In which I get nostalgic for the dark

So, museums are still on my mind. I am well aware that there are many other options for public history students, and we have begun to learn about a few of them in class, but it's museums to which I keep going back. I am learning about some of the issues that can come about discussing digital history, but I'm still pondering and forming my opinions on the subject. So for now: museums.

I was remembering one of my first memories involving museums. I began to remember what the museum looked, and felt like, and began to compare that image to the new ideas that have recently been transforming galleries across Ontario. And I admit, I was a bit torn over whether these changes were for the better.

Let me start - one of my most memorable childhood experiences in a museum happened while I was a Brownie, circa age 7. We had the fantastic opportunity to have a sleep-over in the dinosaur gallery at the Canadian Museum of Nature. This was a favourite Ottawa museum of my sister and I, and the night didn't disappoint. Looking back, it strikes me as such a wonderful way for young children to experience public history. The gallery, as I remember, was the perfect spot. It was similar to a lot of older museum galleries: dark, softly lit, very atmospheric. The perfect setting for dinosaur fossils to be displayed against the wall, as if they had just been discovered in some Alberta desert.

Newly renovated dinosaur galleries have been envisioned very differently. The entire feel has changed, and not only because of ubiquitous interactive digital stations (I have no qualms with these). The ROM recently opened their new dinosaur gallery in the Libeskind crystal, a gallery which followed closely their new philosophy on the design of museums. Even before the opening of the added crystal, the ROM had realized they needed a change - from the dark and gloomy to the bright and airy. In late 2005 they unveiled their new Asian galleries, which featured a sea of glass shelves and large, newly-uncovered windows. The dinosaur gallery follows the same idea: housed in the crystal itself, it features large windows and lots of natural light to show off the hanging models of dinosaurs. The Museum of Nature in Ottawa has also recently redone their dinosaur galleries with similar results.

I do applaud this new philosophy, as I believe it may attract visitors who may have thought museums were dank, gloomy and full of old, dusty, dead things. Museum galleries are becoming more modern, more hip, more cutting-edge and hopefully some visitors will decide they are more fun and interesting places than they once were. They're moving towards the future, not stuck in the past. I can't help but remember, however, that wow feeling an atmospheric, dimly lit gallery full of dinosaur bones could give to a young child. It didn't turn me off the idea of history - it was interesting and mysterious, and a little spooky. I just hope these new galleries will be able to keep delivering that wow factor to children and adults alike.

Interpreting History for the Public

I have been thinking of the readings we have done for class, and one idea has stuck with me into this week, and that is historians as interpreters. This is an idea originally brought up by Manan Ahmed, who wrote about historians needing to interpret between the past and the present. He also mentioned the need for interdepartmental interpreting. Both very important ideas for public historians, since we tend to work more with other programmes (fields such as environmental science, new skills such as IT, art & design) to bring our ideas to the public, while trying to teach them that history can be extremely relevant to the present.

In this week's readings, the idea has taken on a different form, one I am more familiar with, and that is interpreting the past, as academics, for the public. One of the biggest worries re: digital and accessible history is the danger in losing our status as interpreters. Once Google and various other corporations get all primary sources, or all books ever written, online and available to anyone with a computer and internet access, will there still be a need for librarians, archivists, and historians? The answer seem to be that we'll still be needed (sigh of relief) to help them find the information, help them sort through the thousands of articles, and teach them the research skills that will be essential in surfing through all the available information.

What I am most concerned about is engaging people with the past - and it should be one of our most important goals. This seems to translate as the need for more interactive exhibits (both in museums and online). While volunteering at the ROM, my official position was called 'Gallery Interpreter', one of the reasons the term stuck with me through this week. Our job was to engage adults and children with the artifacts on display, and we did this two ways. First, we carried a hand-held artifact (or copy) in our hands, and let our audience touch or play with it. Then, we used a pseudo-Socratic method of questions and answers to engage them in conversation, while relating to the hand-held artifact as well as a larger immovable artifact on display. We weren't there to lecture - standing and listening to someone talk can be as boring as just passing by artifacts and reading labels to many people. We weren't even answering their questions most of the time, they were answering OURS (Is it heavy? What do you think its made out of? What do you think it was used for?).

If someone is engaged in conversation, or in an interactive activity, as opposed to passively listening or reading, their interest will last that much longer. Isn't that why history students have to join tutorials and engage in seminar discussions? This idea is important for getting across to those who aren't interested in history. We have seen in our public history reading that many people feel much more passionately about their personal history, such as keeping photo albums or creating a family tree, than visiting museums or sitting through a history class. Our job is to get them interested in what we as historians are interested in. Public historians, because of that, have to try that much harder.

In which I get worried over my faith in humanity

So the readings for this week's introductory digital history class are completed, and two thoughts came to mind. Well, more than only two thoughts, but you know what I mean. Today's post will deal with the first.

I felt surprise at certain opinions given in Nicholas Carr's Is Google Making us Stupid?. He (and his colleagues) claim that the internet, the new medium of choice for the late 20th century, had warped their minds to the point that they had lost the ability to concentrate on old-fashioned, hand-held, time-consuming books, or even long articles. Then could no longer focus their attention, and had no interest in doing so.

While the article is undoubtedly McLuhanesque in nature (his name is mentioned on the first page), with his famous "the medium is the message", one must remember that his statement was made more than 50 years ago. I took a Canadian media course in my last year of undergrad, and we discussed McLuhan and his overshadowed colleague, Harold Innis, whose theory can be related to "the medium biases the message". The effects of new technologies have been discussed for many years, such as in the new age of radio and television, as well as with the rise of daily newspapers. One need only to think about how a medium such as the nightly news or a newpaper biases the messages towards the sensationalistic, the quick, the snappy, the attention-grabbing, the famous newscaster line "and now... this" or the headlines in a newspaper (dead body found! taxes rising! Canadians getting fatter!). Our attention spans were being shortened for a much longer time than the 1980s/1990s/2000s. Were people worried about the effects? Of course. But were they having personal meltdowns and losing the ability to read an article from start to finish, to read a book, to concentrate longer than two minutes? I don't think so. So the question is, what makes the internet so different?

The fact that many of the people quoted in Carr's article are former "literary" types, as he calls them, makes me worry. It's one thing when someone who wasn't very inclined to read a book would rather skim an online article, but quite another when someone who loved to read has lost the ability. Is it really the ability, or just the interest? Part of me thinks this must be some sort of personal choice, even a laziness on their parts. Adapting to one medium is fine, but why does one need to lose other interests? This is a harsh opinion, and a personal one I admit, coming from someone who spends a lot of time online but can still spend hours reading a book. Maybe I'd just like to have faith that our brains can't really be permanently rewired thanks to the abundance of online sources and the prevalence of the internet in every facet of our daily lives. There's nothing wrong with adaptation, in fact its incredibly important (we're all here to hop on the digital history train, no?), but this loss makes me worry.

The internet isn't only here for skimming and skipping around - many valuable sources online are long in nature, and reading through it all at a fast pace is doing a disservice to those who spent so much time writing or digitizing those articles, and wasting a great opportunity to learn through a convenient medium. Take advantage!

Introduction

Aaah, the internet.  I had been without you at home for seven long days, and now that you're back I can rejoice.  I will be the first to admit that this past year, I used the internet for the most banal of activities (*ahem* celebrity gossip *ahem*).  Living without it, however, when moving to a new city, starting a new school and new programme was challenging at best. Arguments with one national telecommunications company, a switch to the Other national telecommunications company, two rescheduled appointments and one broken telephone jack did not make things any less irritating.  It all makes one wonder - the internet is so completely prevalent in our daily lives, so why is something as simple as setting up a connection sometimes so difficult?  But enough about my frustrations.  This blog is here to talk about everyone's favourite subject, public history.

Public history is still a bit of a mystery to me, one I am looking forward to unraveling as the year goes by.  As I understand it, it is history as it is related and communicated to the public.  Museums and historical sites are key, but for those whose interests in life may not include history (unbelievable as that is to me!) we must remember the incredible importance of popular culture: movies, novels, maybe even video games.  A young adult historical novel I read in middle school got me interested in Henry VIII and Tudor England, an interest that still exists ten years on.  I even had a Scottish friend explain to me this summer how the movie Braveheart rekindled national interest in William Wallace, surprising because the movie was made in Hollywood by an Australian/American.        

A big part of public history now is of course the internet.  Many believe the internet to be a necessary evil.  Evil, however, is too harsh of a word.  The internet has been a wonderful development for the study of history, not least in the field of public history.  The internet has the power to make accessible so much information, from archives, to historical documents, to interactive exhibits from world-famous museums.  Their are pitfalls of course, such as the loss of stringent academic rules, which has already been pointed out by a colleague on their blog.  Historians, however, are trained to be critical of all sources they use, whether they be primary or secondary.  Clearly with the rise of the digital age, this training will be even more important.  

The internet will never replace the feeling of holding an 800-year old manuscript in your hands, or standing in the middle of an ancient Greek temple, but it can help foster interest in new students, as well as be an invaluable resource for historians around the world.