LAC uncovers document more precious than gold!

I'm glad the Olympics are over. I was sick of hearing about how poorly Canadian athletes were fairing and I was/am sick of hearing how the Canadian government should give more money to sports and Olympic aspiring athletes.

Don't get me wrong, I like sports and I like the way Canadians rally behind our athletes during the Olympics. The games definitely inspire a sense of togetherness and Canadiana. But I'm not so sure that athletes, people who eat, sleep, train, and breathe their respective sports, deserve more money than other culturally inspiring or important jobs or activities. I would venture to say that waste collectors, city gardeners, librarians, and clinics are more deserving of funding than athletes.

Just before the Olympics occupied every waking moment of CBC's news coverage, Library and Archives Canada was briefly in the news too (really briefly, the story won't take you more than 20 seconds to read). Sometime last year, a LAC employee, who has unnecessarily remained anonymous, accidentally discovered an Australian playbill among Canadian documents. The playbill, possibly the earliest printed document in Australia, dates to 1796 and has been an important item in strengthening the relationship between LAC and the National Archives of Australia.

The lack of coverage this story received is really unfortunate. The story was passed over by the Canadian media in favour of Michael Phelps's eating routine, a report that is hardly worth your time.

While the playbill is ultimately Australian, it is interesting to follow the document's path to Canada where it was safely stored for almost 100 years. If nothing else, the LAC-NAA playbill situation serves to connect Canadian-Australian cultural relations and it should have received more coverage than it did. Archives and museums can encourage a sense of Canadiana and togetherness just as sports can, and probably even more so.

The Olympics come every two years, but archives are forever!

What the sky taught me

The digital history Sky exhibit has long since ended but a summary post is definitely necessary! Overall, I think the exhibit was a success. We had quite a few visitors throughout the day including faculty, library staff, and some students and from what I could tell, they all seemed to enjoy our digital creations!

As a member of the Stonehenge team, I am not embarrassed to say that our design was a little bit disappointing. We had far too much information on display with three monitors displaying facts and tidbits of information. By observing visitors interacting with our model, it was obvious that people simply wanted to press the buttons and watch the lights, the corresponding facts seemed less important. One other problem with our design was the length of time the buttons were disabled after one was pushed. Nobody wanted to wait for the slides to cycle through before being able to push another button!

Despite the issues, the day was very rewarding. I had a great time talking to and explaining our model to visitors. I was happy that people complimented our scale model, arts and crafty as it was. I was proud of our design and it was great being able to practice public history on campus. While Stonehenge wasn't as successful as we had hoped, it certainly wasn't a failure. Visitors asked us questions about the technology/digital aspects of the model, they were interacting with our model and the information, and they were interacting with us not as students, but as public historians!

Stonehenge and the Sky taught me some very valuable lessons with regards to digital and public history.
#1: The less information the better!
#2: Talk and interact with visitors. Many of them told interesting stories about their own trips to Stonehenge.
#3: Sometimes, the simplest things are the most effective. Visitors REALLY seemed to like our model, without the digital components and the lights.
#4: The sky really is the limit! As public historians we need to know the different types of technology available to us. Digital history has taught me to think digitally when trying to promote history. There are no limits to the ways in which we can display history.

So there you go. The exhibit was a great success with lots to be learned by all. My biggest complaint? Our model didn't ever end up with neolithic sheep on it!

Geocaching and history: an adventure in waiting

My aunt is really into Geocaching - a hobby that combines adventure, caches, and a Global Positioning System. A cache is usually a logbook that contains the records of all those people who have visited the cache and can also include things like contact information, information about the city or town in which the cache is located, and even jokes. Some caches contain things like maps, books, and even jewelery. People who 'Geocache' (I think I just made up a new word) look up coordinates online and then use their GPS to find the cache. Once they've found the cache site there are a few rules that Geocachers must follow: 1) Take something from the cache, 2) Leave something in the cache, and 3) Write about it in the logbook.

I think Geocaching is an awesome tool for public historians. Museums, for example, could create walking tours that make use of a GPS and historical artifacts (replicas, of course). Similarly, historical societies could create country-wide historical adventures that lead Geocachers on a hunt for a series of artifacts that are relevant to Canadian history. With each discovery, hunters learn tidbits of history relating to the artifacst. It might look a little something like this:

In Charlottetown, a picture of the members who attended the Charlottetown Conference is located on the grounds of Government House. On the boardwalk in Halifax, hunters might discover the hasty telegram sent by dispatcher Vince Coleman that stopped a train with 700 passengers from barreling into the city at the time of the Halifax Explosion. In Quebec, Geocachers are directed to the Plains of Abraham to find a French Infantry Musket used during the fateful battle. The next stop is Toronto where the goal is to find a miniature version of William Lyon Mackenzie's printing press that was thrown into Lake Ontario. In Regina, a buried stethoscope represents Tommy Douglas and the development of Medicare. In the Nass River valley of British Columbia, hunters are guided toward an indigenous artifact belonging to the Nisga'a people. Finally, the search ends with the discovery of gold in the Klondike near Dawson City, Yukon.

Of course, searches like these can, and probably should, be limited to provinces, regions, and even cities. Geocaching has a lot of potential for public history and historians and is a great way to combine new digital technologies with traditional histories.

In Other Group Project News

Along with the sky exhibit, there is another group project that Public History students are working on. This time, in co-operation with Museum London, we are creating three different modules for Eldon House using SMARTBoard Technology. SMARTBoards are sort of like interactive white boards or PowerPoint presentations. Each module will be used for the museum's educational programming and will be presented to elementary school children of the Thames Valley District School Board.

My group has been working on the Rebellion of 1837 module for about seven months now and we are getting closer to the final project each week. I am responsible for the Rebellion in the London District and as a result, I learned a great deal of local history. The Duncombe Rising to the east of London is a topic of which most elementary students and the general public might not be aware. Similarly, the meeting that took place in London's Flannagan's Tavern on 11 December, 1837 yielded the rebel's resolution to protect the city from further Loyalist influence is a wonderful piece of local history that needs more attention.

Thankfully, Museum London has invested a large chunk of money into SMARTBoards and is bringing these histories to children and the public in an interesting and digital manner. For example, the technology has allowed me to turn an archived painting into a sliding puzzle. London's Barracks (1842) by Henry Francis Ainslie has been transformed into an interactive puzzle that teaches children about the consequences of the Rebellion (London received the barracks after the rebels were put down).

I look forward to working with things like SMARTBoard in the future as they are great tools that can increase interest in local and Canadian history. I encourage you to check out the sliding puzzle I made and you can learn a little bit about the way London looked in the mid - 19th century during the construction of the barracks at what is now Victoria Park.

Here's the link! It's available for one month.