Oral History

Oral history is the one part of history which is close to my heart.  Not getting into specifics, but I have contacted numerous interviews with veterans from the Battle of the Bulge for a project I am working on.  Reading about the IRB or Institutional Review Board I get an uneasy feeling.  I hope that the IRB’s will not hamper future oral history projects of local and national history.  When talking with a veteran I do not know if an IRB would see that the questions or conversation would be within their perameters or not.  I know that oral history is not the best form of research since it is one-sided and not always accurate.  The 9/11 and Katrina are two prime examples of how oral history can shape what historians will be writing about in the future.  I believe that oral history is one of the most important parts of history, even if it is a paragraph from a letter, the voice of someone who was present during an event validates what happened.  I could easily pick up a book on D-Day and write about how it was tough for a soldier coming off a landing craft during the first or second wave.  But to hear a veteran tell you how terrifying it was to hear the bullets bouncing off the ramp and having artillery flying overhead gives a more vivid picture.  Also on that note the picture on the top of my blog page is of the Normandy coast.

Museums + Technology = ????

Well I must say that this weeks readings were of great interest for me since I have worked in museums that have not really utilized too much technology in their exhibits/web sites.  After reading the first article I still did not know what to think about having collections online for people to look at.  While I definitely think it is a good idea to have collections online I just wonder how many of them would be accessed by the viewing public.  I suppose a trial run with a few items to see if the viewing public is interested may be the way to go.  I know that researchers would love to be able to access collections from the comforts of their home and help cut costs on travel. I would love to have access to certain collections from World War II museums in Europe online so that I did not have to travel over there just to look at a few artifacts.  Now I know you may be saying “But is not going to Museum all part of the experience of research?”  Well yes it is but let’s be honest in this tough economy it is not easy to travel to foreign countries every few months.  I think that using online resources would be a boon for some museums but a waste of time for others.

Now onto the “Visual Velcro”, I believe the interactive side of museums in this day and age is a must.  Many people do not have the time, patience, or stamina to read an 800 word panel when they could listen to a description of the panel or of a story from the panel and look at the pictures and other parts of it.  The last museum I worked at had an exhibit made of panels and artifacts, granted the panels were very good and the artifacts interesting, most of the customers through the door did not read every single word and sometimes after fifteen minutes they would leave the Museum.  I think that museums would definitely benefit from technology but the biggest problem many face is….drumroll please….MONEY!!!!!!  Ah yes money, the great equalizer, when I went to a workshop with my classmate Amy at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, I was astonished at the amount of money they had to spend on their main exhibit area.  I will not give it out but I know that most of the institutions and museums there almost fell out of their chair when they heard how much everything cost.  The Mattatuck Museum has video kiosks, games, regular glass cases full of artifacts, and other interactive tools and they all flow together from the beginning Colonial Period all the way up to today.  The intereactivity of the Mattatuck made me want to stay a lot longer and I had fun when I was going around seeing different parts of it.  That is the “Holy Grail” for museums, combining fun and education, once that is achieved, if ever fully, the museum has done it’s job.  Unfortunately the podcast would not play and I am not sure if it is my computer or the podcast itself.

The case studies were really fun!!!!  The Museum of Underwater Archaelogy was wicked cool!!!!  To see photos of sherman tanks in the ocean and planes down on the sea floor, transported me there.  The Brooklyn Museum was interesting in that it has a very different approach than most “community” museums and the nlogs and videos are a good touch.    The Churchill Museum was great as well, I visited the actual Cabinet War Rooms back in 1993(Wow I was 9…) but I remember it being cool to walk through it and I still remember to this day the audio tour where you could hear Churchill talking, smoking a cigar, and sldo coughing either from him or in the background.

Overall Museums and Technology need to go hand in hand, it’s just getting them together which is the toughest part of all.

Week 6 Readings

Ah yes, Dan Cohen comes through again!  I am interested in web sites for museums and reading Cohen’s article opened up a few new doors in historical website design.  I am not too great at web page design but after reading what Cohen had to say, I think I have a better understanding.  Obviously when he states that you need to know what you want on the website is important.  I know that there are several museums who have websites that are better than the attraction, others make you want to go to the museum.  An example of a website that has some information on their website but does not go too indepth is the USS Slater in Albany, NY http://www.ussslater.org/  There are few interactive things on the site including a Veterans Day Gun Salute video clip which shows the ships 3 Inch Gun actually firing, but other than that you would have to visit the ship to get a better idea of what it is like.

Cohen’s article yet again shed some light on how museums and the web can go hand in hand but museums need to be cautious with how much content is put online.  I think as museums continue to evolve into 21st Century there is going to be an increase in member-only content to help supplement what the museum offers.  The future is bright for museums and especially with the internet connecting people from around the world, the opportunities are endless.

Week 5 Readings

After reading the articles for Week 5 I have realized how digital scholarship is changing how history is searched, viewed, and interpreted.  In the first article, The Promise of Digital History,  I agreed with Steven Mintz about how we are in 2.0 and that 3.0 is on the horizon.  I found his description of 3.0 to be interesting and it makes me hopeful that history will become more relevant in the classroom and that the age of dumb testing(Regents, MCAST) will be over. (mini rant over)  In Spiro’s article I found it interesting about her techniques in creating digital tools.  I believe that with the increasing amount of digital projects being formed digital tools will be needed.  Cohen’s article about the Syllabus Finder and H-Net was great and showed a different outlook of searching topics.  As a researcher I see a need for services such as Syllabus Finder and H-Net since when searching in Google or Yahoo the results are not always useful and thus wastes time. I believe that the new age of digital scholarship will continue to grow and prosper in this continuing digital world.

Week 4 Readings WIKI!!!

Well I must say after reading this week’s readings about Wikipedia I still have the same opinion about it as I did before I read them.  Rosenzweig’s article gave a very comprehensive look at Wikipedia, from the origin of the website to how it works and what it means for historians.  Obviously I have used Wikipedia but it really is a good way of checking for a date if the subject is very obvious such as the date when the Battle of Gettysburg began.

I remember in elementary school and when assigned a paper about a subject I would go straight to the big encyclopedia’s in the library or even Encarta(yes Encarta!)  where general information about a topic would be found.  I did enjoy going to the library and looking at books, but the encyclopedia section was always interesting. (definitely explains why I am a history nerd)   I do like how at the touch of a button an article with links(most of the time) appears on Wikipedia.  I do feel as a historian that Wikipedia is dangerous in that people may take it as gospel and that they will not look into a topic any further since it is all there in front of them.  This is the one thing which is frightening about Wiki since it may dumb down the investigative nature of people.(hopefully not)

Throughout the other articles there are arguments for and against Wikipedia but I think that it is what it is.  There are going to mistakes and misplaced dates but the overall concept is good to have the information available for people to use and hopefully learn from.  The debate about Wiki will rage on forever and only time will tell what will come out which may make Wiki obsolete.

Scavenger Hunt Fun!

When I began my scavenger hunt I thought that with the amount of information out on the web that it would be easy to find everything.  I have to say it was a lot more difficult to find some of the items.  I did have a fun time reading and learning about things I did not know about. 

1.  Finding a sound recording of Trotsky speaking in English was difficult but a Youtube video which I cannot verify if he is actually talking was what I found. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEHnrCGW9QU

2. This was a fairly easy find since I typed in the line in quotes and it came up right away on Google. http://www.fullbooks.com/Are-Women-People-.html

3.Once again by typing in the quote from the book in Google I was able to find out what the quotation was taken from. http://www.archive.org/stream/thelifeofgeorgew18595gut/18595.txt

4. http://www.freemaninstitute.com/lynch.htm

5. I had a lot of trouble finding a debate about the topic of the Soviets sending in troops but I found a lot more information on the Crisis which I did not know about before.

6.I found this one fairly easy through JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-0117(199505)2%3A48%3A2%3C370%3AAROITD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N&cookieSet=1

7. http://www.stanford.edu/class/sts145/html/Syllabus2003.htm  http://www.units.muohio.edu/englishtech/ENG49502/ENG495syll02.htm    http://www.jhfc.duke.edu/jenkins/courses/isis092/syllabus.htm  http://faculty.gvsu.edu/patterna/hypersyl.html

8.  http://www.ashp.cuny.edu/98-99.html

9. There were pictures of Janey Murray and the Sims but alas there were none of them together.

Week 3 Readings

After I read the introduction and the first chapter of Cohen and Rosenzweig’s Digital HIstory  I agree with the idea of scanning articles, documents, and other sources for the general public to explore and view.  I have been to the National Archives in College Park, MD two times and it is definitely expensive to fly down and make copies for about twenty-five cents each page!  To have documents and other resources available online would revolutionize research, even though it is amazing to open up a file folder and find the original documents inside.

The article Scan This Book! is a different story entirely.  I think having books scanned online such as the writings of Abraham Lincoln are valuable resources which would be difficult for the average researcher to access if they went to a library which had it.  I am split about whether every book should be scanned and put out into the public.  While I see the need to get abandoned works online the other side of the argument is should there be a charge for accessing the books?  Even though a majority of publishers do not have a list of copyrighted books, I think that if someone would like to read a book online then it should be free but the search function and the printing option should require to have a small fee.  This fee may not go to author or a kin of the author but if could be given to a charity or a program to help keep libraries open.

I found the articles from Google and it’s efforts to scan books into an idex to be informative and interesting.  The biggest problem I have with Google’s crusade to scan as many books as it can is the problem of the gray-area of copyright laws.  Not only are current books in danger of losing revenue but I am hoping to complete a co-authored book(fingers crossed) and to have Google scan it and have it available for anyone to view would not be right.  Granted if there was a book by an author from 150 years ago and there is no record of the copyright for it then it would be fine with me to post it but again have a fee to use any of the information via cut and paste or printing.  To be honest I am very split about what my views are about the subject of scanning since I grew up with a physical copy of a book which you could take anywhere and not have to worry if your laptop runs out of batteries while reading it on a plane. 

Overall, I think that the scanning of books online is a technological advancement which will change how historians, teachers, and ordinary people view history.  I am still weary about copyright issues but if they it starts saving me a $120 roundtrip plane ticket and $70 worth of copying then I guess it will be worth it in the end.

Never Forget

Please take time today to remember those who lost their lives on September 11th.

http://911digitalarchive.org/index.php

Reaction to Dan Cohen’s “Professors Start Your Blogs”

When I first read the title of Dan Cohen’s blog “Professors Start Your Blogs” I was very intrigued.  I have never blogged online before but I keep up on news from different blogs specifically autoblog.com which talks about cars and automotive news.  It is amazing how many people blog just to give their opinion about everything from the political turmoil in Republic of Georgia to their favorite curry chicken recipe (sorry I am a little hungry right now).   I think Cohen’s argument as to why he wants more professors to open up about their research and projects is well done and his examples help illustrate the need for more professors to blog.

When people think of traditional professors, they think about the person who gives a lecture, researches and writes articles and publishes books.  Cohen believes that these professors should share their ideas with the rest of the world.  After reading Cohen’s blog I agreed with him that bringing out a professor’s opinions, research methods, and other topics would be beneficial.  I also believe that the use of a blog as an outlet for professors would help not only their students but high school teachers and other teachers too.   Since many textbooks written for high schools and middle schools are edited or written by professors, ideas for activities and other projects could also be presented on the professor’s blog.  Since many students today learn from visual and audio teaching, a professor could help provide resources that include video clips of certain topics that they have written about for teachers to use in the classroom.  This would also help strengthen the cooperation between academia and the rest of the community.

In today’s fast-paced and digital world, the retrieval of information is now easier than it has ever been before, even eight years ago in the year 2000 you could not find friends on Facebook or Myspace, or look up a topic on Wikipedia.   Since blogs are currently the preferred method of giving ones opinion, a professor’s blog would help this generation’s obsession with instant information.  Even research tips from professors would help researchers who are studying a topic which the professor specializes in.  Cohen’s article shows that professors have the resources and expertise to help others without having to take too much time to do it and even a few sentences is sometimes all the help some people need.

WOW! It is almost September!

Hello!

Well this is my first weblog, and to honest I am still getting the hang of it.  I am blogging in WordPress for my Digital History Theory and Practice course which is exciting!  I hope to learn a lot of new information about digital history and how I can use it in the museum world.

First, a little about me, I went to college in New York but I was born and raised in Western Massachusetts, so Connecticut is not foreign.  I enjoy 20th Century history and my main focus is military history specifically World War II.

I have volunteered and worked at three museums: an auto museum, a World War II Destroyer Escort, and an Irish American Museum.  I have dealt with everything from doing financials and payroll, sanding down a 20mm anti-aircraft machine gun, and helping to move cars which are worth more than what I will ever make in my lifetime.  I am excited to be back in school after a year of working and I look forward to the challenges ahead.