Serendip-omatic: An Underwhelming Experience.

"Feed. Grab some text or link to your personal library. Whirl. Magically compare your research with major collections. Marvel! Be amazed by what turns up."

Oh boy was I amazed by what turned up. The quote above comes from an online resource tool called Serendip-o-matic. Based off the term serendipity, a happy surprise or accident, this online resource is used for linking users to digital materials in libraries, museums and archives. The system will use key words or phrases of your research interest and search major databases to find images or other primary sources that they believe will benefit you.

I was particularly interested in Serendip-o-matic as in my final year I had to create a museum exhibit around an obscure Near Eastern deity and had struggled to find sources pertaining to my research. The prospect of having primary sources gathered for me was exciting and slightly aggravating knowing that I could have used it during my time of need. However, after using Serendip-o-matic I was glad that I hadn’t put too much stock in the website.

Following the steps I plugged in relevant information about my deity. His name (Baal), what he was god of (fertility, agriculture, storms), where he was from (Near East), who his sister was (Anat, goddess of war and love), and a brief synopsis of his mythology. Plugging in all this information and clicking “Make some magic!” revealed nothing that I would have expected. Not only did it take words out of context (separating Near East into two words) but there wasn’t a single picture of Baal to be found. A small plaque of what could have been his sister Anat was surrounded by images of farmers, Greek gods, and one link to a book on a temple in Syria. To say the least, I was not impressed.

What Serendip-o-matic should have found: Baal with Thunderbolts.

View this stele at the Louvre

However, I should not be overly critical of the site. Once I tried searching just “Baal” I was able to see more archival records on archaeological digs and a few images that could have been to some use. Serendip-o-matic uses the basic technology it was created with and attempts to create a fuller scope of resource material based on a selection of words, regardless of the context of the words. The purpose of the site is to broaden the scope of the resources but this proves to be of little use to those with a specific query.

In short, Serendip-o-matic could be so much than it is. With such a deep pool of resources to pull from, the site could become a hub for searching topics on the Internet. For researchers to only need one website instead of searching for the best primary sources at different online archival databases, research could be conducted in a timelier fashion. However, based on the organization of the site at the moment I would suggest it not be used as a hard and fast resource tool. Although it would be an interesting tool to play around with for entertainment sake, its academic use is limited due to the formulation of its results.

Resources:

serendipomatic.org

louvre.fr

"But I thought engaging with the public was the point of National Historic Sites": A Reaction to the Claire Campbell PDS

On September 19, a professional development series workshop was held where members of the history graduate program and faculty members attended a lecture on National Historic Sites and Environmentalism by Dr. Claire Campbell. Dr. Campbell presented some interesting information regarding national sites in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta. What I found particularly useful was her insight on the necessity of considering the environment at the time of the founding of particular sites and how that reflects the actions of the historical figures. But this blog is not on all that I learned from Dr. Campbell, although I should perhaps write another to engage with her findings, but rather it is to discuss the reaction I heard from the audience.

It was a snicker.

It seems strange to focus on something so small but I heard a snicker from a group of History MA students when Dr. Campbell brought up a slide that showed a happy couple sitting in the endangered grasses of the Bar- U Ranch for their wedding photos. I thought it a particularly odd thing to laugh at but it happened again when referring to conferences and meetings being held at other national sites. That’s when it occurred to me that the students and –to some degree- the faculty were laughing at the idea of national historic sites being used by the public for the events they so saw fit.

Image from Parks Canada.

I was perplexed. What was so funny about people engaging with history in unconventional way? Why was it a problem that conferences were being held at sites that educated them while they worked? Is that not the point of public history? To be utilized by the people and to engage with the public? I feel like my first two weeks at Western are a sham if this is false.

However, the laughter could have been for a completely, and more unfortunate, reason. Perhaps the students and few faculty members were laughing because they believed that the couple in the photo or the companies referred to in passing were not worthy to be there in the grass and in the historic board rooms. Weddings shouldn’t happen at the Bar-U because the people who book the weddings are ignorant of the history there. They do not know that the grass is endangered and they do not know that the Ranch was supported by the Federal government during a time when there was tension between the government and the people of Alberta. Therefore, they do not deserve to use that space.

An elitist perception of the purpose of national historic sites is created by this logic. The truth about Canadians, and most people to their respective country, is they don’t know everything about their past. It’s just the way it is. We can blame the parents, we can blame the school system, we can blame the government but when it comes down to it, some people just don’t care to read about it. But that doesn’t mean that they should be barred from access to these spaces. One shouldn’t be expected to pass a historical quiz before entering these sites or before they book their conference or wedding. The point of the site’s existence is to educate. So while the couple is getting their pictures taken and the guests have nothing to do or while a board member is taking her coffee, they could be learning something about that site. Is that not the overarching goal of a national historic site?

Then again, the snickers from the audience could have been directed at the site lowering itself to selling its space to the common folk. To that I become particularly annoyed with the academic crowd. Just this past week in History 9800 Public History: Theory, History, and Practice we learned about the history of national historic sites and museums. In most cases national historic sites were only supported by the federal government if they showed signs of self-sufficiency (Pannnekoek, 73). The booking of weddings and conferences are what often saves national sites from collapsing as it offers additional revenue to that of gate fees or gift shops. I suspect few would snicker knowing that it is up to these sites to find funding opportunities to stay afloat even if it means appearing as if they are pandering to the general public.

The answer to stopping the laughter is not to tell academic historians to keep their noses out of things they don’t understand. Quite the opposite, in fact. I believe that academic historians should be required to take a public history course. Naturally, there is a reason why they chose the ivory tower over the public sphere and they are not required to convert. However, I believe that if they were made aware of the difficulties that public history faces (funding, engaging a public that seems forever drifting away) they would perhaps cease the chuckles at sites that are opening their spaces. Perhaps they would understand that sometimes it is not about how much an individual takes away from a space but that they acknowledge it as part of their history by interacting with it. They would realize that even though they would rather research and write books for other academics as a means to perpetuate the growth of knowledge and critical thought, that they too have a role within the realm of public history if they were to accept it.

Source:

Pannekoek, Frits. "Canad's Historic Sites: Reflections on a Quarters Century, 1980-2005." The Public Historian 31, 1 (2009): 69-88.

First World War Soldier Experiences and Digital History

Everyone has always asked me what I specialize in and what my interests are in history. I have had my fingers in a number of pies over the course of my undergrad and came out with several research interests. However, the one that has dominated my experience with the digital humanities would be soldier experiences in the First World War.

I had the great fortune of having a professor in my fourth year who was dedicated to public history and -to some extent- the digital humanities. We were assigned to create a biography of a service man or woman using diary entries or letters on Malaspina University Canadian Letters and Images Project. We were to then flesh out the details of the individual using attestation papers, the Canadian census and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission if he or she had died overseas. It was my first time diving into online records and I found myself developing a serious connection to an individual who was gone before I was even born.

Having access to the story of an individual that I may have never heard of had it not been for the assignment changed the way I approached figures and events of the First World War. For the first time in the four years of my undergrad the people I was learning about were humanized. They were real people, getting sick from the countless diseases that ran rampant in the mud slick trenches. They were soaked to the bone and sleep deprived from countless hours of artillery bombardment. They were dying in the muck and barbwire, not just being counted as another casualty in a statistic. Surely I would have had the same experience if I had been handed a collection of letters or diary entries in the form of a book or gone to the archives to see the census records but the fact that I could search these documents from home changed the way I researched my new interest.

It’s not just the addition of archival records to the Internet that has made my research interest more accessible. Since I am particularly keen on museums and the way they create outreach with younger audiences I explored the Canadian War Museum a few months back and discovered a variety of online exhibits and information packages meant for connecting the public with Canadian wars and peace times. It has also developed a substantial online section for teachers to engage their students in learning about the First World War through material culture and even online games that put the player in situations on the front line. Although a little dated and meant for young children, the game still serves to interact with and inform the player of soldier experiences. Give it a try here. This use of digital humanities by the Canadian War Museum is another example of how my research interests have been expanded and made accessible through online sources and the Internet.

However, despite my searches, there appears to be a lack of digital landscapes. For an event with so many battle fields, little has been done to capture the locations. For this particular field of interest, a fly through of Vimy Ridge or the Battle of the Somme would assist students and researchers in understanding the landscape and topography the soldiers were faced with. Perhaps this blogger will have to take on such an addition to the digital humanities for an upcoming project.

Flip Board, The History Channel, and Ancestory.com: Digital History's Ups and Downs

This September I had the pleasure of joining the 21^st century and updated to a smart phone, finally turning off my four year old LG Rumor II for good. One of the features I found on my phone was something called “Flip Board”. For those who are not familiar with Flip Board, it is an app which allows the user to select particular topics and read the latest stories about them. Originally I was excited to keep myself in the loop regarding politics and events around the world but then I found the “A Blog About History” flip board and I was in heaven. Just today I was able to learn about excavations that uncovered a Roman temple in England, and slave tunnels at Hadrian’s Villa in Italy, as well as learning about a new television series coming out this fall that will follow two soldiers in the trenches of Ypres during the First World War. Twenty years ago I would have had to wait for excavation reports to be published in academic journals before I found anything out about either dig site. The digital world has made me more connected to history than I ever was before.

Still Image from "The Wipers Times" airing on BBC. Image from: http://metro.co.uk/2013/09/11/world-war-i-comedy-drama-the-wipers-times-mixed-humour-with-humanity-3959186/

On Monday in Digital History, the question: “What is Digital History/ Humanities?” was asked. To me, digital history is the use of digital resources to enhance the experience of history for everyone, regardless of whether they are academic or not. It’s not just digitalizing archives to make the lives of academics easier but the “This Day in History” app, history based computer games, and virtual museum exhibits. Digital history includes accessibility, making far away museums closer to those who cannot afford to travel the world to see such things or creating a framework for history that is more interesting than sitting in a classroom or reading a 300 page book on a particular subject. Studying history in-depth is not for everyone but that does not mean that history should not be accessible to everyone in some form.

However there are pitfalls to digital history to be certain. Only a decade and a half ago I sat with my dad and watched grainy film footage of the First World War on the History Channel and learned that there were no “good guys and bad guys” in history. Now when I turn to that once beloved station I find myself being informed of the possible price a Yankee baseball card could bring, although the seller will never receive that price because the pawn broker is running a business not a charity. Worse, amateur historians have tried to convince me that aliens created ancient Egyptian pyramids and the colossal Nasca Lines of Peru. The History Channel only becomes what I remember of it when an anniversary approaches (Remembrance Day, Pearl Harbour) and the rest of the time it is saturated with information that is more about heritage (and baseless hypotheses) than history. The digital world will surely, and perhaps already has, become like the History Channel: brief, bright moments of critical thought with historical backing amongst the clamour of 140 character posts where history need not apply because it won’t fit.

Still image from "Ancient Aliens". Image from: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivyFCRVTFZ1NWw52ruuu3f47zygCxxPveq3iP7G1e3_fvULfyFktlVzAm9fuXiSdxhq1ok-dmqRKbKonAUpIGxfKkihdx1RwAkn66iLnIYs-VWLRKiG64wDlWiIqrLEpz4iPLo25dTu6I/s320/giorgio-tsoukalos.jpeg

I apologize, I have just realized how narrow-minded and elitist that sounded. Don’t mistake what I have said for thumping a military-history-is-the-only-history chest or suggesting that heritage is not as important as history. Rather, heritage is the backbone for what spurs people forward to seek out history. Ancestry.com is the most popular example of this. People intrigued with their family’s past can trace themselves back to specific points in time. Those particularly keen to learn what prompted their female ancestor to leave Ireland in 1850 will reveal the Great Potato Famine and the mistreatment that the Irish suffered under British rule leading up to that tragic event. Heritage in digital history can result in a furthering of historical knowledge that may not have been undertaken otherwise.

For that reason I think it is important for historians and public historians to become more engaged with the ever changing face of digital resources for educating the general populace. Sometimes a particular technophobia arises among our ranks, myself included as I just begrudgingly set up my first Twitter account, but there is a growing necessity for digital literacy in the binary world of the Internet and social media. If we as historians do not keep up with the changes and utilize them to our benefit, we will become just as archaic as the ancient times we study. Based on the Darwinian frame of mind, historians of both academic and public background must, “adapt or die”.

Sources:

http://www.ablogabouthistory.com/#sthash.NOrBEZdp.dpbs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Lines

https://flipboard.com

Introduction Time

Hello Everyone!

My name is Carla Watson and I am a current Public History MA student at the University of Western Ontario. This blog was created for my History 9808a: Digital History course and will document particular things I am learning in my courses, as well as history related topics that I find interesting.

A little about myself. Born and raised in the prairie provinces, I attended the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. There, I obtained a BA Honours in History with a minor in Anthropology. During my time at the U of S, I had the amazing opportunity to study abroad in South Africa for a summer, learning about the history, politics, and social structure of the country. I was also privileged enough to work at the Museum of Antiquities, a museum on campus that specializes in ancient artworks and artefacts from the Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as a few medieval pieces. I worked as the Education Coordinator in my final year of study, developing custom tour packages and PowerPoint presentations for teachers to use in their classrooms. This past summer, I developed kids' camps that were themed around ancient societies like the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Aztecs, and Chinese.

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with this blog and spreading the word about all things history.