Dr. Banting for school. Telling them the story behind their daily insulin needles was actually quite touching and rewarding in the end. The families really appreciated it.

Also, I got to have my first contact with a cash register and debit machine - which can prove to be challenging when you have zero work experience in retail! It was a very complete and well-rounded museum experience - from the responsibility of setting security alarms to the pressure of getting your facts straight.

All in a days work, I suppose!

A Window into our GIS Workshop

2010-03-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

Blogging during class is my favorite! THIS IS WHAT BLOGGING IS ALL ABOUT. I stand by my decisions to blog during class - it's quite stimulating...and even though I'm posting this nearly a month after our GIS workshop, this unfinished blog post has allowed me to capture my intrigue and to revisit it with new and revised thoughts. Actually, part of me wishes I had documented more of my learning experience in this way...

Today, our colleague Don LaFreniere is giving us an introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

What I'm realizing is that spatial analysis is pretty neat! As a teacher, I'm always looking for different ways to present information - and visualizations can be so incredibly useful. Using maps and geographic locations can be a great tool for showing historical patterns, correlations, and changes over time.

What I'm loving about this presentation is that I'm seeing all different kinds of examples of how GIS can be used to analyze historical data for both public and academic history. From simple projects like mapping heritage buildings and incorporating hyperlinks, to past digital history projects that include heritage walking tours using GPS technology...it's got my mind working away.

What kinds of things can I "georectify" in the future? For my IED project? For my internship? Personal diaries?! I never would have thought to spatially analyze something like that.

Now, we are actually going to be able to get our hands dirty by georectifying a London fire insurance plan and analyzing the Talbot Street neighborhood that we all did projects on last semester.

This process was fairly easy (as we were given extremely straight-forward and helpful directions) and is basically a way of saying this point on the map = this point on the fire insurance plan. In this way, we can line up any coordinates and use this process to analyze or manipulate old maps, etc.

I love when technology works. It's so very encouraging.

The next step is to digitize our heritage properties on Talbot (607 for me), which basically just involves outlining it and giving it a pretty color.

Now, we're taking all the people from the census data in London and assigning them to their properties - putting the Londoners in their houses - using a "spatial join" that will say that each polygon (house) contains this point (person). In this way, we have linked several important layers of information: a map of London, a fire insurance plan, and all the census data according to where each person lived.

Now that we have this useful tool that contains all of this information in a visually organized manner, it's much easier to pull a meaningful analysis from it. For example, who was living within 200 meters of the Templar property. How many of those people had domestic servants? Did the Protestants and Catholics settle in different areas of London?

I don't think I've become a GIS master in those few hours of scrambling to keep up with the steps (mostly because I was simultaneously blogging) - but I certainly think of it as valuable exposure. Perhaps with a little more exposure and a bit of assistance, I can put the utility of these concepts into practice!

Here's a very simple GIS type project that was completed for a Banting House online exhibit entitled Captain Frederick Banting: The Luckiest Boy in France. Made in conjunction with a permanent exhibit in the museum, online visitors can spatially visualize Banting's military journey and learn information about his service according to geographic location.

Over the next few months, I am aiming at either expanding upon this online military exhibit, or perhaps installing a new online exhibit that focuses on another well-kept secret of Frederick Banting's, which is his extensive portfolio of artwork. I'm going to have to spend some more time with the content in the exhibits to come up with something, as my creative genius is escaping me during these final weeks of graduate school.

Anyone have any neat ideas for an online exhibit? Sharing is caring. :o)

Internship Developments!

2010-03-10T10:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I had a meeting with Grant Maltman over at Banting House - the site of my future (not-so-distant-future) internship.

Several things were accomplished - not quite a finished work plan at this point, but I think I'm well on my way to coming up with something that will a) significantly benefit the national historic site and b) allow me to walk away with a variety of experiences in the small museum field. While it is true that I've already worked in a small museum, a national historic site is slightly different from a county historical society (and not only in prestige).

Grant and I discussed three main projects that we would both like to see develop during my time at Banting House this summer:

1) Installation of PastPerfect Software - How fantastic is it that I've been working on this exact project at the Metras Museum all year? Banting House has ordered the software and is aiming to catalogue their collection in a more efficient database. Since only 10 donations came into the collection last year, we are going to start there and work our way backwards. A major benefit of this process for me would be that most of the collection at Banting House is archival material, so I would be getting that sort of archives experience that I have not had yet in my public history adventures.

2) Banting House Blog - After observing my fabulous display of blogging technique, Grant decided that perhaps it would be beneficial for the museum to have a blog of its own! No, not really - but a blog would be another way for Banting House to get its message "out there" into cyberland. Also, might I add that their website is inconveniently linked through the CDAs site. It's not terribly accessible. It's not terribly helpful. SO...the blog might be a way to keep the public updated about what's going on at the site from month to month.

3) Volunteer Manual Revisions - One thing I have not yet experienced in my museum work is interpretation. I've never guided tours or had to answer questions about the collections I've worked with. This may come as a shock, since I have always had an overwhelming urge to educate. BUT, my background in education will hopefully come in handy in attempting to make the volunteer manuals a little more relevant and a little more user-friendly. I'm hoping to revise the way the information is presented to the volunteers so that they may learn the ropes with less of an overwhelming sensation, and also to perhaps revise the way in which the volunteers think when they are showing people around the house, so that they may present information or ask questions in a more engaging way.

These are only a few ideas that we bounced around yesterday. There's a lot that needs to be done and several ways in which I can help out, I'm sure. I was informed of a few interesting special events going on in July, which would give me some experience with event planning and networking, etc.

Also, I think I'm going to get my hands dirty and volunteer at the house as soon as possible (likely next month)! Saturdays seem to be a problem day for the museum to stay open (which is very unfortunate) and all that's needed is one volunteer to show the house *so if anyone is interested in volunteering at Banting House, the commitment is only 4 hrs a month*

*wink wink*

*nudge nudge*

The Simplest Lesson of All....

2010-02-24T14:15:00.001-08:00

Today, I learned something very important in class - and it's something my teachers have been telling me since I was a little girl:

SAVE OFTEN SILLY.

So much for my Inkscape jail house illustration >:O

The Banting House: London's Hidden Gem

2010-02-16T16:26:00.001-08:00

Ahhh, reading week... What's a grad student to do for a whole seven days to entertain her 16 year old brother? Drag him to local museums in search of an internship? Sounds like a good plan to me!

Today, my brother and I braved the bitter Canadian cold to venture across London and check out the birthplace of insulin. It seemed like an important place to see while I'm here, and as a National Historic Site, why not see if there was some work for me there?

Admittedly, the Banting House was not something I knew about before I moved to London - and even worse, the discovery of insulin was not something I've recognized as a Canadian triumph. But then again, why would I? I feel so very cheated sometimes with the version of history I've been brought up on in the American high school... I suppose that's why I'm here.

Tucked away on the not-so-scenic corner of Adelaide and Queen, stands a modest home with a extensive courtyard that distinguishes the Banting House from the rest of the buildings on the street. In particular, the Flame of Hope that burns next to the property is not only eye-catching, but captivating (not to mention, it commemorates the visit of the Queen to the site). One can't help but wonder - what is the story here?

And quite a story it is! The museum is a prime example of a pilgrimage destination that can really have a life-long effect on visitors. The museum director mentioned that there are three types of people who typically come into the museum: the cultural tourist, the academic/scientific researcher, and the people whose lives have been affected by diabetes. Even though each visitor is there for a different reason, they all seem to mention a particular aura, especially in the bedroom of Banting's house, where he awoke in the middle of the night to scrawl out his idea to fight diabetes. It can be quite an emotional experience. Even my brother (who isn't a fan of museums, school, or learning in general) said that this was the only museum he's ever been to that's managed to hold his interest.

The museum not only interprets the discovery of insulin and the fascinating life of Frederick Banting, but serves as a symbol for the on-going struggle against diabetes, people living with (and not dying from) the disease, and the hope that something better than insulin will soon be discovered.

With a mission like that, who wouldn't want to be a part of this museum?! If you haven't visited this site yet, I would highly recommend it - I tried not to give too much away here. The place is full of surprises and WOW-factor. Perhaps if you wander in during the summer months, I shall be enthusiastic intern who greets you at the door (which is quite stubborn to open and close, might I observe)!

ARDUINO...and Other Exciting Digital Ventures!

2010-02-12T15:24:00.001-08:00

I must admit, I did not see myself taking an interest in using the Arduino for my Interactive Exhibit Design project (despite its Italian charm). It's occurred to me now that this was because I didn't really understand the magnitude of what it could do and I couldn't see it fitting into my expedition through "Music as Information." I immediately associated it with robotics and electronics (words that send me running for the hills) and it didn't help that I had never even seen a "breadboard" before a few classes ago. Intimidating, for sure. But as the weeks have gone by, Arduino and I have become quite friendly - to the point where I've even taken one home to spend reading week with me!

After Wednesday's "Putting it all together" class, I've not only discovered that YES, the Arduino can definitely teach me some neat things about Music as Information, but this could be something I'd be interested in as a hobby. Basically, the project that Bill took us through in class was using an Arduino and an accelerometer to communicate through the Processing program on a computer. Using a library called SoundCipher, it is possible to have the values being read from the accelerometer be represented with musical pitches. Once I realized where the class demonstration was going, the wheels started turning in my head.

I'm envisioning musical composition through body movement - a sort of marriage of interpretive dance and improvisational music. It would be a difficult art to master, but possibly rather easy to create (if I'm not underestimating the logistics here). LilyPads - the wearable Arduino - one for each sleeve and pant leg.

The specifics would be a lot easier to see in my head if I had actually been successful in getting the Processing sketch to actually play notes like Bill had done in class.

This is where the home-adventure begins. I tried following the example and directions from the class wiki. I was successful in opening the serial monitor so that I could view the values that the accelerometer was reading. When it came time to use those values to control a sketch in Processing, I was not so successful. I followed the Graph tutorial on the Arduino website and copied the code, but I wasn't sure how to get Processing to recognize the accelerometer values. The code worked and my graph ran perfectly, but it didn't show any values.

This was frustrating...I definitely don't know enough yet to diagnose problems on my own.

So... not wanting the adventure to be a total and utter fail, I left it and just played with SoundCipher for the rest of the night!

Exciting things started happening after that (well, I'm easily amused by musical ventures). I explored all of the tutorials in SoundCipher just to get a feel for what I could possibly do with it in the future. Then, I set off on a very small project, but I'm pretty proud of it, I must admit.

I created a monophonic song with the simple bing program. This program plays a single note and defines its pitch, dynamic, and duration. This is the most basic thing one can do with SoundCipher, but I wanted to see if I could really figure out how digital/algorithmic music works. The only knowledge I started with was that the numeric value assigned to a middle C note is 60. From there, I used the playPhrase program and I created a C chromatic scale to make sure the values for the notes were consecutive. Then, I created a one-octave C scale so that I could map out which notes I would be able to use for a song played in the key of C (60, 62, 64, 65, 67, 69, 71, 72).

And then I wrote a simple childhood song! Here's the code:

import arb.soundcipher.*;

SoundCipher sc = new SoundCipher(this);

float[] pitches = {72, 69, 65, 60, 62, 64, 65, 62, 65, 60, 67, 72, 69, 65, 62, 64, 65, 67, 69, 67, 69, 70, 69, 67, 72, 69, 67, 65, 67, 69, 65, 62, 65, 62, 60, 60, 65, 69, 67, 60, 65, 69, 67, 69, 70, 72, 69, 65, 67, 60, 65};
float [] dynamics = {80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80 ,80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80, 80};
float[] durations = {1.5, 1.5, 1.5, 1.5, .5, .5, .5, 1, .5, 3, 1.5, 1.5, 1.5, 1.5, .5, .5, .5, 1, .5, 3, .5, .5, .5, .5, 1, .5, .5, 2, .5, 1, .5, 1, .5, .5, 2, .5, 1, .5, 1,.5, 1, .5, .5, .5, .5,.5,.5,.5,1,.5, 3};

sc.playPhrase(pitches, dynamics, durations);

I understand that there are very few other people who will be excited by this, but it was an extremely satisfying experience for me.

CREATION.

It's a bit annoying that each and every note has to be assigned a dynamic. In this case, I just wanted all the notes to be the same intensity. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but I don't know how. Also, I wonder if there is a way to set a time signature - because I realized halfway through my song that I was smart enough to pick one that was in 6/8 time...which is a pain to feel out, especially when trying to convert beats into seconds.

But there you have it - "Bicycle Built for Two" is a musical and historic gem, one must admit.

In the future, I would really like to figure out how to use the score setting so that I could add chords on top of the notes and have them play at a specific time. Also, perhaps one day, I can understand how the algorithms work...but that would require a better grasp of mathematics in general...and I am in the field of history for a reason...

In the meantime, must resist the urge to recreate the theme song from Super Mario Brothers!

THE VISION

2010-01-23T15:06:00.000-08:00

I think I've finally got my thoughts in order for this Interactive Exhibit class. I see...A VISION. THE vision. I've already indicated on my website that I'm interested in creating something that conveys information through music. Admittedly, I had absolutely no idea HOW I would go about doing this, or even WHAT such an exhibit would look like, what kind of information it would be transmitting, or how people could use it. Enter: the vision.

I envision an exhibit that allows visitors to VIEW how people have historically used vocal expression to convey meaning. Not everyone is musically inclined and can't quite understand how music, or even sound, is really a rich language to be interpreted. I plan on taking a look at a couple different vocal media; for example, Inuit throat singing, opera, or perhaps even political speeches. The idea is that the visitor would be allowed to look at the visualization of the sounds and gather information about what the vocalist is trying to say without necessarily understanding the language of the words they are using. Sound does not need words to communicate. Perhaps by seeing the visualization of the sound, visitors who never had before will learn to Listen.

Ideally, the interactive part of the exhibit would be to create a way for visitors to visualize their own voices. This would require a real time translation of sound into visual design.

I'm not entirely sure HOW I'm going to pull all of this together. At the moment, I'm just trying not to overwhelm myself, so I'm taking "Processing: A Programming Hangbook for Visual Designers and Artists" by Casey Reas and Ben Fry, a day at a time. Thus far, I've been reading about the components of sound and essentially trying to re-learn a lot of high school physics (amplitude, frequency, oscillators, etc.). I think it helps a bit that I have a strong musical background and a general understanding of musical vocabulary like pitch, octaves, modulation, transposition, etc.

As far as digital representation of sound and music, this is where it starts getting a little complicated for me, as it combines a lot of math and digital code (there is a reason why I study history). However, I'm getting the general idea of sound synthesis and processing. For example, from what I understand, sampling allows you to synthesize all kinds of frequencies just by processing a single sound. Then you can either sustain the sound, modulate it, or even create echo and reverberation effects.

I've just begun tapping into the world of Audio Analysis, or the derivation of information from digitized sound. This allows us to create interactive systems that "listen" to audio input and tell us what it means. The most obvious example of this type of technology is speech recognition.One thing I've found that will probably be useful is the idea of "attack detection", which is programming a computer to trigger an event at the onset of a sound, or when the sound reaches a certain frequency or amplitude. In other words, you could create a program that would synchronize a visual action with just the percussive sounds of a recording. Another concept that I'll probably find useful is "timbral analysis," which allows us to transform audio signals into data that can then be mapped to interactive computer events. One way to derive data from a signal is to count the number of times the signal turns from positive to negative - or even filtering out the loudest frequencies to test their harmonics or timbre. Of course, all that I've mentioned thus far are nothing but concepts in a book, so I only very vaguely understand them. If I can get my hands on the technology and actually see, hear, and feel how these concepts work, I think this could be something I might be good at.

As I'm reading along, I haven't really come across anything that is going to map out exactly what I have to do with this project. It's going to be a learning experience that I'll have to piece together myself - and perhaps just let my interests take me where they will. I'm really interested in how digital technology has changed the face of the music industry, for example, but I've never understood how sound engineering works. I'm learning now though, because of this project (which only illustrates further the beauty of this degree).

I suppose it's only natural that I lean toward sound for this project - my mother being both an audiologist and a musician on the side. Conversations of music theory and hearing aides were not uncommon around my dinner table. Though I can't say that I ever foresaw myself studying these things seriously...or the convergence of several of my passions in one class!

Roll On, Round Two!

2010-01-08T22:23:00.000-08:00

Here I am, back in the land of the maple leaf. I couldn't be more thrilled, all sarcasm aside. I missed Western and my friends and learning and even working - working toward something and feeling a sense of accomplishment. So I'm getting back on the horse here. It should be a productive and exciting semester!

All of my public history projects are rolling along quite nicely and I'm looking forward to seeing the end results. I'm venturing out into the world of academic history, for real this time, not just auditing - so that's a bit scary. It's not difficult to see that last semester has turned me into a completely different historian, so it should be interesting to see how I tackle that course.

Finally, I've got my interactive exhibit design course! I still can't picture myself actually creating something technological with my own two hands. I have a hard time believing that my brain can work that way - but maybe it can! I'm feeling a bit of encouragement after hearing that I actually did really well in the first half of digital history. I never thought I'd see the day...but turns out "the day" was last Wednesday! Hmm...

So... I've started by updating my website. I'm toying around with a few ideas for my IED project, but I could really use some help with getting a more concrete vision. Feedback is much appreciated as always!

Breathing Life...

2009-12-22T21:12:00.000-08:00

"Observing the world observing world wonders is a favorite pastime. I get to be in the presence of natural beauty, and also the beauty of the curious visitor, the human in action - the human in awe. Like a fly on the wall in the Louvre, I get to view both the art and the onlooker and see how they need each other. Without the foot traffic, a museum is just another empty warehouse. Therefore, without acknowledgment, a human is just an empty vessel. It is we who breathe life into each other. Thank you for seeing me and bringing me to life. I hope these words reach you and give you a sense of relatedness. You’re the painting I’m presently staring at. The value I put on that is priceless."

~Jason Mraz

I came across these words whilst reading my Sunday dose of The Freshness Factor 5000, a pop artists thoughts from the road that seem to keep me grounded for the week. I love this statement about observing the world observing the world, and I can relate. Perhaps it explains (at least to some extent) why I sat outside the Louvre in Paris for two hours contemplating rather than going inside. It was inspiring just to be in the presence of the world wonder - but it wasn't just the familiar pyramid structure that was inspiring, was it? It was the tourists too, one and all: the disgustingly adorable honeymooners whose world might shatter if they're forced to break the grip of each others' hands, the elderly people on the "beep-beep carts" who threaten to run over any life-form that may be in their paths, and even the obnoxious American families with their matching tshirts cameras grasped like weapons. People from all over the world were crossing paths, and even if they all came with different feelings toward museums, they all came to go to the one and only LOUVRE. I suppose this was my own personal practice of "visitor studies" long before I ever dreamed I would be taking a Museology class at Western.

I must say that I really appreciate this blogger's insight to the world of museums and artifacts. I really feel that there is a co-dependency between artifacts and spectators. I was in the collection storage room alone at the OCHS today and I couldn't help thinking that these treasures may as well not even exist when they're locked away in the dark. Sure, on occasion, some history nerd like me will get a chance to get in there and enjoy a private moment with their importance - but it really made me realize what kind of life artifacts take on once they're on display to an appreciative visitor...or even an indifferent visitor for that matter!

It kind of makes me reconsider how much focus of a museum should rest on the visitor rather than the artifact. Should it be an even split?

I found a pair of slave chains from the Civil War era in our collection today. They're just sitting on a shelf with all the nonchalance in the world. I was grateful that we had the opportunity to see one another. It felt good to breathe life into them for the first time in who knows how long, even if it was only for a few minutes - and it's not too hard to imagine what kind of feelings this one particular artifact breathed into me.

The Curator of a Small Museum: A Jack of All Trades

2009-12-22T15:01:00.000-08:00

Over the past term, I've been considering myself such a "practical historian" - but it wasn't until today that I was actually reminded of the practicality and reality of WORKING in the museum field instead of just studying it. Certainly, the theories discussed in my Museology class at Western have brought me miles and miles from where I started back in August of 2008 - but there is nothing like the buzz of a power tool to remind you of all the minor details that go into running a museum, especially a small museum.

The Oneida County Historical Society, where I indulge in occasional intern work when I'm at home, is a small museum setting that allows me to see the actuality of the business. While I've been away in the ivory tower, I suppose I've forgotten just how many things the Museum Director is responsible for - maintenance, painting, exhibit design, merchandise, paperwork, AND making the coffee all in one day? It is abundantly clear that the curator of a small museum must be a jack of all trades.

I'm really excited to be working on a new temporary exhibit for the historical society while I'm home during my holiday break. This is what I've been given to work with: one really old exhibit case, a box full of donated materials that pertain to a local Italian band director, and very little information (most of which is unclear and confused).

This is pretty neat - the fact that I have complete creative control over this project. I was quite inspired, sketching out what I wanted the display case to look like, where everything would go (I even got way over-ambitious and contemplated possibly using some kind of audio enhancement). But I went into the society today to make my vision a reality...and I realized...

I had no idea where to start.

Exhibit design is a lot more complicated that it seems. I think people tend to equate it with other simple tasks, like decorating a Christmas tree or arranging a bookcase. There are several things to be considered: what kind of display methods are going to be best for the well-being of the artifacts? For the understanding of the patron? How many artifacts will fit in the case? Which ones can I leave out? What do I put in first? Do I have to interpret every artifact?

I decided to take a breath and start with the largest artifact, a large banner from the children's band that Vito Mole directed. It looked like it would fit perfectly as a backdrop on the pane of the case - but how was I supposed to mount it...or hang it? I decided to call in the director for a little boost in the right direction. We settled on the method of suspension using hooks and wire.

This is the part that required handy-work and power tools - something that was not covered in Museology class and could be a potential liability to be completely honest (but that's nothing to worry about because two years ago, I filled out a card that covers me and the society in case I'm injured on the job ). So the director (bless him) was very patient in teaching me about the softness of wood and that you need to plug in the drill before it can make a hole. These weren't my proudest moments, but necessary all the same. I don't mean to make myself out as completely hopeless with handy-work, I've had my share of fixing things around the house and working on stage crew in high school, but it's a different story when we're talking about objects that mean a lot to people and to the community.

What is that saying about university and exposure?

And so - for today - the banner was hung. Huzzah!

Digital Humanities: Not So Scary After All

2009-12-02T19:01:00.000-08:00

I can hardly believe I'm writing this post already. Not only does it mean that I'm back in Central New York and none of this term seems as though it's happened, but it means that I'm actually having to confront the fact that I am a completely changed historian.

I felt it was necessary to wait until the absolute last minute before writing this post so that I could give a complete image of what my first term at Western has done to me so far. What has this course done to me so far? I suppose it's done just what it's supposed to do. It's challenged every aspect of academia that I've ever known and it's hurled me forward into the future of the humanities - and indeed into a field that I find so mind-boggling and fascinating that I'm not quite sure what I would have done had I chosen to pursue an MA (or heaven-forbid, a PhD) in History. I've finally learned that that path is not for me. I just don't have the heart for the ivory tower - and it's OKAY!

I think that the field of public history is so important. I think that this course was important for me to take. I think that it's important that I'm blogging. It's wonderful. I also think it's very appropriate that I'm watching "Julie and Julia" right now (a fine example of how a blogging skeptic built a career off a tiny blog project). I was so hesitant at first - and I suppose I still am (a bit) because I feared that people would read this...and they would JUDGE ME...and maybe that's true, but again, it's OKAY! This blog is for self-reflection. Yes, I do hope that other eyes see these words and take something away - even if it's just a chuckle...but really, this is MY blog.

I love blogging now. I wish I had more time for it. I want to start a personal blog. I want to start a travel blog. I want to start an anonymous blog about my time in Canada and my observation of Canadians! Yes, these are projects for the future. Digital history has released blog-mania within my being!

One of the most fascinating things that I've learned from this course so far is that historians CAN work on teams - WE CAN! I've learned more from trying to figure things out with my 9+ classmates than I've ever learned from reading a textbook. The trials of creating a website and trying to find sources and speaking for the public and spending hours in the archives and working on teams to get a project done on time. We've done it together. These are mutual experiences. This is our web of colleagues and friends that will remain well into the future - and this is a field where that's extremely important. I have seen the light of collective intelligence!

The way I think about everything is slightly altered - not just history. I think most of that can be attributed to the discussion of our Digital History class, most of which (I will gladly admit) I spent with a headache just trying to follow the words that were coming out of my colleagues' mouths, let alone form my own opinions about them and then apply them to real-life situations. But what I'm realizing now - now that I'm outside the classroom and putting my melted mind under a magnifying glass - is that I really CAN apply what I've absorbed in class, and I DO. Sometimes I can't turn it off. Like I said, this whole experience has changed the way I think, in addition to the way I read, learn, and quite frankly, the way I speak! These are all good things.

I do have to admit, I'm slightly terrified about the second half of the digital history course: Interactive Exhibit Design. The only word I'm quasi-comfortable with there is EXHIBIT. I could, of course, drop it and go for the archiving course instead - but this year is for taking chances. I want to do something out of the ordinary, and if that involves feeling completely LOST for another term with programing and electronics whirling through my head, then so be it! It can only lead to a learning experience of the greatest kind: the kind where you learn from your epic failures and short-comings. I have no shame.

Tally-ho!

The Fact is in the Fiction?

2009-11-30T20:53:00.000-08:00

I couldn't help but notice that one particular conversation in my WWI class kept swaying in and out of post-modernist thought, which I tend to be incredibly intrigued by. I was caught in a bit of a "deer-in-the-headlights" look when I was posed with the question of why we study WWI novels.

Now, of course, my cultural historian blinders led me down the path of using literature to examine the culture in which they were produced. It seemed a bit obvious to me at first, perhaps that's because I never fully questioned the value of a war novel, but as I sat there absorbing the conversation with a furrowed brow (as per usual), I began thinking of the implications that this particular class had for the field of public history.

I think a lot of the time, we forget about studying literature and texts - because that's what academic historians do (not that public historians are not academic historian, because we ARE) - but perhaps we examine these texts in a different way. These war novels, for example, are really just material culture, in a way. They're artifacts that can certainly be studied in the same way as a monument or a 19th century dress or an amputation kit from the civil war.

With topic of war fiction, the question becomes more one of how conflict inflences culture than it does of one trying to pull an accurate representation of the war out of the story. I believe this is why the issue of war novels has become a bit of a pain - because they become quite problematic once people start accepting them as factual history.

One of the major criticisms is that novels project one single opinion or perspective of the war onto all those involved. For example, the famous Canadian war novel, "Generals Die in Bed", (from what I understand, because I've not had the pleasure...),portrays a fairly negative opinion of the soldier experience during WWI, which is fine, but it also kind of implies that every single soldier had this similar experience, which is not fine. This is the criticism, anyway.

Part of me (I think it's the public historian part) wants to think that this generalization can be useful in a way. In the public history sphere, we do this sort of thing all the time. We can't possibly represent every single interpretation of every single topic - so we use the approach of the "typical scenario" to piece together parts of the "puzzle of the past." Think of the living history museums, or monuments that are built to encompass veterans of all conflicts. Really, unless this war novel was claiming to portray a specific and historically significant soldier that performed certain actions at a certain battle of WWI, does it really have an obligation to be completely and utterly historically accurate? Does such a thing even exist?

That's really what this discussion comes down to. That's really what most historical debate comes down to. Historical accuracy? Actual reality? Who knows? What do you believe?

I feel this is an appropriate time to quote an Indie songwriter, Conor Oberst:

"I had a lengthy discussion about the power of myth/ with a post-modern author
who didn't exist./ In this fictitious world, all reality twists"

See, this is the great thing about blogging - I can write about whatever I want to. If I want my strange and slightly pretentious music interests to overlap with my academic musings (which they often do, in my head), this is certainly the arena for that!

Anyway, I also believe one of the great criticisms of this war novel was that the author was claiming that it was the "true story" of WWI. I think that statement has heavy implications and it should not have been used in this circumstance - but really, who's to say it's not the true story? It could be the true story for someone - for the unidentifiable soldier, from Anytown, Canada.

Personally (as an historian who has had experience with the battlefield that is the high school history classroom), I don't see a huge problem in calling "Generals Die in Bed" the "Great Canadian War Novel" and forcing indifferent Grade 10s to read it. It may not be an accurate depiction of WWI that considers several interpretations, but let's face it, neither is the information in their textbooks - and in many cases, it'll be the only depiction of WWI that an individual will ever have. These novels paint a picture, spark interest in the past, and say a great deal about how we choose to remember our pasts.

A Short Intro to Public History (How Original...Yet Appropriate!)

2009-11-27T08:14:00.001-08:00

To refer back to the "mission" of this blog, I really want these pages to inform whomever may be reading them about what it is my colleagues and I are doing here at Western. What I'll be doing in this post is pointing out some good resources that can be found on the internet if one wanted to look further into the topic of Public History - whether it be for academic purposes, curiosity's sake, or perhaps if you're flirting with the idea of becoming a public historian. In addition, it can never hurt for me to probe deeper into the contexts of my field and how society understands it.

I suppose the first place someone might start an internet search is the most trusted search engine: Google. Now, I'm not entirely sure I've got an answer as to WHY the world chooses to trust Google above all others - I think it has something to do with the fact that people think it's reliable because it returns what we are looking for, and in most cases, returns sources that are reliable. It's a kind of reliability cycle.

Already, I'm noticing that Google.ca and Google.com call up different results. Here in the States, if we were to throw the term "public history" into Google, our first site that it returns is for the National Council of Public History, which is dedicated to promoting professionalism among historians. It has a pretty decent section called "What is Public History?" which attempts to describe the field and thus the purpose of the council. This is the recent definition that the board gave for public history:

“a movement, methodology, and approach that promotes the collaborative study and practice of history; its practitioners embrace a mission to make their special insights accessible and useful to the public.”

The site also lists WHO can be considered public historians or public history practitioners: museum professionals, government and business historians, historical consultants, archivists, teachers, cultural resource managers, curators, film and media producers, policy advisers, oral historians, professors and students with public history interests, and many others.

This page also contains a full length article, surprisingly titled "What is Public History?", from the Council's official newsletter and a few personal definitions from public historians throughout the nation.

Browsing through this site has brought me to a section that contains more online resources to learn about what public history is. So this is where I'll go next - because I know that these are trusted sites.

The first option is called the Public History Resource Center. This sounds like it's exactly what I'm looking for: "this site provides descriptive and analytical annotations of resources in the field, as well as original essays. The site contains: a working definition of public history; a short essay detailing one aspect of public history's history"

A lot of discovery on the internet comes from following links wherever they may lead, so each of these links should be explored. The resources link is actually a search tool that lets you search the web for all kinds of public history resources - and you can search by resource type AND resource category! I may actually bookmark this page and come back to it later. What a gem! The original essays would probably be more useful once you have a deeper understanding of WHAT public history is. The essays are written on an assortment of applications of public history, like digitization projects and tombstone analysis. The working definition of public history provided by the resource center is what we want. It offers a plethora of definitions that are out there, rather than synthesizing them into one super-definition. Of course, there appears the popular quote, "public history is history, practically applied," which is both horribly vague and... wonderfully vague. I really like that this page is opened up to the public (quite capturing the spirit of public history) so that public historians may submit an application for a definition of what public history is, who public historians are, and what kind of training or study the field entails. While this may sound like it's entering the realm of Wikipedia, the site clearly labels where each definition comes from, whether it be from the Council itself, a University program, or an enthusiastic practitioner of public history.

Going back to our list of resources from the NCPH, another site that is listed under "Websites that address the meaning and uses of public history" is Beyond Academe. This website was mainly created to assist those historians thinking about leaving academia, but it also defines Public History as a wider field and gives less of a sense that it's a very small niche profession. There is definitely a hint of a bias to be aware of on this website because the creator has herself left academia to be a practitioner of public history. It does declare a "mission to change history" - which I, personally, find very important because there's always been this aura around history that it's only useful in the classroom. Historians should work in the public sphere - and the mission of this website sends out a call for change in our universities so that historians can be fully prepared to do so.

Finally, I will return to that resource searching tool in order to find a physical text resource - in case you find yourself walking through a bookstore with money burning a hole in your pocket. So the resource type would be "books" and we'll say that that resource category for our purposes is "General public history." The result list produces five or six books that have to do with the field of public history - but I think the first one sounds like it would really help a reader to more deeply understand the topic of inquiry:

“So, do you want to teach?” That is the standard question that is asked
when one expresses an interest in history as a profession. This book is
required reading for anyone who has ever answered, “Not necessarily.”

~Camenson, Blythe. Careers for History Buffs & Others Who Learn from
the Past. Illinois: VGM Career Horizons, 1994.

Again, this text supports the idea that history should not and can not be locked away in the ivory tower.

As this exercise comes to a close, I should point out that I haven't really done much to answer the question "WHAT IS PUBLIC HISTORY?" - HOWEVER, as the title implies, this is a short intro to the subject. If you want to know a definite definition for the term - well, I suppose you'll just have to follow the steps I've outlined in this post, keep searching far beyond that, and even then, if you happen to come up with something absolutely definitive, please let me know!

New Favorite Research Tool?!

2009-11-27T07:57:00.000-08:00

I think I've made an emotional connection with something I've learned in my digital history class here at Western. I'm not the most tech-savy student, so most of what I've been learning is a constant struggle and frustration - but this past week, we have been discussing data-mining - and I think I GET IT. Well, maybe I don't quite understand how the whole thing works necessarily, but I understand how to use it and I'm starting to see windows for how it can be extremely useful for this field in the future.

My curiosity struck me whilst completing our last digital history assignment (my search for outdated books). I was skimming through the texts that I found onilne, of which the theme was issues of gender and domesticity, and some of what I was reading struck me as completely ridiculous. Of course, I had to avoid my presentist bias and think about what would have been acceptable during the 19th century rather than what I would consider acceptable as a woman living in 2009. So I thought again - what caused these types of attitudes toward gender roles at this point in history? My first inclination was religion.

The book The Physical Life of Women (1871) by George Henry Napheys struck me as particularly interesting because it was claiming to have absolute scientific authority on the physical beings of women (and also because it was written by a man). The marriage of science and God at this time in history is perhaps a bit odd due to the popularity of Darwin's Origin of Species just a few years prior - so I was curious to see just how big of a role God actually played in Napheys "advice to maidens, wives, and mothers."

Now this is where data mining comes in handy, to say the least. Using a digital tool such as the Canadian TAPoR Project, one can perform such tasks as exploring specific themes in a texts and even visualizing that text analysis results in Excel. In order to do what I needed to do, I first needed to generate a list of words for the theme I was trying to identify within the text (religion). I used a program from Notre Dame University called WordNet 3.0 Vocabulary Helper.

This is the list I came up with: faith, belief, spirit, holy, God, Creator, He, Him, divine, immortal, deity, moral.

The next step is making a Concordance, or a list of principle words used in a text and their immediate context. This is what will help us analyze our text. I used TAPoR Took Broker. I was rather impressed with the results it returned. It created a chart that measure how often my selected words appeared throughout the course of the text. In this case, references to religious were made quite evenly throughout the entire text, indicating that is was an underlying theme in Nephey's arguments.

I came to find that some words were much more effective than others. For example, the program couldn't discern between a capitalized He (as in a religious context) or the He that starts a sentence, or a he in the middle of a sentence - so I had to modify my word list a bit. I really liked that I could choose how many words of the sentence or context surrounding the religious words that the results would show me. I found that even ten words could cause some misinterpretation in terms of the author's religious references, so I eventually decided that twenty words of context would be more appropriate for my purposes.

Some of the phrases that the concordance returned were:

"according to God's ordinance"
"scientific value and moral"
"this marvelous and holy mission"
"safety amidst the moral pitfalls that environ us"
"We have an immortal soul, but a body of clay."
"as a religious step, pleasing to God"
"Science never disagrees with God."
"Neglect of physical laws leads to moral evil."

There was a shocking amount of references to biblical stories, namely Adam and Eve and the story of Creation. Other ideas that the concordance pointed out to me showed how religion affected not only science at the time, but society as a whole. Some of them that I found interesting were the belief that a couple's religious affiliation will affect the sex of their offspring, and the only way to ensure moral purity in one's children is to send them to boarding school.

The fantastic thing about this concordance tool is that it lets you save your results right to your computer. I thought perhaps it would be even more useful if it also returned the page number in the text that the results came from - that way, if further investigation was necessary, it would be right at one's fingertips.

This data mining process was interesting and very helpful in matters of research involving a primary source. It's kind of a more efficient way of using the index at the back of a book. I know that personally, I've been searching for sources in a research project and the indexes are just so incomplete and perhaps don't include a term I'm looking for, or broader themes and ideas and attitudes, and that's frustrating because I know I don't have time to read the whole book, but I really feel like it may be useful! This provides an answer. Perhaps I won't have to go on research rants (like the one that just escaped me) in the future. I shall remain positive.

Playtime with Google Sites

2009-11-23T22:10:00.000-08:00

Not that I didn't love creating a website using HTML and CSS (a fine skill to have) - but I really DO appreciate the ease of website generators like Google Sites. I think I'm much more likely to actually create and maintain a purposeful website if I don't have to learn a new language in order to do so.

So here's what I've been working on. It's nothing fancy - yet. I do plan on using it for professional purposes in the future (after I remove the quasi-embarrassing photographs of myself, of course). I definitely need to do a LOT of revision work in terms of the information I'm putting out there (I apparently have a problem with using passive voice) (Me?) (Passive?) (Weird), but I think I've got a good set up so far.

...and like I said. This is my playtime with Sites. I think I've been turned on to something good here and I shall most definitely be revisiting it in the future.

Check it out! Your critiques are welcomed and appreciated!

My Quest for Outdated Books

2009-11-23T11:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I just love being a cultural historian (if I may even call myself that). Take a look at this copy of Eaton's Catalogue. It's from 1913-14 and it reflects all of the values of society during that time. What I find remarkable about the book section is the overwhelming concern to "keep up appearances." Just from looking at the assortment of texts advertised here, a mini-study could be conducted about gender and domesticity at the time.

To be fair, I should mention that my original assignment was to track down electronic copies of a handful of these books of my choosing. Not surprisingly, I originally chose books that were obscure and odd. These include items such as "Hands: How to Read Them" and "Toasts." After a ruthless search to find each of these gems individually (and after finding out that everyone else in my class found their choices within minutes), I decided that these books had apparently been wiped off the face of the earth (probably with good reason) and that I should change the tune of this assignment.

So... I devised a new approach. I figured it would be useful to go at this in a topical way - since I will probably never again be asked to arbitrarily locate random old books without a specific purpose - but I will probably have to call upon some electronic books for assistance whilst researching a particular theme.

So, I referred to Eaton's again and I created a list of 20 books that pertained to the central themes of gender and domesticity, and then I hit all kinds of free book resources to see what kinds of results each site came up with.

Yes, this shall be my method.

I'll start with Project Gutenburg, which is the oldest digital library and attempts to make books in the public domain as free as possible through the process of volunteer-based digitization. This is what I found:

The Care and Feeding of Children: A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses by Emmett Holt. This book is highly entertaining and, if kept in mind that it was written in 1907, has some very useful information for new mothers. Of course, there are some very typical British biases that come through - like the advice that masterbation is the most dangerous habit an infant can possibly develop and it should be physically broken as quickly as possible.

Whitehouse Cook Book by F.L. Gillette and Hugo Zieman. This book has also got some fantastic and useful information. I would argue that it's more than just a cookbook. It's a kind of reference book for people who have no idea how to run a household. I think an adapted version of this text could be circulated and sent off with every college freshman, provided that all references to remedial opium were removed.

The Internet Archive is another not-for-profit digital library that acts just like a material research facility and includes different kinds of media. Here's what I could find:

The Physical Life of Women: Advice to the Maiden, Wife, and Mother by George Henry Napheys was written in 1871 and would strike most modern day women as terrifying. It literally said that more unmarried women die at a young age than married women. During its time, this book was widely praised for its ability to cover even the most lude topics without tarnishing even the purest women's innocent nature. It discusses in great detail how a woman should conduct herself during all stages of the courting process, especially her wedding night, with a very distinct flavor of how society viewed women at this time. It's quite obvious to me that this book was written by a man...

Maternity without Suffering by Emma Drake has more of a feminine touch in its pages, and comes with a disclaimer that makes sure the readers knows that reading the book will not actually make child labor free of pain - which is very honest and polite, I think (also implying that there is no such thing as "maternity without suffering). It also comes with a dedication at the beginning to "those wives who exalt motherhood."

Now, here's something that I didn't think I would find, or perhaps expected it to be something different: The Transmission of Life also by Mr. Napheys, the nice man who doesn't think that unmarried women have value of life. This work is subtitled "Counsels on the Nature and Hygiene of the Masculine Functions" I almost don't want to read on - but this is for educational purposes, so I shall! The authors support of marriage rings clear in this work as well, as he claims that the vices of single men are the worst of society. He also expresses a deep concern for tantric practices, claiming that they would severly damage a man's nervous system. There is also early evidence in this text against any form of birth control and abortion. It would be really interesting to compare these arguments to the arguments still present around these topics in the present.

I'm really getting into this now. It's amazing what's available right at my finger tips - in the comfort of my apartment, sipping my third cup of tea. I wish I had the time to read these books for fun. My, how times have changed. I was thinking that it's funny that there existed a time when these issues of domestic life didn't come naturally to people and they needed physical guides to help them - then I remembered the booming age of the self-help book and how I love to sit in Barnes and Noble to watch people circulate the self-help aisle until they think that no one is looking and then frantically try to commit their pages to memory. I wonder if people were that awkward about purchasing these books from the catalogue or if it was generally more acceptable. Cultural history...the examination of social awkwardness...I love it!

Let's see if I can't find one more... I'm thinking that archive.org may be my one-stop-shop for strange and obsolete books - batting 1000 so far.

Ah yes, here's one by "A Member of the Aristocracy" (Good old what's-his-face), Manners and Rules of Good Society: Or, Solecisms to be Avoided, published in 1913. This is clearly a text that is meant for the upper classes, as it covers how to bow properly and how to conduct oneself outside the country - although it seems to claim that etiquette should be instilled in all people, for it's not a mask to wear on certain occasions, but a necessity that should be carved into our character. Mr. Aristocracy says in the introduction that the manners of today should be the manners of tomorrow - I'm not sure he'd be pleased if he were around to see the charming nature of our popular culture.

Well, I can't remember when I've had more fun, but it's time to come to some conclusions here. First of all, I've become a fan of digitization projects. I think they're important - for accessibility, if for nothing else. When you throw copyright issues into the mix, things get a little more complicated...but just look at the treasure trove I've tapped into here! Secondly, the Internet Archive has proved to be an excellent resource for online books, and you can do a lot more with it that I've yet to discover. Sites like GoogleBooks and the Gutenburg Project are useful as well, but they are more likely to pull up classic results, like Uncle Tom's Cabin. I find it curious that my collegues said it was so easy to find the old fiction books out of the catalogue. I think that's a bit strange, since these non-fiction books clearly have such historical and cultural value. As a third conclusion - I have a new appreciation for the changes in our societal values. While I'm really glad I have the option (thanks to digitization) I think I'll leave What a Young Wife Ought to Know tucked away on its virtual shelf.

Encumbered Numbered Words

2009-11-18T08:05:00.000-08:00

The introduction of material cultural studies into my web of knowledge has really got my ideas of history turned upside down. I had never previously questioned the authority of the written word in the study of the past. It seemed to be the most efficient and authentic means of communication. Now that I'm thinking about it, that might not necessarily be the case - and at the very least, we really mustn't let the messages of non-verbal aspects of the past fall on deaf ears.

If we look back to before there was language, human beings communicated with gestures or with the help of objects. This was the oldest means of cultural expression. There has to be something said for the diversity of language and how that surely implies a loss of meaning through translation and interpretation of word. Applying words almost reduces the human experience, in a sense, because it is limited to only one kind of interpretation that resembles a classification system and does not consider meaning we derive from our senses. Words are tools used to describe something - words don't really have inherent meaning, but the things they are defining do.

So, do artifacts really speak louder than words?

There's something about being in the presence of an artifact that takes us out of the present time and transports us somewhere else. As Schlereth has noted in his introduction to material culture, "artifacts are here in our time, but we're also there in their time." We are given more of an affective experience, in which we feel what the humans of the past felt by coming in contact with the materials that were part of their existence.

With that said, there are some things to be wary of while interpreting material culture. Sometimes, when the sensory experience is glorified and exaggerated in the field of history, via living history museums or experimental archaeology, it is possible to create a situation where actual history, heritage, and culture are lost in a cloud of emotion. This phenomenon has been referred to as "edutainment" or "Dineyfication." While having an emotional connection with the past is important, it should be experienced through material objects or places that are actually representative of that past rather than through fabricated tourist traps that takes the past out of context.

Part of me is also hesitant to go along with the argument that studying artifacts gives us a less biased account of the past. While it is true that texts have authors to manipulate their words according to a number of personal factors and objects from the past were not in this way directly affected by their owners - someone had to make it - and while this process of production can tell us a lot about the culture from which it was born, can it not also tell us about the biases of its maker? For example, a small jewelry box from the Victorian era can tell us a lot about the values of bourgeois women at that time, but the small thistle engraved on the bottom of the box can speak volumes about the biases of the Scottish nationalist who created it.

Perhaps that's not a sound example, but surely, the biases that come out in the creation of a written work also come out in creation of any kind, be it artwork, carpentry, or textile manufacturing....and let's be honest, in the world of material culture studies, where the culture and not the object should be the main interest of study, what exactly are we looking for if not the values and biases of humans in the past?

So - as I've been thinking about these issues over the last two days - it turns out that there's a lot more I could be studying than the literature of dead white guys.

Material culture - I think I like it.

Hey Haters, I'm Talking to You...

2009-11-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

I personally find it a bit shocking and unfortunate that such a large portion of academia (including so many of my collegues at Western (!)) are still so quick to dismiss social networking tools, such as Twitter, as arrogant and frivilous.

This is not an attempt to argue that point - they are indeed arrogant and frivilous - but that's not all they are. Let's look a bit deeper here, put our social biases aside, and peek our heads out of our ivory tower.

Logic would hopefully tell us that it's not a tool itself that has inherent value, but how humans choose to utilize it...and any tool that is used incorrectly is of course, useless. Using a hammer to measure plywood is stupid-but does that make the hammer stupid? Does that mean that humankind should stop producing hammers all together and be left obstinately banging nails into our walls with soup cans, even though a hammer would have been much more efficient?!

Ok - so I got a bit carried away with the hammer analogy, but my point is: Twitter can be used for more than just letting the world know what you ate for breakfast or making fun of celebreties. There are great things that can come from active participation in the Twitter universe.

Many 2 Many is a group blogging network that discusses issues in social software and in 2007, one member of this community shared her Thoughts on Twitter:

"What Twitter does, in a simple and brilliant way, is to merge a number of
interesting trends in social software usage—personal blogging, lightweight
presence indicators, and IM status messages—into a fascinating blend of
ephemerality and permanence, public and private."

She mostly goes on about how great Twitter is for keeping in touch with those we care about - with which I agree whole-heartedly because the sad reality of the times is that we just don't have time to pick up the phone on some days - but the point that she makes that I find most important for professional purposes is her commentary on Twitter as an archiving tool. Everything that is tweeted enters into the online world of ephemerality. Think of the resources that could be compiled amongst thousands of Twitter users with the same research interests!

Not to mention...

The HASHTAG. What a fantastic markup tool. Hashtags allow us to apply a unique string of characters to a certain idea or subject. Theoretically, if we have thousands of quasi-intelligent people using Twitter intelligently, we'll be able to use it as a sort of search engine that brings up resources according to collectively intelligent group instead of a machine.

For example, if someone wanted to find out what people were saying about the Titanic, or recent research interests about the Titanic, or what kinds of resources to consult to learn more about the Titanic – all that person would have to do is search Twitter for “Titanic,” or better yet, “#Titanic,” and there, at this person’s fingertips, would be all the tweets that people with similar interests or expertise have tweeted with the intention of sharing it with a larger community (by tweeting with a hashtag, #Titanic).

The way Twitter is operating right now, this would produce pretty shotty results referring mostly to the characters Jack and Rose, however, that's not point. I think that this can be one powerful boat if we can get enough people on board - people with productive intentions.

I could go on about the benefits of Twitter, such as the SMS capabilities and real-time communication or the so-called multiplier effect that encourages interaction amongst very wide audiences that we learn from Dan Cohen's experiment with crowdsourcing, but it all kind of boils down to the fact that we need to learn HOW to use the vast webs of knowledge that are at our fingertips, and to not be afraid of or prejudiced against this learning process.

"Puttin' too much food on my plate!"

2009-10-06T15:02:00.000-07:00

The shift from scarcity to abundance seems, for some conservative historians, especially, to be the apocalyptic end of scholarly professionalism of history. The basis for this paranoia, I think, lies in the fact that we are seeing a huge shift toward the sharing of historical authority. With the abundance of historical accounts being digitized daily and indeed, the accessibility of these accounts, the job of assigning relevancy to historical topics no longer lies in the hands of intermediaries. Now, the power rests in the hands of each and every graduate student, antiquarian, and seventh-grader writing a show-and-tell report. Surely, this will decrease the legitimacy of historical practice and turn what historians do into a joke or sorts, or even render them completely obsolete sooner or later.

Right?

Well, not necessarily. It would seem to me that with the increase in abundance of historical information, something (besides quality) needs to decrease into scarcity to recreate balance. Perhaps this could be the interest of the public for historical information. Simple economic laws of supply and demand tell us that when a product (yes, we are in an age where it’s not odd to view historical information as a product) becomes abundant, public demand for this product inevitably decreases. Society may just become very disinterested with its past if we start developing things like total archives and leaving everything out in the open for any kind of interpretation – thus, history (more so than other disciplines) would lose its significance if humans placed absolutely no value on it. I suppose the situation would be comparable to when technologies like the television swept humanity. It was brilliant and everyone was interested in it in the 50s – yet now that it’s become more popularized, it’s become such a part of everyday life that it’s completely lost its value. We barely even notice it, let alone think about its significance to the human race. It’s a given. Historical information would be a great thing to integrate into the daily lives of humanity – but does it not seem like something’s being detracted from its intrinsic value under these conditions?

Also, I personally foresee a problem in the quality of interpretation. How are we supposed to know what is significant and valuable historical information if every single thing is being preserved? Perhaps this is another whole argument entirely – who’s to say that a piece of historic information is garbage and should be disposed of? I mean, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. But apart from that issue, I think that the public (and maybe even historians) will start to lose appreciation for what we’ve always known as historical study. I suppose it could be related to the problem that a museum curator faces when deciding which artifacts to accession into a museum and which ones to reject. I’d imagine it’s not an easy call – but we can’t possibly collect EVERYTHING. What’s the point in examining an overwhelming pile of trash? Can we possibly draw anything valuable or intelligible from these types of practices? When does collecting stop being an actual collection and turn into a compulsion?

Now, given these points of inquiry—on the other hand, it is not exactly my belief that the authority of the past should lie in the hands of only the most highly educated PhDs and other such individuals. History should belong to the general public, at least to some extent. With the disappearance of scarcity will come the right of every citizen to pick and choose what they think is historically significant about the past—buffet style! Whether that’s an ultimately good or bad thing, I’m not in a position to say at the moment, but that certainly seems to be where we’re heading in this digital age of abundance. He who controls the rare sources has a monopoly on deciding what’s important and what’s not—and essentially holds the immense power of what we remember as history and recall as reality. Any post-modernist historian would smile blissfully at the mere thought.

Given these circumstances, of course there will be certain topics that will become prevalent in historic study. Studies seem to show that the general public tends to participate mostly in genealogy or the study of family histories. If the public are given the authority to deem this topic historically significant, they most certainly will. Everyone has the tendency to want to preserve their own history for themselves and for posterity. I think that eventually, the consciousness of history as a broad topic may start to burn out because personal histories will become too populous to study collectively.

I find it very interesting that the root of all these popular debates in public history is starting to stem from ABUNDANCE of information. I bet people in the past would never have predicted that too much information could be so very problematic!

Public History - the elusive definition

2009-10-04T17:15:00.001-07:00

Perhaps I should explain the title I've chosen for my blog.

Before I embarked on my dramatic and perilous immigration across the border about a month ago, I would frequently have to answer questions from curious family members and friends. The conversations would almost always go something like this:

- "So, what are you doing now that you've graduated, Sara?"
- "I'm spending a year at the University of Western Ontario!"
- "Where is that?"
- "It's in London"
- "You're moving to ENGLAND?!"
- "No, there's a London in southwestern Ontario..."
-
- "CANADA."
- "Oh."
-
- "So, what are you studying then?"
- "Oh, I'll be getting my MA in Public History"
- "PUBLIC history?! What on earth is that? Isn't ALL history public?"
- "Uhhh, let me get back to you on that next year."

Now, being forced into this dialogue quite literally dozens of times over the summer, I couldn't decide if I was more annoyed with my family and friends for being so predictable or with myself for simply not being able to answer their questions! But looking back on all these conversations has really got me thinking about this field that I'm studying.

What IS public history?

Now that I've been a "public historian" for nearly a month, I know there are several textbook definitions that one can apply to the term and I'm getting better at answering inquisitive friends, but honestly, the concept remains a bit elusive in my mind and the more I chase it, the more it flutters away.

"Isn't ALL history public?" is what they asked me, so condescendingly. I thought to myself, "well, I suppose it certainly should be." If the public doesn't have access to history, does it not lose its significance entirely? Sometimes academia tends to create a bit of a closed circut of historical information, where historians are only writing and researching for each other. Is it a wonder why we have trouble defending our decisions to study history in school? IS all history public, really?

How do we make it public? Should it be done? To what extent?

The wheels have started turning, to say the least.

As a closing note, I hope that this blog can serve as a tool for helping to explain the elusive and wonderful field of study that is PUBLIC HISTORY - and the title serves as a sort of thank you to those who forced me to take a much deeper look at what it is I'm doing here in London, ON (yes, CANADA!)

Allow me to introduce myself!

2009-09-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

I've not done this before - blogging, that is. I do journal though. Many people overlook the power of healthy self-reflection.

So, what am I doing here? I wish I had a more direct answer to that question. I'm on a path and I'm not sure where it goes, but hey, at least I'm on a path. Some would say that puts me ahead in the game.

Well, let's start with the basics. I'm doing my Masters in Public History here at Western for a number of reasons:

Being a New Yorker, Canada has always been this giant landmass to the north that I know very little about. I'm an avid lover of cultural experiences and in the past I've found myself traveling hours and spending stupid amounts of money in order to "scratch the itch," so to speak - but it recently dawned on me that I really only had to get in my car and drive a few hours over the border to experience a rich culture different from my own.

I first was tipped off to the idea of Public History when I sort of strolled into my local historical society one day and asked if they'd like me to be their intern. It was completely unexpected. I did my undergraduate work at a small Jesuit institution in Syracuse, NY called Le Moyne College, where I received my BA in History along with my New York State Teacher Certification in social studies for grades 7-12. My focus for those four years was always how to make myself more marketable for the high school classroom - obviously, there's been an extreme turn of events. I loved the work I did at the historical society and thought that this field was something I could potentially be very good at.

At the end of this experience, if I could find something to do with the rest of my life that combined elements of public history and classroom teaching, that would be ideal - but like I said, at this point, I'm just on a path and I'm not closing myself off to any doors that may be opened during this experience at Western.