Historic Avenger

Access vs. Integrity

2008-03-12T22:02:00.003-04:00

Access is a subject that we have revisited several times over the past few months in each of our four classes. While the setting may be different - archives, museums, Internet - the argument stays the same. Who has the right to access information? Is it just the scholars, the professionals, the hobbyists, or the general public? The argument that is strongest right now is that everyone has a right to access their history and information; and that is why the Internet is such an important resource, because it allows everyone to have equal access to information. Are there still things that need to be regulated? When does access start to influence integrity?

Google recently unveiled "Street View" in The United States. It is a feature of Google Maps that takes live shots at street level. The Pentagon has recently asked Google to remove these images as it compromises the safety of the compound. MSNBC reports that Google has agreed to remove the potentially harmful images, but does not believe that by rights they should have to as all the shots were taken from the street in a public place, and there is no law against that. I find that access to that sort of information is compromised integrity. I realise that we are filmed most of the places we go by security cameras and the like; but I still don't think that Google should be able to put images of anyone, let alone a security facility like the Pentagon, up on the Internet. In this respect, I feel there needs to be a line about how much access a person can have.

In museums and archives, the artefacts and documents have limited access so as to preserve the integrity of the original object and preserve it for future generations. Does that mean that only some people should have access to it? not necessarily. This is where digital technology has a positive role to play. The digitisation of these objects means that more and more people are able to have access to information and history, while not damaging the original with over-handling.

Museum blockbuster exhibits, on the other hand, have a high access rate, but (to some eyes) a lower integrity. Blockbusters are flashy, commercial, and big income boosters. Museums are expected to have a certain integrity, a certain dedication to research, education and authenticity. They are seen as the keepers of history and with this authority, they have a certain responsibility. James Cuno, director and president of the Art Institute of Chicago, told Museum News that "when it comes to exhibits that are conceived for other reasons - drive attendance, increase public profile, increase revenue - those factors alone are not enough to justify an exhibition" (Beizer et al. "Marketing the King: Tut 2 and the New Blockbuster" Museum News. November/December (2005), 41). Blockbusters don't need to sacrifice the integrity of the exhibit, Disney-fy the attractions, or fall short of thorough research in order to draw in crowds. They should still do all those things that are integral to quality museum work even when they are presenting a popular, controversial or misconceived topic.

So how do we draw a line?

I don't think there is an easy answer to this. Everyone has different levels of what they are comfortable with. Every museum, business, person, and even big-wig corporations like Google, are going to have to draw this line for themselves. Knowing your own line, however, should also include respecting the lines of others. While it seems that more access is better, that is not always the case. We don't need to sacrifice integrity in order to have access.

We come in....pieces?

2008-02-22T18:54:00.013-05:00

This semester our big group project for our Digital History class is somewhat of a digital experiment with an overall exhibit theme of "The Sky", the website for which will be coming in April, 2008. My group is based on archaeoastronomy and will be a model of ancient Stonhenge with an interface that will allow the viewer to interact with various aspects of the model. There will be information on the Neolithic culture that constructed Stonehenge, the various theories of its usage, history of the structure, as well as various facts about other megalithic sites in Britain and Europe that will provide more contextual information.

Last weekend, my group and I finished moulding the clay stones that will come together as Stonehenge (hopefully). Moulding the clay was both fun and interesting as we all got our hands dirty playing with air-dry clay and seeing all the pieces come together. The task and greater challenge now before us is the configuration of the electronic and digital components. Apprehensively, I volunteered to work on the digital side of things along with Adam Crymble. Adam has been very helpful in suggesting different programs we could use and with showing me how to use some of them. One of the ones we will definitely be using is a program called Bryce, which is a 3D model, landscape and animation package. Adam has already made an amazing animation of the solstice sunrise at Stonehenge, and has kindly started showing me to use the program as well. I will be attempting to make an animation of Dromagorteen, another stone circle in County Cork, Ireland that is also believed to be aligned with the solstice sunrise.

This here is an image of what Dromagorteen looks like now along with the sign that explains about the site and its astronomical significance:

I took these photos last summer in Ireland in a relatively unmarked off-road historic site that was filled with many interesting archaeological remains.

And here is my attempt using Bryce to digitally reconstruct it:

My group and I are also trying to figure out a way to present all the information about Stonehenge and other megalithic sites in an engaging, interactive way. One program that has potential is Python, an object-oriented programming language that has a huge selling point of being relatively user-friendly. Having absolutely no programming experience I am excited to learn using a program that is more understanding of us less computer-oriented people. Reading through the guide last night I still felt like this might be something a little out of my league. So far I have not even been able to install it successfully on my computer. Not a good sign. Once I do get it working, it will be interesting to see how I fare getting it to work.

While we can not hope to match the overwhelming accomplishment of the people who originally built Stonehenge, I am excited to see how our scaled-down version will work with all of the electronic and digital interfaces that we will be using. The pieces of the past few months are all coming together. Let's see what we can accomplish.

It's the Little Things

2008-02-10T16:07:00.000-05:00

For many people it is the little things that count. Those small contributions that go a long way in the betterment of yourself, the human race, and even the planet. GreenPrint World is a free version of GreenPrint software. GreenPrint has created a solution for what is seemingly a minor problem, but which has large implications. Almost everyone, I am sure, has noticed the extra pages that appear only after a document has been printed (for example, pages with just a URL or a run-over Excel column). GreenPrint solves this problem by using a technology that analyses the document and then highlights and removes the essentially blank pages. This technology also incorporates an easy to use PDF writer, a print preview called GreenView and a neat feature which reports the number of pages, trees and money you have saved every time you use it. The publisher claims that "GreenPrint Technologies creates products that help protect the environment while increasing efficiency and saving money." A mission that is both innovative and environmentally considerate.

Many digital technologies in the humanities field have similar environmentally beneficial features, though they are not often advertised as such. The number one argument it seems for having publications and other research tools available online is the increased accessibility. Saving the environment is big business right now. Maybe by putting more of a spin on the fact that digital resources mean decreased deforestation and pulp mills, less packaging, and less waste the more attention it will receive in the public sphere.

Besides being environmentally beneficial, this technology also seems analogous to the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology that is increasingly being used by archives and museums. Both scan the document for information and produce a result which is beneficial to the user for time/money saved. OCR-ing quickens the transcription process when digitising typed text (handwritten text recognition is still being developed) by scanning and recognising individual characters and placing them into Notepad where it can be formatted using HTML. This "scanning technology" seems to be everywhere in the digital humanities field and its benefits for both the field and the environment have yet to be fully realised. I look forward to more of these "little things" that seem to be making such a big difference in our world.

Museums and their representation in film: a study using 'The Da Vinci Code'

2008-01-27T17:36:00.000-05:00

Dan Brown’s bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code, was released as a movie in 2006, and is an excellent example of museum sterotypes brought to life. The film was directed by Ron Howard and starred such Hollywood bigwigs as Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, and Paul Bettany. The story unfolds as renowned symbolist, Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), is called to Paris to help in the murder case of the Louvre Museum’s curator, who was killed inside the museum and covered with cryptic text. Langdon and his sexy sidekick, French cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), follow the clues from the works of Leonardo da Vinci, to Knights Templar Legends, all the way to English Cathedrals, in order to unravel an apparent plot by the Christian Church to cover up the fact that Jesus was a mortal man who had mortal children by Mary Magdalene. Langdon and Neveu must decipher the mystery, while avoiding countless foes, or else this ancient truth will be lost forever. Dan Brown’s novel created such a sensation that millions of people not only bought the novel, but bought the ideas Brown presented as well. Thousands of people flocked to the Louvre; thousands more bought all the books they could on the Freemasons, the Knights’ Templar, and other conspiracy-related works. Having worked in a bookstore at this time, it was staggering to see the amount of people who took a work of fiction as some kind of historical truth. It was no wonder Hollywood decided to cash in on such a sensation.

The film opens with a view of one of the most famous museums in the world: the Louvre. And within this world-renowned museum is the stereotypical old, distinguished, male curator – except this time he is running for his life. Not so typical, but I have noticed that if there are fiction novels or films that take place within a museum, they are more often than not the scenes of murders or other scary scenarios. The depiction of the actual museum was accurate, as the movie was filmed within the Louvre museum itself. It also captured the security on the art and displays, one of which the curator pulls off of the wall to trigger the security system to keep his fanatic murderer (Paul Bettany) at bay (although it did not save him.) This is a common stereotype of museums – that the works that they keep are so valuable that they are untouchable to the public. This is often part of the deterrent for the common public to engage with the past. While preservation is important, it is equally important for museums and other historic institutions to allow the public to interact with the pieces on a real level either by creating digital copies or reproductions for handling by the public.

While many of the images of the Louvre reinforce stereotypes about museums, it did have the astounding affect of getting people interested in it. The Da Vinci Code instigated a huge influx of visitors to the Louvre and the works of Leonardo da Vinci, which on the one hand was bad, as Louvre employees had to deal with Dan Brown zealots determined to prove or disprove his novel; but it was also good as it got people interested in the museum and the histories it represented. The grandeur of the museum, and the renown of the character of John Langdon, reinforces the image of museums as centres of higher learning and education. I think the filmmakers (and Dan Brown) chose to create the scenes in a museum setting not only because such a setting lent a degree of authenticity and authority to the works of art and history being presented in the story, but also because the architecture of the Louvre itself is a very dramatic setting. The Louvre has dominated central Paris since the late 12th century, and has been a central piece to the history of the city itself. There was a lot of controversy over the architecture of the building – there is even a line on the film spoken by police Captain Bezu Fache (Jean Reno) to the effect that the Louvre Pyramid was a “blight” on the city of Paris. This sort of familiarity makes the museum all the more “real” for moviegoer enthusiasts.

The film not only played on the stereotypes of museums, but of history as well. The overall storyline is about how history was manipulated, changed, and misrepresented to serve the needs of those in power, mainly the Christian Church. The role of Sir Leigh Teabing, played by Ian McKellen, perpetuated the stereotype of historians as privately wealthy, eccentric, academics that can spend all of their time pursuing their personal interests. At one point our hero, John Langdon, spouts the ever-so-popular history jib: “you are interpreting facts to support your own conclusions” at Teabing when he dares to suggest history was manipulated to cover the truth. There is a very clear message here that the truth in history can set mankind free; as if there were a sort of latent power instilled in history that can be attained and that is waiting to be discovered. Museums are popularly believed to fulfill this role of authority and that everything a museum tells the public is true. The central problem around such a contingency is the point that every history student is beaten over the head with: that history is conjecture, subjective, and fluid, with no absolutes, and essentially no master organiser. One good point that the movie makes about history, in relative contrast to its other ones, is that history is made by those who write it, and those people (whether it be the Christian Church or not) are pursuing their own agendas.

While I have serious issue with the research Dan Brown produced and passed off as fact, I believe that as a Hollywood fictitious movie, it was successful in getting people interested in museums, despite how they played on a great many stereotypes and conspiracy theories to do so. It was a successful attempt to get people engaged with the topic, as it brought up many issues concerning faith versus science versus history. And after all that, the story ended where it began – at the museum. It is at the Louvre that it is revealed that the final and most important piece of evidence has been hidden. It re-enforces the idea that the museum and its staff are keepers of knowledge, for good or evil, for seemingly many purposes. This is not a negative image, but it is an overdramatic one. I think in the end, museums are seen as keepers and protectors, but to make that work for Hollywood, they needed to add the dramatics to overcome the stereotype that museums are dull and static. There is more to the museum than the murder scene.

Canadian Genealogy

2008-01-13T17:20:00.000-05:00

The Canadian Broadcast Corporation has long been a herald of information about Canada, its people and its past. Over the years they have produced several programs aimed at the general public including, “Canada: A People’s History,” and the heritage minutes. They are also a leader in digital archives with their CBC Archives website, which includes clips from the entire history of the CBC radio and television. It also includes a feature called “Days to Remember,” showing what it was like to listen/watch the CBC in previous decades.

The latest program in CBC’s public history endeavours is a series called, “Who Do You Think You Are?,” which features thirteen famous Canadians and goes digging in their genealogical closets. The program was created in association with Library and Archives Canada as well as the website Ancestry.ca, both of which have easy-to-use genealogical research tools designed so that every Canadian has the possibility of tracing their past.
The most recent episode was on the well-known hockey commentator, Don Cherry. The show began by taking Cherry back to his home town of Kingston, Ontario, and followed him through his discovery of some of his family’s history. They traced the records back to both his maternal and paternal great-grandparents, although the focus was on the grandfathers, as he seemed especially interested in their military and hockey involvements. The show was able to find original documents and took Cherry to all of the places that had an impact on his family history, including travelling to Gloucester, England where his grandfather was an orphan who eventually made his way to Canada, and to Vimy Ridge in France, where his grandfather would have fought had he not been sick and taken off active duty. Vimy Ridge is an important icon in many Canadians lives, and Don Cherry believes (as do many) that it is the place where Canada first became a nation. There was more to this program than just tracing Don Cherry’s family history - it brought in information about Canada’s history, and the history of millions of other people. Cherry said that Canadians “should be proud,” and I agree. We have a rich and vibrant heritage that is recognised through such iconic moments as Vimy Ridge. It was a turning point not only in Don Cherry’s grandfather’s life, but the history of this country. His grandfather came here as an orphan with no family and very little hope for the future. What he found was a nation that he was proud enough of to fight for and willingly die for – though thankfully that was a sacrifice he did not have to make as we now have another Canadian icon, his grandson, who has been and will continue to be a central figure in Canadian culture.

The program used many historical resources to help Cherry find all of this information; they used archives from Canada and England, as well as military records and medical files. They visited historical buildings and places, and had photographs, documents, and knowledgeable people to help Cherry on his journey of discovery. CBC has done an excellent job of bringing history to the public by engaging them with a familiar person, whose family history reflected that of Canada itself. The best way to get people interested in the past is to make it relevant to them. By discovering aspects about their own family history, they learn the history of Canada as well because Canada is the history of its people.

For people interested in discovering their pasts, these are some excellent websites on which to begin your search:

Library and Archives Canada Canadian Genealogy Centre: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/index-e.html

For genealogies and to build a family tree: http://www.ancestry.ca/

For Métis genealogies try the Métis National Council Historical Online Database:
http://metisnationdatabase.ualberta.ca/MNC/

For Immigration in the early 20th century, try the Young Immigrants to Canada:
http://retirees.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/genealogy.html

There is also a great Genealogy 101 on the “Who Do You Think You Are?” website:
http://www.cbc.ca/whodoyouthinkyouare/genealogy101/index.php

The Rocky 'Knol'

2007-12-23T19:46:00.000-05:00

When I was an undergrad, my professors strictly forbade us to use such “unreliable” and “nonacademic” sources such as Google and Wikipedia. We were to only use academically reliable secondary and primary sources such as the library and archives; the only digital resources allowed were such databases as JSTOR (online storage for academic journals). But as they say, the world is changing. Google has now announced that they will be venturing further into academic credibility. Their first foray was their beta Google Scholar, a search engine that brings up articles, books, etc. that relate to particular search words. Now they are launching a campaign that ousts Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, which anyone can edit/add to, by upping the ante to only accepting submissions by accredited specialists of each particular topic.
According to a BBC news article, Google has started to invite authors to write about their respected specialities on a new site that will be called ‘Knol.’ Since Google is the leader in Internet ranking, the Knol site will be the first hit on any subject that is searched and that finds a match in their encyclopedic site (which says something else about who controls the information on the Internet). Google offers this site as an open invitation to find out more about their brain child and gives people a chance to offer their opinions on it:
"KnolStuff.com is a brand new social networking community for Google's Open Encyclopedia. This is not Google's site but a Community to discuss and learn about "Knol" and take advantage of what Google is soon offering."

So what does this imply for the academic world? What will be considered a "reliable" source? Many post-structuralist profs already encourage their students to question what makes a source reliable or unreliable and what it means to be an "expert." What kind of screening process will Google have to consider? Wikipedia took a very casual attitude towards the information placed on their site as it is intended to be a public forum for anyone's opinion or view on a particular topic. Google might have a rocky road ahead to prove their validity as an academic resource. However, I think this is an excellent step in the organisation of the abundance of information that is available and provides an excellent venue for professionals to bring their expertise on a particular subject to a wider audience.

Week 12 Assignment

2007-12-05T11:56:00.000-05:00

Alan Cooper wrote an article called "Your Program's Posture" that classified software programs into four main categories based on how they interact with the user: sovereign, transient, daemonic and parasitic. Our assignment this week for our Digital History class is to "make a list of all of the software that you interact with during a typical historical research process and classify it according to Cooper’s scheme."
I am not a computer person, so the programs I use to write a research paper are pretty standard. I use a library catalogue to search for books and the electronic journal storage, such as JSTOR, and electronic finding aids for archival sources to search for primary and secondary sources. None of these quite fit into Cooper's categories, although the recently discovered Zotero program might be considered a "transient" program as it is a tool that appears at the bottom of the screen and can disappear again when you no longer need it. I use Microsoft Word to write my paper or Microsoft PowerPoint to create a presentation of my research, both of which I believe would be considered sovereign programs as both dominate the page and are continuously used. I can not think of parasitic or daemonic programs that are running that I am aware of, though as I said, I know very little about what happens 'behind the scenes' as it were.

Software usability issues enter into the historians craft when they are trying to communicate that history to the public in digital form. Most people are able to use programs such as Word to hand in a research paper. Less people know how to programme a website to display the results of that research. What could be improved, if digital is (as it seems to be) the way of the future, is to create "humanities-friendly" programs. There are templates and easy, helpful guides to programs like PowerPoint, why can there not be more formulated programs for the not-so-computer-savvy historian? I recognize the importance of developing newer, faster, more interesting programs, but I also think that more time needs to be spent developing programs for ease of use, so that there are more sovereign programs available for humanity-type research to be displayed on the internet.

People's History

2007-12-03T14:15:00.000-05:00

The focus of our Public History Masters program is basically how to bring academic history to the public. This means learning about the different theories and approaches to history in public forums such as museums, archives, and historic centres. This is learning about history and then taking it a step further and communicating it. Historical facts are less important than the ways in which history communicates, which is somewhat counter-intuitive to traditional academic historians. We have noticed in the program that very few people, including others in the history field, know what public history is even though the work of it surrounds people everyday. Treena Hein's article, "History for the people" in November's University Affairs magazine remarks on the new shift in attention public history is receiving as a valid and necessary component of historical education. What history is being told is the central question historians, curators, archivists, and historical interpreters need to be asking themselves. This article describes an important process in the recognition of the need for such programs as public history that takes academia and makes it applicable and useful by bringing it to the public. It is essential for people to have access to their history. By keeping it locked up in the ivory tower, history becomes self-serving and known to only a few.

Reclaiming Cymraeg

2007-11-17T12:48:00.000-05:00

Language is a powerful force in cultural history. It is the voice that speaks to the future, and when that language is suppressed, so is the story of the past. Legends surrounding the figure of King Arthur have been retold for 1500 years in hundreds of languages around the world. His legend dominates late Celtic poetry, and he has played an integral role in Welsh cultural identity. Medieval Welsh poets were not that far removed from the druids who maintained the memories of the tribe. The intricacies of the language of the poems were not just artistic statements; they also acted as the history and memory of the Welsh people.

The Act of Union in 1536 by Henry VIII was the start of the Anglicization of Welsh language and culture, robbing a people of their past. This made it no longer acceptable to associate with their heritage. With the suppression of their language, they lost an integral part of their cultural identity.

The Celtic revival of the 20th century saw a slow reclamation of the Welsh language (Cymraeg) and now the country is legally bilingual. The survival of the Arthurian legends show that the Welsh wished to retain much of their cultural spirit and heritage despite an early suppression of their language. The Welsh are still struggling with the ramifications of so much cultural loss. Some stories will be lost forever; but by reclaiming their language, they can take back the power to control their own history and re-appropriate the poetic legends that were so definitive in their past.

Let's Get Digital, Digital

2007-11-09T22:41:00.000-05:00

When the world starts to get too confusing, we often turn back for a nostalgic look at the past. For me, it was a return to the eternal wisdom of Olivia Newton-John. She cries out: "Let's get physical, physical. I wanna get physical, let's get into physical." While this motto has been successful for millions of years (or at least the 1980s), it is certainly not the slogan of our post-Y2K generation. It is no longer about getting physical, but about getting digital! The conflicting approaches, the intellectual battles, the death-cries of Luddites, we are all at the mercy of technology. Com'on! Everybody is doing it...

And we are. Just as we waved sadly goodbye to the Beta videotape player (despite their better quality) and on to the VHS, so are we now thrust by market forces greater than ourselves into purchasing the "latest" in digital technology. Every time there is a substantial technological "improvement" (and I say that heavy with irony), we are at their mercy. Eventually they stop making beta tapes, VHS, etc., so that we are forced to buy a whole new system in order to participate. In short, we become consumerized victims of technology. I could download Olivia right now without ever having bought a vinyl, a tape, or a CD; however, I will have had to buy a computer. With digital cable, we no longer need VHS, DVD or the employees of Blockbuster, to watch a movie; but, we do need to buy a modem. And I don't even need to get out of my chair and have any human contact whatsoever to do any of these things.

So who or what, in fact, do we need?

What we still need, and as far as I can tell will always need, are the teachers. To know what literature is we need the English teachers and professors; to know about technology we need the science classes (and yes, even Digital History); and to know our past we need to know our History. As public historians, we are all hoping to enter a field based upon the idea of bringing history with all of its educational baggage to the people. Raise your textbooks loud and proud.

But, we spend so much time theorizing about what history is and how to present it, that I wonder what answers are being provided. Tribal historians, the bards and community leaders, knew how to remember and present the history that was important for the tribe. Every generation passed down the stories and traditions to their apprentices and successors. There was a conclusion, an answer to the questions, that ensured the survival of their people both physically, and through the stories. Today, we are so bogged down in the theory of history that we have no straight answer to the questions history raises. Historians should be bards, but instead we are politicians.

The big bonus of the Internet and digital images of collections is having all that knowledge accessible and available for use to a wider range of people. And that is a wonderful thing. But we forget that the Internet is a tool. Not the teacher. We need the teacher, the leader, to show us what to do with this information. It is not that we need our hand held, we all crawled out of the swamp equally, but I think that living in the age of abundant information does not mean we live in an age of abundant knowledge.

We may have left the simple wisdom of Olivia Newton-John in the blurry decade of the 80s, but her message need not be forgotten. Sometimes, it's as simple as getting a little physical. I am all for the digital availability of the Internet, but as consumers - of products and of knowledge - we won't be able to keep up with the constant changes without our teachers. Change is sometimes forced upon us - such as when we have to buy a DVD player because VHS tapes aren't made any more - but, if we have been taught well, we will know what to do about it. The "getting digital" ship may have sailed, but hopefully those manning its direction took some swimming lessons.

Museum Exhibit Review: Ontario Museum of Archaeology

2007-11-03T15:27:00.000-04:00

Museum of Ontario Archaeology
1600 Atttawandaron Road
London, Ontario
Canada N6G 3M6

The Gathering of Good Minds and Native Harvest Festival presents
‘A Celebration of First Nations Arts, Wisdom and Culture’ September 21-23, 2007.
Reviewed September 22 and 23, 2007

Main Gallery is a permanent exhibit. Temporary Gallery September 23, 2007-March 23, 2008. Lawson Village is an ongoing excavation with reconstructions beginning in July, 2007. Museum is open May-December 10-430 (Sept. to Dec. closed M & T). January-April 1-4 Sa. & Su. only. Family $10, Adults: $4, Seniors/Students: $3.25, Children 5 to 12: $2, Preschoolers and Sponsors Free. Village site open May to Nov. (Weather Permitting). Executive Director, Dr. Robert Pearce.

Internet description of museum, virtual tour, education resources, membership and employment information, the museum gift shop, and the Neutral Iroquoian Village, http://www.uwo.ca/museum/index.html

The Museum of Ontario Archaeology is located in London, Ontario, and was originally founded in 1933 by Amos and Wilfred Jury. It has been affiliated with the University of Western Ontario as a research facility and educational resource since 1927. The 500-year-old Neutral Iroquoian village was discovered in the 19th century, and the land was donated by Tom and Miggsie Lawson for the construction of a new museum and archaeological exploration. The museum’s current location beside the village was built in 1980, after it was discovered that the area was a 4,000-year-old campsite. Their directive is the research, education, archaeology, and collection of local Ontario history and Aboriginal pre-history.

On a beautiful, sunny weekend in late September, the museum hosted ‘A Celebration of First Nations Arts, Wisdom and Culture’ organised by The Gathering of Good Minds and Native Harvest Festival. The festival was supported by such institutions as the Ontario Arts Council, The University of Western Ontario, and the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. The celebration was outside the museum in the recently unveiled Lawson Iroquoian Village, which is an on-going archaeological excavation and reconstruction of a pre-historic Neutral Iroquoian village, the only one of its kind in Canada. The village is divided from the museum by a reconstructed wooden palisade and efforts were made to make it as “real” as possible. The effect certainly gives the enclosure a sense of “authenticity” and adds to the character of the museum. Within the palisade were several interactive activities and performances. There was a reconstructed longhouse, tipi, canoe, snowshoes, and drums—all of which were hand-made and based on archaeological evidence. The site was attended by local Natives ready and happy to explain the significance of the items, how they were built, and tell fascinating tales from their past or the lives of their ancestors. The interactive activities were mostly intended for children and families, but were interesting enough to capture the attention of any age. They had crafts, archaeological excavations, and song and dance lessons. This was an excellent effort by the museum to get people involved in history.

The museum displays its permanent exhibition in the main gallery, just off of the gift shop entrance. The exhibit was designed to reflect Ontario’s archaeological history, focusing largely on the Native peoples who have occupied the area for the past 5,000 years. According to the staff, the artefacts and displays are arranged chronologically from prehistoric times to the 20th century. There were many interesting artefacts, and a plethora of spearheads almost to excess, but the displays lacked labels and rarely had dates. It is a rather small room, and the displays were haphazard and dusty, making any arrangement difficult to follow. Granted, the main gallery is under renovation for some new permanent displays that will be placed near the entrance, but it is unfortunate that they did not take the time to dust off the displays and fix the broken shelving that had artefacts dangling from them in a most precarious manner.

At the back of the room there was an interesting miniature display showing the arrival of the ‘Black Robes’ to a typical 16th century Native village with a telephone through which you can listen to a dialog about Native life, subsistence, practices, and culture. The dialog was informative; however, it was presented in a rather dull and monotonous voice and the display was outmoded. It was quite dark in the gallery and there was nothing to try and engage the viewer to understand the implications of the myriad of artefacts—quite the contrast to the interactive focus of the outdoor exhibit. The virtual museum on the website for the exhibit provides a more in-depth look into Native lives during different time periods; it is unfortunate that they do not make the same wealth of information available in the museum itself.

In the centre of the room was a large textual panel dedicated to the two armed merchant schooners found on the bottom of Lake Ontario—the Hamilton and the Scourge—from the War of 1812, but there were no artefacts displayed from the discovery. There was also a small room dedicated to the founders of the museum, the Jury family, and their personal collections, but it was closed to viewers. These two displays lacked any identifying visual connection to the overall theme of “Aboriginal culture” and were the only testament to European culture in the local history. They looked awkward and very out of place.

The Temporary Gallery at the back of the building continued the Aboriginal theme of the museum and had a beautiful display featuring three Native artists—Zoey Wood, R. Gary Miller, and Gordon Miller. This room was more like a professional art gallery as the layout had an aesthetically pleasing and symmetrical pattern. The museum chose an excellent combination of artists, each with very unique styles, but all used bright, powerful colours that complimented each other nicely. The lighting was effective, and focused on the paintings on each wall, giving them a gentle glow, while keeping the centre of the room dimmer. The paintings were an excellent conclusion to round off the Native cultural experience; however, because it was so nice, it made the main gallery even drabber in comparison.

The Museum of Ontario Archaeology has many qualities to recommend it—the Village especially was successful in engaging visitors with history. There was more to learn about Aboriginal culture from the one Native woman telling the story of the gathering of the Sweetgrass than all of the indoor displays. The main gallery may not have appeared so vapid had it not been for the fact that there was a bright, fun, engaging, outdoor display. However, the overall effectiveness of the museum to communicate some aspects of Aboriginal history was successful because the culture the artefacts functioned within was recreated in the various exhibits and displays. The three exhibits together provided a more holistic cultural context to the traditional museum by demonstrating how Aboriginal culture, art, and artefacts all came together to form the local history of Ontario.

The Language of Computer Jargon

2007-10-21T13:41:00.000-04:00

The language of computer jargon is single-handedly the most terrifying aspect of learning about computers. Language is such a fundamental aspect to the humanities that we become quite lost and bewildered when there is suddenly a text that we can not decifer. Ferdinand de Saussure describes language as a series of signs that are assigned meaning through culture. Every sign is a union of a signifier (word) and a signified (meaning).
We know that DOG= because we have been trained to recognise its signification as a cute little furry creature. But when I see things like programming code, I see: "*%@#???" We are lost in the proverbial woods being hunted by the mythical ones and zeros. I do not have the language to understand the signifiers.

As I work through W3C's School tutorial on CSS, I realise that this process of signification is still ongoing. That I actually understand some of the terms and can assign them meaning. Having also worked through the RSS tutorial and the HTML tutorial, I am beginning to recognise signs and knowing what they mean. The W3C Schools do an excellent job of de-mystifying some basic computer knowledge. When I think of it, when I first looked at Latin I thought, "*%#????" so it is perfectly normal not to understand what all this computer jargon means and for it to look like something from another planet. This is not an easy process. For example, I tried to make this page a different colour using CSS, and it didn't work. I don't know why it didn't work, and I don't know how to make it work. But I do know that CSS means applying a particular style to HTML to make it look a certain way on the page, which requires somehow linking a "style sheet". Eventually, (I think, I hope) I will figure out how to apply this as I start to grasp more of the lingo.

I think what makes some of the readings so difficult and so intimidating is that they are often scripted in a language that I do not understand, referencing programs and technologies that I am not familiar with. The more I read, obviously, the more versed I shall become in what they are trying to say. I am going to look at it from now on as learning a new language. And while I shall never master computer jargonian, I am hoping to start recognising some of its signifiers and understanding what it is signifying.

Website Review: Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

2007-10-16T19:40:00.000-04:00

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, http://www.head-smashed-in.com/. Created and maintained by the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre, Fort Macleod, Alberta. Reviewed September 27-30, 2007.

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is an UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Southern Alberta that has been continuously used by Aboriginal peoples for over five thousand years. It is also an ongoing archaeological site and home to the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre. The website as a whole includes information on Blackfoot heritage, archaeology of the site, and the ways people can participate in history through the Interpretive Centre, tipi camping, and educational programs.

The website is well organised with a broad range of engaging topics centred on Aboriginal history and archaeology. An interesting part of the site is the “Blackfoot History” page, which provides broad definitions of the history of the area and its peoples. This part of the site is useful and covers many aspects of Blackfoot life; however, it could be further developed as the information is brief and quite simplistic. The website also provides an interesting look into the archaeological work and research done around the site. The link to “Archaeological Facts” introduces the reader to the purposes and aims of archaeology and the story it has revealed about Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, its surrounding area, and the people who used to live there. Through the link “Buffalo Tracks,” a fifteen-page archaeological booklet in PDF provides a more in-depth look into the history and ethnography of the buffalo culture. There is also a link to a permanent exhibition at the Centre called “Lost Identities,” which is an ongoing project to name the people and places of thousands of Aboriginal photographs from the Provincial Archives of Alberta. While this is an important reflection of the role of the Centre as a museum and interactive historic site, an online exhibit of the project would have enabled more people to benefit from the findings.

The links are easy to navigate and remain on the left-hand side of the page no matter which page you follow, making it easy to change direction and go to different parts of the site. The “Links” page has an excellent collection of websites broken down by subject that leads to further information about everything from Alberta Tourism, to Native history, to its associated supporters. The connections are clearly labelled and all of the linked websites are active and well-maintained. At the bottom of the homepage, unfortunately, is another copy of the set of links to other historic sites around Southern Alberta. Only one of the links, the “Remington Carriage Museum,” leads to its own site; of the others, two lead to Head-Smashed-In’s own homepage, while the remainder do not link to their own websites.

The style of the website is appealing as the graphics are simple and not too busy, with a uniform background that makes the pages clear and comprehensive. The website uses popular programs, like PDF and Java, which are user-friendly and which most computers are able to run. The resources are largely textual, so while the pages are informative, and the visitor can learn all about Head-Smashed-In and its history, there is not a lot of interactivity on the website itself, but rather it advertises what activities there are available to do on the actual site.

The audience focus is quite broad, as the aim is to attract people to Alberta by getting them interested in both Aboriginal and regional history. The use of simple links, programs, and language makes it intelligible to a wide-range of people. It is not focused towards academia, but it does have many educational aspects. The link to “Educational Programs” opens a PDF document that describes the interactive activities they have available for students from kindergarten to grade twelve, which are designed to follow the latest Alberta Education Social Studies Curriculum. There is also information about the “Sunday Learning Series,” which anyone can participate in. While the page may have limited scholarly interest, it is an excellent source to get the general public and education system interested, engaged, and participating in history.

"Collecting Experiences" Exercise

2007-10-10T13:40:00.000-04:00

The assignment is to write a proposal for a project that would collect peoples' memories similar to the websites created by researchers at the Centre for History and New Media , such as the Memory Archive and the Hurricane Katrina website. All of them are dedicated to collecting the personal stories of particular events, places, or activities.

Just for fun, and to see if I can do it, I am writing all of this in HTML.

As I have a personal interest in oral cultures, I would suggest creating a website for the collection of Aboriginal myths, legends, personal stories, all in the language of their people. There are several archives all around the world that have contained within their vaults, recordings of oral interviews with Native peoples over the past 150 years. A communal sharing space of oral tales and testimonies would give voice to a threatened culture, as well as an opprtunity for people to relate and share their family histories, personal tales, and outlook. Oral history, after all, is still history, and new methods of preservation need to be considered just as they are for textual records.

I applaud CHNM's efforts in trying to capture the memory of the people involved in historic events. It is a voice, a reservoir of memory. We may have had to give up the bards of old to change for the future, but the role of collective memory in a society need not be sacrificed. By creating a space for the oral tales of Aboriginals, we can ensure the survival of their culture and their language, though it may be in a medium far from traditional. This does not mean that we don't need the storytellers and the bards, we will always need the human element, but this could be an excellent backup drive.

History as Song

2007-09-30T14:45:00.000-04:00

History is often associated with the textual and physical past, focusing on the evidence of artefacts and documents to reconstruct times gone by. This is, in fact, what I understood it to be as well, starting as I did from Anthropology and moving into English and then History. What I discovered along the way was a love for legends and mythologies, and the oral traditions that created them. What this interest convinced me of was that there is another way to look at history: through stories.

Before the Greek city-states were at their zenith of cultural achievement, the Celtic tribes dominated Western Europe. Little evidence remains of their tribal life — their social structures and belief systems are fragmentary and mysterious — but their rich culture has echoed through the centuries and is still influential today. To recreate the Celtic world of the misty past, we must turn to their legends and mythologies to unveil their mysteries. Unlike the Roman Empire, which was a strongly visual culture and used awe-inspiring art and architecture to communicate to the diverse cultures and languages they controlled, I believe that the ancient Celts used their songs and legends as forms of communication and education. The Celtic tribes once stretched from the Balkans to Ireland, and they had a lasting impact on the develpoment of Europe that is often overlooked by the seemingly higher culture of Greece and Rome. Celtic tribes were eventually defeated by these emerging strengths; however, the survival of the Celtic culture indicates an enduring method of recording their history. Mythological figures, gods, and legendary exploits surviving in the Celtic realms of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales can demonstrate a common past that through the retelling has become the stuff of fiction.

As historians, public historians, and seekers of heritage, I believe that knowing about the past includes knowing about how the people in the past viewed their own history. How a culture communicates its collective memory is an integral part of their social identity. Listening to the song of the past can give vital clues as to how we should interpret it. Some archives and historians are now recognizing that "history" is not just the written past, but the oral past as well. The University of Dundee in Scotland has a course (as part of regular archives program or as professional development) that teaches how to preserve oral culture in an archival setting.

Legends and mythologies are stories of the past - ones that must be heard in order for us to know how various cultures saw their place in the history of their people.

Roy Rosenzweig’s Scavenger Hunt

2007-09-19T10:49:00.000-04:00

Digital History Assignment 2 for September 19, 2007

1. A recording of Leon Trotsky speaking in English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7r4zpUEpog

2. 1915 suffrage poem with the line: When all the women wanted it.
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Bistro/8066/ADMsuffrage.html

3. A letter from George Washington to Timothy Pickering in which Washington complains about "certain forged letters" intended to wound his character and "deceive the people."
http://books.google.ca/books?id=OLiLJsfyrMoC&pg=PA420&dq=certain+forged+letters+intended+to+wound+his+character+and+%22deceive+the+people.%22

4. An 18th century speech by Willie Lynch telling Virginia slave owners how to keep slaves in line.
http://www.thetalkingdrum.com/wil.html

5. An online debate over whether the 1962 Cuban crisis would have been different if Kruschev had sent a fair sized contingent of Russian troops instead of missiles.
I could not find this one. :(

6. A complete version of "Annual Review of Information Technology Developments for Economic and Social Historians, 1993" in The Economic History Review by Roger Middleton and Peter Wardley (one of first publications for historians to talk about Internet).
Found in JSTOR
http://www.jstor.org.proxy2.lib.uwo.ca:2048/view/00130117/di011843/01p01475/0?currentResult=00130117%2bdi011843%2b01p01475%2b0%2cFFFFFFFF&searchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fsearch%2FAdvancedResults%3Fhp%3D25%26si%3D1%26q0%3DAnnual%2BReview%2Bof%2BInformation%2BTechnology%2BDevelopments%2Bfor%2BEconomic%2Band%2BSocial%2BHistorians%26f0%3D%26c0%3DAND%26q1%3DEconomic%2BHistory%2BReview%26f1%3D%26c1%3DAND%26wc%3Don%26sd%3D1993%26ed%3D1993%26la%3D

7. Four syllabi for courses that include Hamlet on the Holodeck by Janet Murray.
http://www.stanford.edu/class/sts145/html/Syllabus2003.htm
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/tburke1/interpret.html
http://www.units.muohio.edu/englishtech/ENG49502/ENG495syll02.htm
http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~murray/6210_syl.html

8. The home page for the Center for History & New Media as it looked in 1998.
I am not sure if this one is right…
http://chnm.gmu.edu/index.php

After using the Internet Archives' really interesting search tool, the 'Wayback Machine', I would like to revise my answer to:
http://web.archive.org/web/19980419060247/http://chnm.gmu.edu/

The only drawback to this tool is that you have to know the URL of the site you are looking for. So, if it ever changed its URL address, you can not search by subject or title, and it would make finding the old site very difficult.

9. A picture of Janet Murray together with the Sims.
http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://homepage.mac.com/voyager/images/janetmurray.jpg&imgrefurl=http://voyager.blogs.com/voyeurism/educational_technology/index.html&h=489&w=652&sz=274&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=3lUZ0emIuw2WAM:&tbnh=104&tbnw=138&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djanet%2Bmurray%2Bsims%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

I actually really enjoyed this exercise. It let me realise that I do have some search skills, while also showing me that there is much, much more for me to learn. I know that I will never be able to understand everything about the Internet or computers (I never actually figured out exactly what a 'SIMS' was), but I am feeling better every day about the elastic nature of my brain to take in, and maybe even understand, something of what we are doing in realtion to my age-old enemy, the computer.

Archivists: those curious creatures

2007-09-16T11:32:00.000-04:00

For everyone who has ever wondered what an archive is and how it is run and were too afraid to ask, here is a wonderful video put together by Bob Stewart in 1990 to help explain what an archive is and how it is organised. It's a fun and hilarious video, I really recommend watching it, and he was one of the best archivists in the field. The B.C. Conference of the United Church of Canada is actually naming their archives the Bob Stewart Archives after this remarkable man. Here is his video:

http://www.bc.united-church.ca/archives/Bob_Stewart/index.htm

Enjoy!

What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs?

2007-09-13T16:08:00.000-04:00

The truth of what really happened to the dinosaurs has been conjectured and postulated upon for decades by every dino-loving professional and hobbyist. There's the comet theory, the slow elimination theory, the creationist theory, and so many many more. One I read recently was that it was the unexpected arrival of the flower with its odious flaunting of flavours that threw the veggies off of their feed, and as they slowly wasted away, it then left little to be desired for the carnivorous diet - don't worry folks, it was in a fictitious field that I read this. But it brings up an interesting point. What is it about new arrivals that throws us off so quickly? Because it is not just dinosaurs, people are always suspicious at first of things they do not understand. This has been the consistent theme in our readings this week for Digital History.
The advance of the Internet as an historical source has been contested at almost every new development. To the computer-savvy group, it has been a positive change; for those less inclined to the techno-world, it has been for the worst, with constant ever-evolving changes and horrible new developments. Change rarely smells good to those not used to its scent. I have to admit that I am somewhere in the middle. I am of the generation that should know computers, but I don't. I can go through the motions and generally keep afloat, but I never really understand. And I am sure we all know from our humanities background, that we fear what we do not understand. I think the Internet allows history to reach millions of people that would never have been able to before, which is great. Knowledge should not be hoarded. But, I do feel sorry for the old school scholars who are being thrown off their over-used metaphor of an ivory tower and made to go the way of the dinosaur. Can we not have the best of both worlds? And I understand about the "old making way for the new," but don't we lose something valuable in the process? Like dinosaurs? That could have been fun - T-Rex's for the army, pterodactyls for transportation, dino eggs for breakfast...I kid!
Cohen and Rosenzweig say in Promises and Perils of Digital History that "instantaneous access to primary and secondary sources - the ability to very quickly make and test out intellectual connections - will likely alter historical research and writing in ways that we haven't yet imagined." And that's the thing: we do not know the full ramifications of the Internet and blogs and digitised sources. We never do with any kind of new development. I think the lesson that we can take from history (and from the dinos) is that balance is key. Just in case the Internet and computers end up being our asteroid in some Terminator-style future, we need to still try and preserve the original documents and artefacts that are so important to our historical identity.
Don't fear the flower, but be aware that it may cause indigestion.

What did I create?

2007-09-06T17:24:00.000-04:00

Apparently I created a blog. Having no idea what a blog is, this comes as a bit of a surprise.