Anniversary: The Sinking of the Titanic

April 11th, 2012 will be the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's first full day at sea. It will be my birthday. It will also, controversially, be the day when over five thousand artefacts from the decaying ship will be put up for auction in New York.

I say controversially because these are not objects saved by passengers or rescuers in 1912. They are objects taken from the decaying ship by divers working for R.M.S. Titanic Inc. between 1987 and 2004. You can see many of them in this Guardian photo collection. The objects range from parts of the ship, including a telegraph, chandelier, dishes, a porthole, and even a portion of the hull, to more personal artefacts that remind us of the human tragedy, like men's clothing, a pair of glasses and a bracelet with the name 'Amy'.

R.M.S. Titanic Inc. clearly finds no fault with what they are doing. This New York Times blog article points out that the artefacts were taken from the debris field surrounding the ship, while the ship itself was treated as a "sacred object" and left untouched. There are multiple conditions on the sale, disallowing the collection to be broken up, and requiring the buyer to make the collection available "to present and future generations for public display and exhibition, historical review, scientific and scholarly research, and educational purposes."

The estimated financial worth of the collection is staggering. The collection was appraised at $189 million US in 2007, but the president of auction house Guernsey's points out that it is "virtually impossible to appraise". A court ruling was necessary to even allow the company to sell the collection. But that doesn't change the fact that R.M.S. Titanic Inc., its parent company Premier Exhibitions (who also created the 'Bodies' exhibit) and Guersney's stand to make a lot of money from the sale.

Many people are speaking out against this sale, and the dives as well. The Halifax Chronicle-Herald interviewed Lynn-Marie Richard, registrar for the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, who was unequivocal when it came to the museum's interest in these artefacts. As a member of the International Congress of Maritime Museums, she says, "We’re into preserving and documenting — not into pillaging." The Halifax museum has a large collection of Titanic artefacts, but she is clear that they were all donated or on loan, and were picked up by the sailors who went to the Titanic's aid in 1912. The newspaper also spoke to Steve Blasco, a scientist with the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, NS. He visited the wreck in 1991, taking samples to study the site and helping with the IMAX film Titanica. He equates taking these artefacts from the ocean floor with grave-robbing, and calls upon his relationship with a now deceased Titanic survivor, Eva Hart, who saw the site as her father's grave site.

Robert Ballard, who discovered the Titanic's resting place in 1986 (and famously confirmed the ship did, indeed, split in two) has already publicly spoken out against tourist submarines causing irreparable damage to parts of the ship, and these same tourists taking objects from the debris field that were in no danger of deteriorating. Clearly there are scientists who are calling for more restriction to the site - but the lure of the wreckage seems to be proving stronger than the argument for historical preservation. In 2004 the site was extensively filmed and photographed to assess its condition, and in 2010 the complete site was mapped with 3-D technology. Shouldn't these records be enough to satisfy our curiosity?

The debate will continue, but it doesn't change the fact that these artefacts exist. Perhaps they shouldn't have been retrieved from what can be seen by many as a grave site, but the objects are here, above water, and people have become fascinated by them (see a previous post about dark tourism). It is unrealistic to think that they will be brought back down to the wreckage of the ship. I believe the company is truly doing the best they can in this situation. There are plenty of conditions on the sale, including making it available to the public. It just remains to be seen whether rich, responsible bidders exist, and are willing to follow the rules.

And, for my birthday, I think I will skip the Titanic memorial cruise, which is sold out anyway, and go relive the Hollywood magic of James Cameron's 1997 version of the sinking on the big screen with my 3-D glasses.

Picture of Titanic's bow is copyright Emory Kristof/National Geographic.

Digital History: What's on the Menu?

Food history was buzzing online last week - Ian Mosby's post on Active History discussed problems with popular locavore author Michael Pollan's rule about only eating food your great-grandmother would recognize, and it came only a day after this Star article about the University of Guelph's 13,000-volume Culinary Collection. Public historians should recognize the importance of studying food - the politics and social norms surrounding serving and preparing food can tell us so much about different eras, and describing (or even creating) old recipes can really grab the public's interest. As Mike Ridley, U of Guelph's chief librarian, says, "the fastest way to people’s minds is through their stomachs".

I was reading Food Network Magazine not too long ago when I came across a mention of a New York Public Library project, What's on the Menu?. The NYPL has one of the world's largest historical menu collections, with over 40,000 holdings, 10,000 of which are scanned. To make this amazing resource even more user-friendly, the NYPL has started a transcription project with those scanned menus, and they are enlisting the help of the public to help them with the huge project.

Their aim is to have all the menu items and prices transcribed for each menu, so dishes can be easily searchable by whomever wants to search them - academic historians, museum curators creating an exhibit, historical fiction writers, chefs, the list goes on. The NYPL plans to do this by letting internet users look through the menus and transcribe the items and prices into a text box. Users don't have an account, and there is no log-in - anyone who visits their web page is pointed towards menus that need transcribing. They hope, of course, that visitors read the Help section first - which details what to transcribe, what to skip, and how to format.

This is an great way to have data easily searchable and available to anyone with an internet connection. Why not allow users to transcribe data? Everything is reviewed by staff (though I can't imagine how long it will take to review 642,961 - and counting - dishes). One would assume that the job won't be perfect, but isn't it better than not having anything searchable or digitized at all? It reminds me of the oh so cruel Why you shouldn't become an archivist video that made the rounds last year. One character points out archivists will toil away (in a basement, of course) processing a large collection that no one will use - until someone finally does, but that person will be angry that the entire collection isn't digitized. The video is a joke, of course, but it does point out that researchers expect a lot from these collections - and records aren't serving their purpose if they're not easily accessible. In this digital age, accessibility is key - for researchers and, really, for anyone with an interest in history.

One interesting aspect is the Data section, where the NYPL lets users download the collected raw data and use whatever creative tools they can to analyze, interpret, or even create games with the data. The NYPL clearly understands the use of crowdsourcing - something I touched upon way back in January 2009 when discussing the Smithsonian's digital reputation. Maybe a software engineer will come up with something brilliant - using knowledge a trained historian wouldn't have. If only Miss Frank E. Buttolph could imagine how the collection she started in 1900 for the NYPL would be used in 2011.

Smithsonian 2.0

It's safe to say the internet has been around for awhile. It seems almost cliche to talk about how revolutionary this tool has been, how it has changed lives, the world. I have had an internet connection in my home(s) for the past 13 years. There are teenagers who probably don't legitimately remember a time without e-mail, MSN Messenger and illegal downloading. MySpace is old news, Facebook is getting tired, the New York Times is almost bankrupt. Internet behaviour has already changed - welcome to Web 2.0. Or are we onto something new already? Either way, the internet is hardly new, and our world has been adapting for quite some time.

So why did I feel like I had jumped back in time while reading the Washington Post's Jan 26th article, Smithsonian Clicks-n-Drags Itself Forward? Great quotes like Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough's "With digitization and with the Web, we can see it all. We can see it all!" almost made me laugh out loud. Maybe museums do deserve the stodgy, old, static reputation they have earned over the years. It's almost sad that it took the revered institution this long to realize the power the web can have. The Smithsonian holds 137 million artifacts (and yes, you read that correctly). As with most museums, only about 1 % are on display, and that's only in the D.C, area. Fortunately, they are now realizing the great role the internet can play in reaching a wide audience, of all classes, in all cities.

The good news is that because it's the Smithsonian, they can afford to get the best. At a recent VIP weekend, Wired's Chris Anderson (he of the Long Tail) gave a talk - where he proclaimed that curators needed to "get over themselves." He argues that the Web has made them obsolete. He argues that the best curators are the people out in the Web who are passionate about their specialized hobbies. If the Smithsonian put their objects on the web, they could put out a call to attract these people - a theory that is very similar to Jeff Howe's Crowdsourcing. "There aren't enough of you", he argues, and I can only imagine the reaction among the curators in the audience.

The main message was that the Smithsonian had to join the 21st century, as much as this task may boggle the mind. I can't even imagine the day when the world's largest museum complex will get even one million objects digitized and available to the public. But they have reached the first step - the recognition of the internet's power as a public resource - and hopefully they'll be well on their way to keeping museums relevant into the next century.

In which I share some news

An interesting article was brought to my attention through a Dan Cohen blog post the other day, though the story itself is from December 2008.

It is easy to forget that not every country, or government at least, is thrilled when new historical projects are dreamt up. In Russia, a human rights group called Memorial had been creating a digital repository concerning Stalin's reign of Terror. They had been collecting photographs of gulags, oral histories, artifacts and had been planning a 'Virtual Museum of the Gulag'. Unfortunately, masked men raided their office in broad daylight and stole over 20 years worth of work.

Memorial had been attempting to collect information from many small Russian museums, almost 300 of them, and wanted to help disseminate their important historical message in a more national way. No wonder scholars were outraged when they heard that the government was trying to stop their research.

Stalin is still a very controversial topic on Russia, and this story really raises awareness of how powerful even a virtual museum, or any type of information repository, can be seen as messengers of history. Museums are the key to public memory, and it's almost unbelievable that such a direct action would be taken to stop Memorial's work with Russia's non-elite population.

Read the original story from the Times UK.

In which I glimpse Toronto's past

One of my favourite blogs is Torontoist. It is updated daily with everything Toronto-oriented: news, concerts, movies, politics, urban planning, photos, art listings, transit news, pretty much everything. It is part of the Gothamist network (which boasts many cities, from Seattle to Shanghai), but is written by various Torontonians, most university-age and in their 20s and 30s (I think). They claim to be the largest, most influential, and most widely-read website of its kind in Canada, with 250,000 visits per month. One of my favourite articles are posted on Saturday mornings: Historicist.

"Every Saturday morning Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today." Posts feaure glimpses into Toronto's past, everything from the Santa Claus parade and famous TO residents such as Banting and Best, to old amusement spots and the histories of famous buildings. And of course, in great public history style, the entries are full of archival photos.

I wouldn't have thought at first that a city blog like Torontoist would be the place to find historical vignettes. Torontoist is unabashedly part of the 'indy' crowd of TO, and they are known by some for being too cool for school (though I'm always impressed by their political coverage). On the other hand, I have realized that this blog is the perfect spot for these glimpses. Torontoist advertises itself as being about absolutely everything Toronto-related, and why shouldn't this include its history?

History can be equally as interesting as daily news. I believe people who live in Toronto, and want to learn more about the city, need (and usually want, I hope) to learn about how the city came to be the way it is. Historicist serves as a reminder; many posts talk about the oft-forgotten and perhaps dismissed people, places and events that helped create Toronto. Whether it's learning about the history of a long tradition, or about the architecture or a building one might pass by daily, or about the entertainment spots visited by families in the earlier 20th century, Historicist teaches people what Toronto was, while the other posts on the blog explain what Toronto is like today. I believe Torontoist has realized that history makes us who we are.

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.