Digital History

Digital History: 

Cohen and Rosenzweig are right- the Web is not going anywhere. However, I think the benefits (particularly those of capacity and accessibility) far outweigh the potential for abuse. Like anything involving new technology we need to develop standards for usage. Cohen and Rosenzweig do a good job of identifying the issues involved. My question is will we be able to develop the standards before the technology changes again? 

History and New Media: 

This idea of "keeping up" is the first thought in Tim Grove article New Media and the Challenges for Public History but then he goes on to ask a really important question: how do museums with ever dwindling resources keep up with the technology? Think about it. The Wagner is currently struggling to keep the heating system working but pretty soon they're going to have to hire someone to be in charge of Facebook and Flickr updates. The Seefeldt and Thomas article What is Digital History? A look at some Exemplar Projects showed examples of how Digital History is particularly useful; the Texas Slavery Project breaks down data by county and year and shows primary documents and the The Valley of the Shadow site gives a lot raw data as well. Particularly when it comes to statistical raw data, digital history is incredibly useful. However, The Sheets article on Wiki in the Classroom shows how digital history is still a two-edged sword. 

Haunted Mouses and Hyperlinking Reality: 

Haunted Mouses is just disturbing. What happens when the people posting to these sites start presenting themselves authoritatively and visitors to the sites assume that they are as trained historians? Or worse if they start using the technology detailed in Hyperlinking Reality. 

Museums and Society 2034: Trends and Potential Futures: 

If anything, the trends listed in the Museums and Society article show that the Museums will need to become more digital in order to keep up with the changing needs and demographics of their audiences. 

Prosthetic Memory

In the next to the last paragraph of his article Jay Winter wrote "We must not underestimate the extent to which many historians consider 'popularity' to be synonymous with 'superficiality' and believe that any idea that is expressed clearly must be deeply flawed." 

This is just a guess on my part but I think Winter has read Prosthetic Memory... 

I don't know where to go with Landsberg...On the one hand I think her interpretations on immigration, slavery and the Holocaust are well thought out and I can even see (up to a point) her argument about commodification in the age of mass culture. She makesthis argument particularly well with her section on the Holocaust.  However, she does herself and her argument a huge disservice by using Blade Runner and Total Recall as "license to explore in creative ways the ethical ramifications of prosthetic memory" (p.34.) I realize she's a cultural historian by training but she should stick to examples from cultures that actually existed - as she did for much of the rest of book. 

Winter's argument dealing with evolvement of memory is, I think, more realistic and on much firmer ground. Identity politics certainly played a role in the advent of the "memory boom" but I think economic growth along with higher education levels and increased leisure time have also played a large part. 

Winter doesn't address these issues but if he had, I bet he would have done it clearly and not needed to use examples from science fiction. 

I'm skeptical...

Mirabal: 

I can't make my mind up about this article. On the one hand I think Mirabal talks about the Latina/os who are being displaced from their neighborhood but then she says very little about the culture in the neighborhood that is being transformed. She mentions the destruction of the mural (which is a travesty) but she doesn't say anything about any improvements that came along.  Were their more jobs? Did all of the construction mean that Latina/os were given jobs Did any Latina/osbenefit economically? She cites the example of the family with twelve members living in a three bedroom house that is split up but I took it to mean that they were living that way out of necessity not by choice. "Gentrification" is a pretty pejorative term, especially the way Mirabal uses it. I feel like there's more to the story that were not getting. That said, I think she does a great job detailing the benefits and shortcomings of oral histories. 

O'Keefe: 

While I want to give the mayor credit for showing initiative and cutting through the bureaucracy, it seems to me you have to have some community "buy in" for such a project. Especially if its tax-payer dollars...

Carson: 

Carson deserves a lot of credit for "thinking outside the box." Television though, I think is a two edged sword. Yes its more interactive but its also means that the viewer has been conditioned to have a short attention span. Also, given the preponderance of "reality television" these days, the viewer now expects some kind of shock value as well... I'm not entirely sold on his idea of Plan B but he's right we do need a Plan B... 

At the risk of sounding like a cranky old man,  how much of the decreased attendance at museums has to do with the decline in our education system. Also, I think the changing dynamic in the American family has to be considered. Today, both parents work, usually more than forty hours a week and often times on weekends. Is it that we're too busy as a society to go to museums? 

Interpreting our Heritage... (or trying to anyway)

In the Introduction to Tilden's "Interpreting our Heritage", Craig wrote that the book is assigned to Park Service Employees for them to not only read but refer back to - and no wonder. The book is a clear, well-thought out "manual" for public historians. What's interesting though is the emphasis on "interpretation", meaning Tilden wants people to discover things on their own and not be lectured or preached at (don't instruct be provocative.) Probably the best line in the book is "never give the nail that last tap." 

Now contrast this approach to the one Handler/Gable and West articles. Both articles detail the real problems that Public Historians face trying to build sites that attract and educate. Yet the overall tone of the articles indicates that they have more faith in "Historians" than they do the "Public" whereas Tilden is the exact opposite. Handler and Gabler even write that "Participatory Pedagogy at Colonial Williamsburg makes it unlkely that a critical history will be the institution's product because it boils down to catering to the most easily satisfiable desires of its visitors as if they were middle or low-brow customers" 

To which I say "why?" Just because Handler and Gable can't effectively communicate to the visitors at Colonial Williamsburg who are trying to learn about the past (or as they might put it "cater to the middle or low-brow customers attempting to participate in their own pedagogy") doesn't mean Tilden is wrong. It just means that Handler and Gable  can't teach. They need to work harder and in the process hopefully gain some respect for the people they're trying to teach.