Looking to the sky

My digital history class has been working to develop an interactive exhibit for display at UWO in April. We've decided on the "sky" as the overall theme for the project and there will be four displays that correspond to the sky in some way or another. Our goal is to show how history/a topic can be combined with facets of the digital world to create an interesting and interactive display.

My group is looking at Archeo-astronomy and more specifically, Stonehenge. We are hoping to create both a digital and actual model that will show viewers how the sun reacts to the ancient creation.

Other topics include comets, constellations, and flying machines and satellites.

I'm really looking forward to seeing it come together as an overall exhibit. Stay tuned to the website and my blog for more information!

Fabregas is related to Puss in Boots? Well, they're both Spanish.

In digital history last week, we learned about Mash-ups and APIs. Mash-ups work together with APIs to create wonderfully interesting web applications like a Google Maps map that displays the addresses of all the places in London, ON that sell Arsenal FC merchandise. Just, you know, for example.

The other day, I was looking around YouTube and came across YouTube's new application called "Warp". And, while I'm not sure if it's the same thing as a Mash-up, it's really kind of fun. In fact, it might be more of a visualization.

Warp visualizes the connections between videos. It can only be used in full screen mode and its icon is in the bottom left corner of the screen - it looks kind of like a web map. So, I searched for Cesc Fabregas, Arsenal's up-and-coming Spanish midfielder. I watched the video in full screen mode and then clicked on the icon. Immediately, a bunch of different bubbles splurted out all over the screen. From there I was connected to a number of other bubbles that were related to the first video. I found my way, somehow, to a Puss in Boots video clip from Shrek.

By clicking on a bubble, you can watch the clip. Once the clip is finished, a line appears and connects you back to the original video. It was really a lot of fun to see the wacky connections between videos.

This sort of visualization or application, or whatever it is, would be really cool if it could somehow be used on old, historical (ahhhh...the real connection) photos. If this visualization could somehow be applied to family photos you could roll your mouse over a person in a photo and all of a sudden bubbles would display his/her family and friends and even other photos of the same person. This tool would be great for genealogists.

I'm not sure that it's even feasible to use Warp in such a way that I described above but it's interesting to imagine the possibilities. So, go try it and think of some other neat ways to use Warp!

Public what?

Over the holidays I usually make appointments with my doctor, hair dresser, dentist, and optometrist. It's a time to get healthy, regenerate, and share conversation with the health professionals who have been seeing me since I was a kid.

This year, however, the conversation was not about family, holiday plans, and life in general; rather, appointments consisted of me explaining public history, my MA program, and my future career options. When I described public history to my dentist and the kinds of jobs that I could possibly have once I graduate, he responded, "I didn't even know those kinds of jobs existed." Similarly, while answering the same questions from my doctor, he said, "You're speaking Greek to me."

I recognized early on that most people didn't or wouldn't know much about public history but a simple explanation seemed to yield an understanding nod and smile. I was quite surprised, however, to hear the responses of so many supposedly well-educated, socially aware Canadians.

This got me thinking. What is the point of public history if the 'public', this kind of history's namesake, doesn't even realize its significance. There is, indeed, public interest in history - historical novels, movies, and television shows are more popular than ever before. Perhaps, as public historians, we need to be more concerned with the public rather than the history. My digital history course is obviously helping to foster this attitude.

How cool would it be if museums had temporary exhibitions for which the subjects were based entirely on public interest? Museum administrators could poll their communities to find out what topics would draw the most amount of visitors. This would probably lead to a type of history less interesting to most museum administrators and historians. A less 'academic' type of history. Does public support automatically tarnish historic validity?

I wonder if it is possible to bridge the gap between what the public wants and what historians want. I'm not entirely sure. I do know, however, that as I continue to find my way as a public historian, I am leaning more toward the attitude that supports and favours a public friendly history.

How Spiders (and Blogger) Saved My Blog

I deleted my blog about a week ago. I'd like to say it was an experiment, but it wasn't. The incident occurred in an attempt to delete a group blog that had fallen into disuse. After a day of panicking and then emailing Blogger and my digital history professor, I calmed down. I discovered (with help and advice from a special someone) that I could recover my deleted posts by searching their titles on Google.

Instead of clicking on the title of my blog post, I clicked on Cached. This turned up Google's cache, or archive, of my blog. I then copied and pasted the text and pictures into my new/old blog (After deleting my blog, I immediately reserved the same domain name and title by re-registering for a blog on Blogger). I was delighted, and even more so when I realized my links remained active.

I couldn't help but think of how my experience tied into my previous blogs about Internet archiving and Facebook. If I delete my blog again, by accident or otherwise, my posts and ideas have been archived by Google's life-saving spiders and are available for anyone to access. I can't help but think of the amount of resources this might provide future researchers or historians.

But I don't need to repeat my previous posts, you can read them for yourself now that I have successfully restored them. I am thankful I was able to recover my blog and I have Google's creepy, crawly spiders to thank for taking snapshots of my blog and archiving it before it was deleted.

P.S. After posting this entry I promptly received an email from a helpful Blogger employee informing me that they had restored my old blog. Moral of the story? There is a lot of archiving and caching going on and, as a result, no blog need ever be lost again!