I’m happy to spend some time with people who’d like to learn more about RRCHNM’s open-source digital repository and exhibit builder, Omeka.  I can walk people through how to set up their own Omeka installations, how to create an exhibit, discuss things to consider when using it, etc.

What Is Omeka from Omeka on Vimeo.

Among the various hats I wear, I’m the chair of the host department for UMW’s museum studies minor (started 3 years ago) and a founding member of UMW’s digital studies minor (starting this fall).   Both of these undergraduate minors are interdisciplinary and public facing in approach, courses, and content.  As an affiliated faculty member in both, recently I’ve been thinking a great deal about the ways that these two programs are informing each other and how we might think of a curriculum that combined the two.

Would people be interested in conversation(s) about the impact of digital tools and resources on the teaching/curriculum for Museum Studies or Public History at the undergraduate or graduate level, about the lessons to be learned about program development by newer fields such as Digital Studies from more established curricula in Museum Studies and Public History, or about a glorious mash-up of all of the above?  What do students entering Public History or Museum Studies programs need to know about digital tools and resources?

Here are a few nuggets of ideas for a Talk Session.

1 – The risks and benefits of user generated content. How do we manage a website effectively when we are opening our content up to public comment? Is the benefit of the democratization of content worth the risks inherent with allowing outside users to add to your site?

2 – We have a challenge in connecting online with some of our core audience – we are interviewing veterans, who aren’t really big users of the internet (The Memory Project)

3 – The problem of balancing the timeliness of technology with the cost of being cutting edge.We always have big ideas that get whittled down by our budget realities.

4 – The treatment of images online. We have a huge repository of digitized images in a number of our programs,  new technologies allow for the easy embedding of slide-shows, but not easy curating of content. Does Google Images have it right by just aggregating images online in a single space, or do we owe more to the curation of images when we are an authoritative reference? How can we better utilize, showcase images, while still being mindful of the weight of high res galleries online?

A Play session could be to share examples of really effective website design.  It could be beautiful, could be really intuitive or well laid out, but has to be inspiring.

At virtualmuseum.ca / Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN), we are a 100% online heritage institution, hosting substantial collections and learning resources from museums across Canada (>1M images, >500 virtual exhibits, etc.). One of our biggest challenges in the Social Web era is tracking where these copyrighted assets are being used (or misused), distributed, and discussed online.

Our tracking was relatively “reactive” in 2010/2011, employing a number of different tools to find out what was happening with our brand and in the industry in general. In the interest of developing a more “proactive” system, last year we deployed a Social Media Enterprise System (“SMES”, AKA Social Media Management System SMMS). This allowed us to undertake more comprehensive tracking of not only our brand and our online resources, but also identify topics related to our resources and overall mandate that are being discussed globally in Social Web. I’m seeing in the tech industry at-large a movement to these types of integrated social Web monitoring systems over traditional stand-alone tactics.

I’m very interested to hear what tools, tips and tricks other institutions are using for Social Web monitoring and tracking – free to paid, open-source to proprietary, basic to industrial-grade. How are you monitoring your brand &/or resources? Are you using an SMES/SMMS (e.g. HootSuite)? How does your tracking fit into your overall social media strategy?

(FYI – I’ll be able to give a *brief* overview of our SMES via tablet at the workshop)

Look forward to seeing you Wednesday! ~ Dave

Grounding History as a Community Value
ThatCamp NCPH 2013

Ann Martin

If we believe that history/heritage is a valuable community asset, why do we spend so little time in the community (outside of talking to the heritage-minded crowd or telling them what we know)? How can we work collaboratively within the community? I’m talking real community engagement here, not outreach or developing audiences. Do we, as historians, really know how to create enduring relationships with other players within our communities that aren’t based on requirements for funding, getting good press or furthering our own strategic goals?

I’m interested in figuring out what it takes to roll up our sleeves and do the work to find a “coalition of the willing” – others that see value in heritage and whose values we can support – and work together as a true alliance over the long haul to ground the appreciation of heritage as a community value.

If you’d like to talk strategy, that’s great. Perhaps you’d like to create some tools (questionnaires, templates, discussion agendas, lists of categories of people to talk to that you can customize for yourself…or??). Maybe you’ve got some suggestions on how to harness digital technology in new and creative ways. Are you a tactician or a strategist?

I’m open to any and all suggestions that move the conversation away from “how do we reach them with what we know” to “what are community needs that the heritage community can help with and/or link to.”

Maybe there’s a ThatCamp NCPH 2013 coalition of the willing….

At the first THATCamp NCPH, two years ago, we brainstormed the Public History Commons into existence. By this time last year, we’d created the site and launched the History@Work blog on it. At this point, we’re seeing lots of new possibilities coming into focus, but they’re still pretty inchoate, and I’d love to see a session at this year’s THATCamp that moves our thinking along a bit more. Specifically, I’d like to think about how we might use the Commons to house, pull in, aggregate, or otherwise connect to the wide range of digital and perhaps other work being done around the public history field: “gray literature,” blogging, web-based projects, apps, mapping, individually-created digital archives, so much more.

• What role should NCPH envision for itself in relation to all of this work?
• How can we (or should we) respond critically to it, including through published reviews and awards?
• What additional digital tools would we need to incorporate into the Commons to make this work? (For example, I’ve recently built a little baby version of a Library area, but it’s obvious that this needs to sit on a much more sophisticated platform so we can actually catalog things – but before we do that, I think we need to figure out exactly how we’re hoping this area of the Commons might function within the field as a whole.)

I’d welcome discussion about this at THATCamp NCPH, perhaps along with broader conversations about digital publishing, reviewing, collecting of scholarly and other materials, etc.

On Thursday, April 18 at 8:30 a.m. in Ballroom A, I have the pleasure of joining Erin Bell, Jeffrey McClurken, and Tom Scheinfeldt in a discussion of how public historians are using and adapting WordPress software to teach, disseminate, and do public history. The types of issues we’d like to discuss range from practical basics (e.g., what plug-ins have you found useful) to deeper implications (e.g., how do the digital platforms we use influence the production of history).

In addition to the pre-conference conversation taking place on History@Work (please comment!) and the session itself, I’d like to propose a THATCamp NCPH session along similar lines.

For instance, we’ve recently started using EditFlow with our WordPress-based project, a re-envisioned collaborative state encyclopedia called  ConnecticutHistory.org. And I’d love to hear from others who are using this or other tools to manage the content development workflow within WordPress rather than external to it. For example, until recently, our editing and finalization of entries took place in MicroSoft Word and material wasn’t brought into WordPress until it was complete save for images. There are pros and cons to both approaches, particularly if one is managing external authors who are not familiar with WordPress or if the internal project team is hesitant to grant backside access to outside contributors.

So, if your public history project or course uses WordPress software—or if you’ve been wondering if it might work for your needs—let me know if a session along these lines is of interest.