In which I rethink Amazon

In our digital history discussions, we often get into heated debates (well, not really debates as we usually agree on the topic) regarding digital technologies. The difficult part of the class is attempting to tie our rants about these topics - for example, whether internet technology is getting too personal - back to the task at hand, that is thinking of technology in terms of historical study.

Amazon has been mentioned frequently in class. Many people love it and its personalized recommendations, and Dan Saffer, author of Designing Interactions, has listed Amazon as a great example of a smart technology - one that takes information and personalizes it for the user, creating a clever site that can make life easier. I began to think how a service like Amazon could be used in a more academic sphere. Different variations of existing technologies has already been mentioned, such as the smart GoogleKids idea Ruthann came up with and on which Simon pondered. I began to think of how Amazon could be used academically, and came up with AmazonScholar.

AmazonScholar would be similar to the Amazon book store we all know and love (or hate), but it would cater to university students and those in academia, or those wishing to browse through the latest works from university presses. A large, online academic bookstore with overnight shipping - what could be better? Many Amazon features would be found on AmazonScholar, such as the book recommendations. It would suggest for you the best (or most popular) books on your research subject. Users could rate books to give readers a good idea of whether the book would be right for them. Users could also make lists for others to browse. Instead of 'Sophie's Favourite Mysteries' there would be 'Sophie's Top Books on Education in Medieval England' which would list all the books I find helpful on that subject. It could be a sort of annotated bibliography for other students to use as a resource. The main front page would list the top ten bestsellers, showing which subjects were selling fastest (art? history? economics?) and of course the user's personalized front page would show the hottest new books in their field.

A huge online resource for academic works - what a great resource for those doing academic research. Ratings and recommendations would make it that much easier to find the right books. Amazon's personalized technology would be a perfect fit for those trying to stay on top of the new publications in their field - for both professors and students alike.

In which I turn to archival web exhibits

We were introduced to a wonderful database in archives class a few weeks ago, the Smithsonian's Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web. The Smithsonian is a huge institution, and I am so happy I now know about this site. Online exhibitions are a great example of digital history because they weren't (for the most part) just a digital component of a physical museum exhibit. This is partly because archives are less likely to have the personnel, space, money and time to put together an exhibit, and partly a reflection on the acceptance of digital history. There is no reason why archivists wouldn't want to share their holdings with the public, and online exhibits are the perfect way to reach a wide audience from around the world.

I discussed the Bibliotheque nationale de France's Bestiary in a presentation last week. What a great way to share their incredible holdings of medieval French manuscripts with the public! Unless I had travelled to France while the physical exhibit was showing, I would never have learned so much about depictions of animals and seen so many examples of medieval images. I was very impressed with their high-resolution digital images, which I am sure someone spent months doing. The result, however, is a rich collection of historical artifacts available for viewing by anyone with a computer and internet. I can't pretend that seeing these images online are any replacement for seeing them up close in an archive, however I have to be realistic. Even I, who studied medieval history at a large university, would never have had the chance to see these artifacts. I have to forgo the smell, the feel, the atmosphere of the archive, but am happy to do this if the other option is not seeing them at all. This is really the strongest argument for digitizing as many historical items as possible; the advantage of immediate availability overshadows any arguments to the contrary.

The database gives people an idea of how much there already is on the web. These exhibits were put together by large universities, archives and museums, trustworthy sources who have put much time and effort into making parts of their collections available. The range is everything from to the French Revolution to Brooklyn in the American Civil War, from Chaucer to Edgar Allan Poe, from Ottoman Embroideries to the Housewife's Rich Cabinet. An amazing amount of information is available for free online, you just have to know where to look. For the most part they are exhibits, meaning there is enough background information for most people to understand what it is that they are looking at, and the layouts are generally clear and well-designed to attract audiences. Digital exhibits are a great way to keep a physical exhibit going after it has closed down. Museums often have limited space; by letting an exhibit live on digitally the artifacts can continue to be highlighted and people can keep learning about new historical topics. Online exhibits are a great option for those institutions wanting to highlight their collections but do not have the space or funds to put together a physical exhibit at all. While students can use these exhibits as a resource, they are really a great example of public history: artifacts and information on display for the public to learn something new.

In which I defend museums

While doing research on film archives (for HIS9806), I came across a harrowing quote from one Douglas Crimp, a professor at the University of Rochester. His take on museums took my attention away from the various methods of preservation of nitrate film and I thought I would share it here.

Crimp's view of museums is a pessimistic one. He sees them as institutions of confinement, similar to asylums and prisons (!). He believed they placed art within a confining framework of historicity that disallowed the possibilities of discontinuity and rupture with the past. The author of the book I was reading, film archivist Karen F. Gracy, disagreed; she believed the museum maintained itself in its gatekeeper of culture role by forsaking rigidity and allowing different forms of artifacts in its doors [1].

I had problems with Crimps's statement. Was he insinuating that museums stole art, placing them in an institutional setting where they were decontextualized to the point of being unrecognizable? Did placing them in a historical venue make them any less important, ground-breaking, modern? I have to agree with Gracy's idea that museums have been able to adopt various new objects and represent them as important historical artifacts, everything from celebrity shoes to classic Mac computers from the 1980s (these have to be on display somewhere...). Museums are no longer the stuffy, dark old buildings filled solely with hundred-year-old objects which had belonged to important people. Museums are changing, and are able to show the importance of everyday objects from the not-so-distant past as important cultural, political and economic artifacts.

As for placing objects in confining historical frameworks: What better way to observe how things can be completely new than to place them alongside similar (or not) objects for comparison? True, museums tend to lean towards an idea of progress, and as history students we are taught to never believe something hasn't happened before, and that everything is continuous. Museums, however, are also able to teach visitors about the evolution of ideas, countries, attitudes, etc. I may not know a lot about art, but I can't believe placing an important new piece in a museum will immediately give it a negative historical aura by taking away its individuality. Museums like MOMA are popping up in many large cities and feel very different than museums like the American Museum of Natural History, but they are museums nonetheless. Maybe Crimp needs to redefine his definition of a museum before comparing them to prisons.



[1] Karen F. Gracy, Film Preservation: Competing Definitions of Value, Use and Practice (Chicago: The Society of American Archivists, 2007), 71.