Category Archives: Historical interpretation

Comments on IMLS Revised Grant Guidelines Due Today

A crew from Alabama repairing downed power lines in Maryland near my office.

Electrical power was out in my part of the world for a couple days earlier this week due to the fierce thunderstorm that struck the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic on Friday. Some parts are still without power and although I haven’t conducted a survey to see how the nearby historic sites fared, I have heard that one historic house museum in Virginia is facing about $30,000 of clean-up costs due to fallen trees and branches.

But power and Internet have been restored to my office, just in time to submit my comments to IMLS on their revised guidelines to their grant program. Comments are due today to comments@imls.gov. Here’s what I submitted:

Please accept these comments for the public record regarding the draft guidelines for the FY 2013 Museums for America and National Leadership Grants for Museums programs of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

I appreciate the federal Continue reading →

Slave for a Day? I’m Not Sure This is a Good Idea

Footsteps of the Enslaved, a new program at Hampton

Hampton, a National Historic Site operated by the National Park Service, recently announced a “Slave for a Day” program which will allow visitors, to, “Experience agricultural labor that enslaved people may have performed at Hampton. Work in the fields with actual hoes and scythes. Carry buckets of water with a yoke on your shoulders.” After a chorus of howls went up on the Internet, the title was changed to the much more tame, “Walk a Mile, a Minute in the Footsteps of the Enslaved on the Hampton Plantation” but the program content remained the same. I certainly want to encourage the ranger who developed the program to continue to pursue her passion for African American history, but I’m not sure these activities, as described, get visitors to fully understand what life was like for enslaved people. Antebellum farming is about hard work; Continue reading →

IMLS’ Revised Grant Guidelines Need Revision

In May, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)–the national agency devoted to museums and libraries–released a new set of proposed guidelines that would significantly revise their grant programs for museums (and that includes historic sites, historical societies, house museums, and preservation organizations). Initially, these changes were proposed to go into effect without comment from the field, but fortunately enough museums spoke up that director Susan Hildreth changed her mind and announced she would welcome comments–but the comment period ends on Friday, July 6, 2012.

According to IMLS, the guidelines affect the Museums for America and National Leadership Grants for Museums programs, however, the impact is much larger because these programs are proposed to consume two other grant programs: Conservation Project Support and 21st Century Museum Professionals. Claudia French, deputy director for museums, proposed the changes so that the grant programs would align better with the IMLS strategic plan and make it easier for grantees and IMLS staff.

Here are the major changes that caught my eye:

1. One deadline to rule them all: January 15. Currently, the deadlines for Continue reading →

Google Launches World Wonders Project

Independence Hall in Google World Wonders. To protect the statue’s identity, his face has been blurred!

Google recently launched its World Wonders Project, an edited compilation of world heritage sites using its Street View technology to “bring to life the wonders of the modern and ancient world.” If you’re not already familiar with Street View, it allows you to navigate Google Maps through 360-degree images so you can look left, right, up, and down. At present, they’ve assembled 132 sites from 18 countries, including Stonehenge, Pompeii, Versailles, and Himeji Castle. Sites are organized by location and theme, and each site features a large navigable photo with a map and a slide-out window of information, video, and photographs. The World Wonders Project also includes education packages for primary and secondary levels that are linked to specific “wonders,” such as “liberty and the US declaration of independence” for Independence Hall. These are large zipped files, so I didn’t investigate them.

It’s exciting that Google is working with Unesco and the World Monuments Fund to bring attention to this amazing places, but there’s some work to do. First of all, Continue reading →

Experiential Courses Offer Opportunity to Explore Places

Map of City Semester field projects in New York City.

If you hear the words, “experiential, expeditionary, or hands-on learning,” “adventure education,” or “outdoor education director” in your school district, it may be an opportunity to present your museum or historic site as a valuable resource. For decades, schools have focused on formal educational process emphasizing lectures and textbooks, but that seems to be changing according to Jenny Anderson in her New York Times article, “For Bronx Private School, All the City’s a Classroom in an Experiential Course.” She describes the City Semester: The Bronx Experience, new educational venture by the private Ethical Cultural Fieldson School. It’s a semester-long program that, “integrates history, English, science, ethics, language, civic leadership and the arts around the study of New York City- through the lens of the Bronx. Like other semester programs, City Semester offers a chance to step outside your everyday routine, have an adventure, challenge your assumptions and grow in new ways.” Each week the class combines classwork with at least one day in the city visiting businesses and historic sites (such as Woodlawn Cemetery and the Louis Armstrong House), Continue reading →

VSA: Why Teachers Visit Historic Sites

The April 2012 (15:1) issue of Visitor Studies, the semi-annual journal of the Visitor Studies Association, just arrived and it includes, “Motivating Participation in National Park Service Curriculum-Based Education Programs” by Marc Stern, Elizabeth Wright, and Robert Powell. It’s a rare examination of the reasons why teachers visit (or don’t visit) historic sites. For anyone that provides school programs, its findings provide some useful guidelines.

The study attempts to “understand why teachers at schools within the immediate vicinity of Great Smoky Mountains National Park attend, or don’t attend, the park’s curriculum-based programs.” To discover the perceived benefits and disadvantages of participation, they conducted a preliminary focus group with teachers and then surveyed 400 teachers in fourteen schools and interviewed school administrators. Although this study’s focus was on a national park’s programs for a middle and high school audience, there are some surprising findings that may cause you to question your assumptions even if you’re an historic site focusing on the elementary grade levels. Here’s a quick summary:

Administrators are most concerned about Continue reading →

2012 Webby Awards Point Out Models for Historic Sites

Historic sites are always looking for good models for online activities, such as websites and mobile applications, and one of the best places to look for inspiration is the annual Webby Awards, the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. Established in 1996 during the Web’s infancy, the Webbys are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

The 2012 Webby Awards received nearly 10,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states and awards were given in over a hundred categories for website, interactive advertising and media, online film and video, and mobile and apps. As a result, there is a lot to cull through but here are several that seem to be most related to historic sites (and hang on, this is a long list):

NPS’ Civil War: 150 Years features a Then and Now Timeline at the top and a Civil War Reporter sending tweets at the bottom.

The Civil War: 150 Years has the form and content of websites that will be most familiar to historic sites, except that it commemorates “a defining event in our nation’s history and its legacy in the continuing fight for civil rights” rather than a specific place. I like their use of Twitter to create a virtual “Civil War Reporter” whose tweets report on events from the 1860s but the major innovation is the featured Then and Now Timeline that compares similar events during the Civil War and today (although I was only able to jump months, not years). Another way to compare the past and the present is demonstrated by Slavery Footprint, a website and mobile app that was launched on the 149th anniversary of the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. It’s designed to raise awareness of modern-day slavery and can tell you approximately how many slaves have pitched in to make the goods you enjoy on a daily basis.
Timelines appeared in several other forms in the winning entries and along with the Then and Now version is Continue reading →

WebWise 2012: Managing Oral History Collections and Projects

The final session from WebWise 2012 that I’ll be reporting on is creating and preserving oral history collections. If you think that oral histories are just about recording hour-long interviews with oldtimers, the digital age has changed that considerably. Not only are oral histories collected digitally, but they are being presented in many new ways, including audio tours, podcasts, radio programs, and in websites. Remember, if you want the complete details, the videos from WebWise are now available at online and you’ll find this session on Day Two.

Broadcastr, an app that finds stories and tours near you

Eileen McAdam discussed how she was using 21st century tools to reach new audiences. She’s been working for many years to engage people in the Hudson Valley through stories through the Sound and Story Project of the Hudson Valley. Rather than deliver audio tours as lectures, she presents stories from the people who live there. She noted that it was difficult to find oral histories that were recorded previously (often they’re not catalogued or easily available) which led to a partnership project to identify what had been done, conduct condition assessments, access the content, and then use the materials to engage new audiences. Much of the initial growth of oral histories came with the availability of inexpensive cassette tape recorders in the 1970s and this project’s work was to graduate these collections to digital formats. In her presentation, she outlined the process of digitizing and editing files to select compelling content and create 1-2 minute stories, recommending Audacity (free), Garage Band (comes with Mac), and Hindenburg (inexpensive), and providing some examples of edited snippets and presentation methods, including Continue reading →

WebWise 2012: Using Volunteers Online

Much of the work at historic sites and history museums wouldn’t be possible without volunteers (and we just passed National Volunteer Week) but very few organizations have recruited volunteers for work online. Is it possible? What would they do? A session at WebWise 2012 explored these ideas in a panel called, “Sharing Public History Work: Crowdsourcing Data and Sources.”

OldWeather.org, a project of the Citizen Science Alliance

Ben Brumfield of FromThePage Open-Source Transcription Software shared his experiences from small crowdsourcing projects. He noted that many organizations often object to public participation in scholarly projects because they don’t have the skills or expertise, but he’s found that those people participating are self-selecting and highly focused. Participation is not equally distributed but mostly done by a small number of people, thus it’s not really crowdsourcing but nerdsourcing. He provided some examples of “well informed enthusiasts” conducting exemplary work, such as Continue reading →

Attractive Outdoor Interpretive Panels are Possible at a Bargain Price

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James Madison’s Montpelier in Virginia sports some very attractive interpretive signs that looked so good, I had to figure out how they were made. With a bit of prodding and poking, I discovered they were printed plastic attached with Velcro to a sturdy wooden frame. Very clever! The signs are great looking even after a couple years outside.

Peggy Vaughan, Vice President of Communications and Visitor Services, generously shared that the three signs cost about $900 total: $90 for each 30″x 40″ PVC sign and $210 for each base. The content, design, and bases were created in-house (yes, Montpelier is fortunate to have a graphic designer and master carpenters on staff) and the signs were printed by FedEx Office (formerly Kinkos). This sign was created using Adobe Indesign, saved as a pdf, and printed directly on PVC–the image isn’t as sharp but they last longer outdoors than the alternative method of laminating a printed image onto PVC. Peggy said that, “The big advantage to these signs for us was that they are relatively cheap, and because everything around here is always changing, we did not want to spend $2,000 on a proper museum sign, as we had in the past, that would be out of date before it wore out. And, frankly, even if things don’t change at your museum, your messaging should change from time-to-time to keep up, don’t you think?”

If you’re looking for more ideas for signs at historic sites, I’ve collected dozens of images from places around the world—good, bad, and ugly—on several web albums. Please note that one sign may serve several purposes (e.g., directional AND identification), so look in other categories, too.

Identification Signs

Directional and Wayfinding Signs

Informational Signs