This Friday’s break features Welcome to Fontevraud, a 2:25 video interpreting an arts and cultural center housed in a medieval abbey in western France. How would artists interpret your site?
Author Archives: Max van Balgooy
Video: Starry Night
For today’s Friday break, a video by Petros Vrellis that demonstrates an interactive iPad application of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. Is this a glimpse of a future where visitors can explore collections in new ways?
The Emergency Response Wheel has Turned into a Mobile App
Long known as the authoritative resource for salvaging artifacts after a disaster, the Emergency Response and Salvage (ERS) Wheel has been used by historic sites, museums, libraries, and archives around the world. In partnership with the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, Heritage Preservation has turned the Wheel into a mobile application, providing invaluable guidance accessible to anyone who is in need of practical advice for saving collections in the first 48 hours after disaster strikes.
ERS app provides the same reliable content found in the original Wheel. The app outlines critical stages of disaster response and provides practical salvage tips for nine types of collections, from photographs to natural history specimens. ERS can help users protect precious collections and significant records, access reliable information instantly, and save damaged objects.
The “ERS: Emergency Response and Salvage” app is available free for Continue reading
Video: Shaping History, Shaping Tomorrow
For your Friday break, Shaping History, Shaping Tomorrow is a video commissioned by Kieo University that explores the contrasts in Tokyo between new and traditional, historic and modern, young and old. How would these topics be presented at your site or community?
HBR: Working with Crowds to Innovate or Solve Problems
Harvard Business Review, April 2013
TrendsWatch 2012 identified crowdsourcing as one of the seven major trends affecting museums, allowing more people to volunteer in meaningful work. If you’re not familiar with crowdsourcing, it’s a “process of soliciting content, solutions, and suggestions from an undefined set of participants via the Internet.” The April 2013 issue of the Harvard Business Review includes two articles on working with crowds in different ways: one to innovate and the other to solve problems.
In “Using the Crowd as an Innovation Partner“, authors Kevin Boudreau and Karim Lakhani claim that “for certain types of problems, crowds can outperform your company. You just need to know when–and how–to use them.” If you’re hesitant to work with large groups on a project, the authors have identified four ways that best use crowd-powered problem solving and how to manage them:
- Contests (example: Longitude Prize) “The most straightforward way to engage a crowd is to create a contest. The sponsor (the company) identifies a specific problem, offers a cash prize, and broadcasts an invitation to submit solutions. Contests have cracked some of the toughest scientific challenges in history, including the search for a way to determine longitude at sea.”
- Collaborative communities (example: Wikipedia). “Like contests, collaborative communities have a long and rich history. They were critical to the development of Continue reading
History News reprises Salt Lake City meeting and more
History News, Winter 2013
The Winter 2013 issue of History News, the quarterly magazine of the American Association for State and Local History, just hit my desk and focuses on the annual meeting held last fall in Salt Lake City. Featured are the speeches of out-going president Stephen Elliott, award-winner Robert Archibald, and keynote speaker Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, which include such memorable quotes about history and museums, such as:
- Ulrich: “It is a truism that without sources there is no history, but we also need to understand those sources. Most people who had looked at Martha Ballard’s diary said it was filled with mundane detail of little interest, filled with trivia. The same has been said of Patty Sessions. What I want to emphasize is that there is, if not drama in these humdrum records, a powerful story. It is a history that pushes back against conventional sources.”
- Elliott: “To appreciate who others are and where they’re coming from, it’s important to Continue reading
Sequestration to Hit Smithsonian Collections
Congress’ recently enacted sequestration cuts funds at many federal agencies, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Secretary Wayne Clough announced today that sequestration would not affect public visiting hours nor result in staff layoffs, however, “we can no longer be the nation’s attic. Congress has provided us an ideal opportunity to re-examine the value of collections in our overburdened system.” Clough provided few details except that he has directed each of the Smithsonian’s departments to determine how to reduce their collections by 8 percent—the across-the-board amount adopted by Congress in the sequester.
Response by Smithsonian staff has been mixed. Most departments are still developing solutions but questions remain. The Smithsonian holds about 137 million artifacts, more than 90 percent in the National Museum of Natural History. “We’re currently uncertain if an 8 percent reduction applies to the quantity or volume,” said Terry Erwin, curator of coleoptera in the department of entomology. “We have hundreds of Continue reading
NEH Shares Film Series on Civil Rights
The National Endowment for the Humanities and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History recently launched Created Equal, a new program to bring four nationally-acclaimed films on civil rights to historic sites, museums, and libraries. They can easily fill a summer series of programs when accompanied by an historian and spark a conversation about your community’s experience with civil rights.
The films include:
- The Abolitionists. A small group of moral reformers in the 1830s launched one of the most ambitious social movements imaginable: the immediate emancipation of millions of African Americans who were enslaved.
- Slavery by Another Name. Even as slavery ended in the south after the Civil War, new forms of forced labor kept thousands of African Americans in bondage until the onset of World War II. Produced and directed by Sam Pollard.
- Loving Story. The moving account of Richard and Mildred Loving, who were arrested in 1958 for violating Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage. Their struggle culminated in a landmark Supreme Court decision, Loving v. Virginia (1967).
- Freedom Riders. The Freedom Rides of 1961 were a pivotal moment in the long Civil Rights struggle that redefined America. This documentary film offers an inside look at the brave band of activists who challenged segregation in the Deep South.
Up to 500 communities across the nation will receive these four inspiring NEH-funded films, accompanied by programming resources to guide public conversations. Each participating site will receive an award of up to $1,200 to support public programming exploring the themes of the Created Equal project. Applications are due May 1, 2013 and open to museums and historical societies; humanities councils; public, academic, and community college libraries; and nonprofit community organizations.
Video: U. S. Army Women’s Museum
An introduction to the U. S. Army Women’s Museum in Virginia. It’s celebratory and vague (you can easily swap the word “women” with “African Americans,” “Virginians,” or even “Latvians,” and not change the patriotic message very much) but who knew such a place existed.
Highlights from the Virginia Association of Museums conference
Last week the Virginia Association of Museums (VAM) held its annual conference at the Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Virginia, and I was fortunate to be asked to speak at their historic house forum. It was my first time at their conference and I was so impressed by the quality of the sessions and the camaraderie of the participants. I wasn’t able to stop by every session, but I wanted to provide some highlights from a few I did attend.
The Nexus of Art and Science. Rebecca Kamen, professor of art at Northern Virginia Community College, talked about the ability of art to interpret historic scientific and medical collections found in museums and libraries. Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder (1965) prompted her to work with such diverse institutions as the American Philosophical Society, Chemistry Museum, and the National Institutes of Health. A recent work, “Divining Nature: An Elemental Garden,” explores the orbital rotations of elements in the periodic table through sculptures. I’ve seen lots of examples of science being explained in new ways, but I’ve only encountered a few glimpses of it being done with history–anyone have any suggestions?
Using Social Media to Conduct Historical Research. Lynn Rainville, a professor at Sweet Briar College, discussed how she used Facebook, Tumblr, and other social media to study Continue reading
Engaging Places 