Category: Uncategorized

Pardon my tangent: this post will mostly be about the readings relation to the field of Archives. I realize the authors were writing about museums, but I saw many connections to my field of work and I hope someone would appreciate how these topics are utilized in other fields.

First, I very much enjoyed the first article about repatration. I’m all for museums giving back the collections they acquired immorally – even if they were acquired over century ago. I’m shocked to hear that some museums resisted the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act – I imagine it couldn’t have been many. There are few ways the United States Government can work to right the wrongs committed to the Native American Tribes through the history of this country, the repatriation act was clearly one way to do so.

The second article about deaccessioning hit very close to home for me. Archives throughout the country face the same problem of what to do with materials that you don’t feel belong with the collection. I would like to point out that the author mentions museums wanting to deaccession items to sell them on the market and gain revenue. I don’t think that is allowed by any state institution in Idaho. I remember hearing something about our university library discontinuing its book sale for that reason. Then again- the university sells land on occasion… I’m not sure what the law says there.

The article also mentions some other outside elements affecting collection development. This can be true for many repositories of cultural goods. Museums, Libraries, Archives, Cultural Centers; these places tend to be the attic of communities. The leaders responsible for public donations and community relations may, from time-to-time, accept  material that doesn’t quite fit the collection development plan, but accepting the gift is the right thing to do for community relations. Too much of this, however, can lead to shelves filled with objects or documents that do not fit any scope of vision for the collection as a whole. It takes skill to navigate those waters.

Marilyn Phealen’s article on the legality of international trade also brings up important questions. While there are some gray areas that force each case to be examined thoroughly, I agree whole heartedly with Phealan’s quote from the U.S. Code of Uniform Commerce: “one who purchases property from a thief, no matter how innocently, acquires no title to the property.” (page 421) This should be the ethical backing for any decision of ownership.

 

 

I enjoyed all the articles and I am glad that our reading began with the Monroe and Echo-Hawk article. This article set a good tone for the following articles, and the ideas within them. Monroe and Echo-Hawk state valid points that pertain to how museums conduct themselves and how they have conducted business in the past. The average visitor to a historical or natural history museum probably has never heard of the Antiquities Act, or knows what it entails. Like the innovative work done by Fred Wilson in his “Mining the Museum” exhibit, I think part of museum interpretation should include (in a creative interpretation like Wilson’s or in straightforward text), how the object was obtained and its varied contexts. Therefore, museums could be even more progressive by addressing the context of the objects ascension, for example mentioning the Antiquities Act of 1906, as well as, that Native Americans were not recognized as a person under the law until 1879, and not granted citizenship until 1924.

Adding these concepts and historical facts to museum interpretation allows for the polysemic classification that Cameron discusses in her article. According to Cameron, “An object’s meaning and its classification, is not self-evident or singular, but is imposed on the object depending on the position and aims of the museum.” (227) I believe this is the most important concept brought up by the readings, and is a concept that ties all of this week’s readings together. As Corrin points out in her article, colonial history is not addressed in historical displays, which begs the question of, what is the true position and aim of a historical museum when it ceases to encompass a complete cultural and historical context in displaying their objects?

In the world of the 21^st century, it would seem inconceivable that museums would have collections that actually need to be given back to their proper owners.    I was not surprised that certain institutions before 1990,  when the Native Grave Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 was passed had probably not returned to Native American families the remains of their loved ones.  I know the article was written 23 years ago, but one has to wonder if certain museums have returned these remains or if by the status that certain institutions have obtained, they might have felt above the law.  Another question this Act might propose is that if the artifact mentioned is older, as to say, 9000 years, who has the right to claim the body?  Do the Native American Indian tribes as the case of the Kennewick Man, claim the bones or does the institution, whose property it was on can claim it?  The body was found on Corps of Army Engineers property, so they want to claim it.  Five Native American Tribes want to claim it. The courts eventually appointed the University of Washington to safeguard the property even though the Army Corps of Engineers claim ownership.  Many legal quandaries exist, and really this man should be laid to rest with his descendants.  One wonders how or if through law, or how and why this legal conundrum could be affected at all by the ICOM Code of Ethics.

The article on deaccessioning, seemed that on the institutional level when the institution was finished with the artifact, they needed to part with it in a timely manner.  Selling the artifact as a collectible would be one way for a museum to make money.  There is always someone willing to add a piece to their collection that would be pleasing esthetically to them as collectors.  Museums and collections today have a momentous task to be moving and to remain fluid to keep the public’s appeal.  Proper and correct implementation procedures of deaccessioning would greatly enhance the institutions image and would secure additional funds to be more viable as an instrument to serve the public.

The movement for digitizing and electronically cataloguing collections has grown greatly.  These new methods can be seen in larger museums that are using this new paradigm shift to scanning, using digital photography and new other new techniques.  This makes the publics experience more memorable.  Institutions are using these techniques to make “virtual exhibits” on the web.  New innovations can be adapted and used in the museum to inspire and educate a broader audience.

Through modern media the need for the “wow factor” has to be presented to the public. We,  as future public historians have to be able to mine this feeling.  Public historians need to be able to go outside the bubble and be able to look at something that would be beneficial and intriguing to your audience.  The article, “Mining the Museum: An Installation Confronting History”, gives us a very good checklist to engage and evaluate how well the exhibit performs and if interpolates the present with the past, and meld them together to work. If this procedure does indeed work well, then it certainly captures that “wow factor” that is needed.

 

 

The chapters we read this week discussed the history of the museum and how it has changed over time.  Cameron talked about the issue of what a museum is.  Should it be a solemn place where material culture is displayed?  How do we use new technologies to display the past?  How do we involve the public in a learning experience?  He asks the question should a museum be a temple or a forum and he answers by stating that there needs to be a reform that places importance on the forum aspect.  He also discusses the social responsibilities that museums have toward the public.  He argued that museums have to “create an equality of cultural opportunity.”  If museums become temples, then only those interested in temples will go to them, he argues.  Nina Simon continues with this theme of reform and reaching out when she wrote about the principles of participation on page 335.  She discussed how participatory experiences can “create new value for the institution, participants, and nonparticipating audience members.”  This brings to mind a couple of examples for me.  The first is the Museum of Tolerance in LA.  Visitors are invited to take part in WWII events and given a card with the picture of a Jewish child on it.  At the end the participant finds out if the child survived.  Telling someone about the atrocities committed in WWII is one thing.  Giving them the chance to connect with a person who was alive at the time who possibly did not survive brings to life the realities of that particular event.  The second example that spring to mind is Zoo Boise.  This educational institution has a wonderful environmental program.  At the gate you are charged for admission and an environmental fee.  This fee is one dollar.  For that dollar you are given a token which you then take to an area where the pictures of three endangered species are placed with some information about the animals.  You get to choose which bucket you drop your token into and the zoo donates to that cause.  It is a way to inform the public about the environment, animals, and conservation.  Fun, educational, and entertaining.  The big three.

Through the course of some research on Garden City history this week, I ran across an article on education and the need for reinvention in schools. The journal article was a practical analysis of schools that have done well at incorporating the precepts suggested by Charles Reigeluth in a chapter of a book that he edited on change in education. The article, which included Garden City Community School as a case study–the reason that I ran across it in the first place–discussed the need for change in education. It suggested a need not for reform or improvement, but for transformation–a complete change of form, a systemic overhaul. In reading “A Framework: Reinventing the Museum,” and “The Museum, a Temple or the Forum?” it struck me just how similar education and public history are in many ways. Both are tools to educate, both have historically used highly defined systems to effect that education, and both, under more severe public scrutiny have had a tendency to become defensive rather than responsive.

In the readings in “Reinventing the Museum,” I find a lot of discussion about how museums can reinvent themselves, how they should be more reflective, how they should be more sensitive and inclusive, and numerous other catchphrases and key words, what I don’t read as much is discussion of external perspective. Much of what is being said is from internal entities–people in the museum that are working off an already biased perspective of what they believe the public is experiencing. Socially, our culture is at a point that demands individualized education rather than en masse programs. The article on education talked about it in terms of industrial world vs. new world. In the former education was done for the purpose of producing a product that would function as a seamless part of a giant machine. The intent was to de-individualize the parties so that they could be controlled all at once in an efficient manner. The new world, the modern world, has seen a (caution: catchphrase ahead) paradigm shift in how society thinks about education. In this new world education is about the individual, it is about satisfying the belief that each person learns differently.

My questions are at a more philosophical level when it comes to museums. It seems that museums and the people that run them have identified that there is a problem. The solutions that are proposed, on the whole, seem to discuss what types of structures could be erected (both intellectually and physically) that would serve the public. What if it is those structures that are the problem? What if no structure could be devised that could satisfy the public? Perhaps the question that needs to be under greater scrutiny is how to effectively reach the public by individualization. Simply restructuring does not seem a rational course of action in a society and culture that dislikes structures and institutions. Of course individualization of history can sound a lot like (watch out, another catchphrase) selling out. But it seems to me that, if at some point the museum was born–and I am sure that it was a radical notion at some point in history–then at some point it must adapt, and that adaptation may be, nay, should be, as radical as the birth. Perhaps, the era of the museum is altogether over, and it is time to invent, rather than to reinvent. I don’t know. Thoughts?

All of the readings this week gave insightful information into the many struggles that museums are undergoing in the 21^st century, but what stuck out most to me was the very last reading, Simon’s “Principles of Participation.”  Her personal experience and breakdown of the potential participants, as well as how participation should be handled within a museum, really connected with me. In the beginning Simon describes the disappointment she met with the final exhibit where the museum allows visitors to create their video response. As she described most of the videos, they were not really worth much, if anything. I’ve felt this same way with exhibits like that. On top of feeling disappointed in the end result of the exhibit, I did not really care if I or either people with me participate in it. I think some of the issues I had with the exhibit came down to the impersonal nature of the exhibit. All you did was make a short video response, outside of that experience you gained nothing. This comes down to both a design choice as Simon explained, as well as how participation is handled, a major difficulty for museums in the 21^st century.

In line with my thoughts above, the analysis of who participants actually are and potential ways participation should be handled was very interesting to me. This breakdown of participants into creators, critics, spectators, and so on shows just how much thought has to be put into an interactive exhibit so that hopefully a majority of participants can feel as though the exhibit was both worthwhile and that they and the community have gained something from it. When these exhibits are created, I imagine that one of the most difficult things to determine is the amount of freedom to give people. I know when I have a paper to write, rather the professor gives you free reign or narrows in my topic, I always find difficulties within both.

At the end of the day, many museums will tackle these difficulties of traditional and contemporary concerns in ways they think will be of financial benefit to them, as well as being beneficial to their survival in the community they exist within.

According to the author, social institutions, museums included, must evolve with society.  Museums must transform in order to to remain relevant in modern society.  The author lays out numerous claims about how to wholly reinvent museums so as to allow students and citizens of all ages to better engage with the materials in museums.   Rather than “causing a fundamental shift in the role of museums in today’s world,” I would argue that museums can easily reach a wider audience, capitalizing on the contents they already have because we live in an increasingly globalized, informationalized, digital world.

This books reads as a manual on how to overhaul the traditional system, which I find ironic because I always viewed museums as great because of the diversity they celebrate.  There are museums that deal with everything from the racist groups to the Holocaust, from the local company that defined the town to radical social groups, the list goes on and on.  Historical museums must display substantive history that explains the rich, diverse history of the people, the community, the nation, and the world.  Wholesale change in substance is not needed: individual museums have the right to display what they so choose.  What museums really need to work on is displaying that information in a better way.  To this end, the author has much to say.

In regards to creating a Constructivist Museum, museums must certainly cater to all types of people; however, to state that one specific type of museum is by nature better than every other types seems a bit ridiculous.  The author argues that Howard Gardner “had the constructivist museum in mind when he used the museum as a model for education;” however, Howard Gardner would have most certainly seen the benefits in a discovery based museum as well.  Moreover, Howard Gardner would advocate for a museum that reaches all of the multiple intelligences.  Society is full of many different people that think, learn, engage, and react in different ways; as such, museums must cater to all of those people, traditional learners as well.  Only a museum that engages all visitors in new ways while also maintaining historically significant contents will survive in the modern era.  Similarly, educators can work to reform museums all they want and incorporate community based initiatives, but the information must be presented in a way that will resonate with all types of learners in order for true learning to ever occur.

The readings this week bring up the importance of museums and the way they can improve by being more community minded and focused, and by increasing participation. The article that stood out the most to me was Cameron’s article. The way people rearrange and categorize objects does have a powerful effect on the way we perceive our reality, and the museum as the voice of authority can be a powerful means of constructing historical reality in someone’s mind. That being said, I agree that museums need to be aware of the tone they are setting and the proposed reality they are constructing, but I am not positive that the ways some of the authors suggested connecting with the community were that much better than what museums already do. George Hein is really on to something in examining the different ways people learn, and this is a good starting point. Allowing for complexity is the most important first step in making any changes, and part of this complexity is not abandoning traditions that work.

I like a lot of things about traditional museum settings and I would hate to see that tradition lost to over-participation. A lot of times I think visitor participation is overrated, and created just for participation’s sake. I agree that people will have the most meaningful experience if they connect, but Nina Simon’s idea that visitors who “create” and “work” during their visits can be just as alienating as a traditional museum where the scholarly voice of authority tells us what is important and why. Aren’t educators acting as the same voice of authority, and with the same racial and class bias, by assuming that their proposed activities will be beneficial and enjoyable to the public? There is comfort in the museum as church, especially for those from a working-class background that aren’t always surrounded by beautiful and interesting objects. Walking around a dark and quiet museum can elicit awe and a sense of safety in visitors, and that form of connection, especially with the past, is extremely powerful. To suggest that a participatory activity creates more powerful connections than other forms of engagement is part of the same elite, upper-middle class line of thinking that many of the authors criticized.
I agree that museums should be constantly re-invented, but we need to be mindful of our assumptions about people in creating those changes.

Ahhh sad to say, but true. The adventure I so foolishly sent myself on is over. I must say, however, I have probably made worse decisions in my life than doing the group project alone….maybe…

As I spoke about during the presentation, the hardest thing for me to get done was the permissions for the photos I most wanted to use. That, and wrapping my head around the fact that I needed to match up to all you grad students; now that class is over I can admit that! Being able to attack the project in a way that I really felt excited about was a great benefit, however, and I wouldn’t trade that for all the hair I may have lost throughout the process.
Building the site through google definitely made it easier on me, as well as the awesome support that I had. I got to use skills from my internship, as well as last semester’s undergrad public history class and really prove that I had actually learned something and my parents’ money wasn’t wasted. They were pretty excited.
I chose what I did, as I said before, because of Arthur Hart and Todd Shallat. I fell in love with history because I liked finding out all the things that no one else knew or really showed an interest in until someone else brought it up. I enjoy telling what I know and what I love, so that was my approach to the project; I hope everyone enjoyed it.
You all did amazing projects—obviously. I was honored to have been in a class with you all.

Group Members: Me.

http://sites.google.com/site/culturemapsboise

My local history project focused on my two loves in History; interpretation and preservation. By finding structures along Capitol Boulevard with historical significance, I created a tour from the Depot to the Capitol building. Instead of being a wealth of knowledge on all of the stops, and potentially overwhelming the average tourist, I decided to format the tour around enticing the public to enter these buildings or sites in order to do some investigating of their own.

The Process

I knew from the start that I wanted to embrace my professional experience as a Historical Interpreter into my public history project. Growing up, I became fascinated with the stories of buildings that surrounded me, no matter how ‘insignificant’ they were to everyone else. Whether it was a modest family homestead, or a bustling cultural landmark, I wanted to know. My endeavor began with trying to find a way to properly tell the story of Boise, as I wanted my tour to encompass the history and culture of a city I’ve grown fond of over the past 6 years.

With the ‘Freedom Trail’ in Boston fresh in my memory, I decided that I needed to choose a path that would lead the user from one destination to another, but not necessarily in any chronological order. As long as the building had significance to the establishment of today’s Boise, then I’d include it. At first, I thought of ‘Main Street USA’ as a universal theme that could tie to other major cities, but the development of Main St. in Boise didn’t tell as much of a cultural story as I had hoped. Other themes such as the government buildings, or Masonic footprint were considered as well. In the end, the breadth of information and variety of stories of Capitol Boulevard proved to be the best introduction to this idea.

The first step was to reference other similar projects. One important resource was Boise’s Department of Art and History and their “Did you Know?” brochure (http://artsandhistory.cityofboise.org/PDF/PublicArt/DidYouKnowCapitolBlvd.pdf) and Boise State University’s “Depot to the Dome” (http://www.boisestate.edu/history/cityhistorian/galleries_city/capital_blvd_gallery/1capitol_blvd.html).

These projects gave me a solid foundation and direction on where my project should lead. Both of these resources provided me with locations and an introduction to its significance. In some cases (mostly in the ‘did you know?’ brochure), no information was given other than a location and title.

With a rough outline in hand, I started researching. My first ventures lead me to Google, which provided me with more overviews of the sites in question, mostly from the websites of the buildings or the businesses within. Once my resources ran dry, I started searching the library on campus where I came across some helpful tools including “Quintessential Boise – An Architectural Journey” by Charles Hummel and Tim Woodward. This site not only provided me with further detail into the sites I had already started to investigate, but also some that I had not considered before.

Learning Objectives

My goal in developing this application/mobile site was to provide the city with an outlet for promotion and narration in some of the untold history along Capitol Boulevard. The vision of the entry into Boise was important in the construction and development of these public buildings and businesses that line the street, but has disappeared into the background as an active history on the street hasn’t been maintained.

In drawing inspiration from the ‘Freedom Trail’ in Boston, my hope was to inspire the city to form a dedicated path with interpretation in signage, oral tours, and in developing technologies such as this mobile app/website. In my research into the beginnings of the Freedom Trail, I found out that all of the sites struggled on their own to maintain tourism and profits until the trial was developed. By having all of the sites joined together under a common theme, more visitors were able to find out about these sites and visit them in hopes of learning the story of Boston and the beginning of the country.

One of the goals that was developed over the process was to not over-interpret the sites. I wanted to provide a brief narrative that was interesting enough to provoke the user into finding more information out on their own. This was accomplished by either showing pictures of what the structures looked like throughout their history, or telling just enough of the site’s story to tease them into reading signage or entering the establishment. This goal was also met by mentioning the current business and what services they offer.

Sources and the Influence

This project was unique in that influence was discovered throughout the entire process, even finding new sites and stories up to the day before the project was to be presented. It seemed as if every new picture found or story told lead to another that was crying out to be discovered. I had to find a way to censor my material in order to not overwhelm the user with information, but include it so that the story doesn’t go untold. On the slide depicting the history of the Capitol Building, the pictures of the entire process provided a narrative that I didn’t know existed; in that the dome was almost axed from the final product due to budgeting issues, and that the picture of it without the dome occurred not just during a point in construction but during lengthy deliberations on whether or not the city could afford to include it.

At other times, I discovered new sites by walking Capitol Boulevard multiple times. Buildings that I previously thought as insignificant or not historically important such as The Literary Center or the Library ended up being some of the more interesting stories on the tour. The wonderful thing about this project is that I was able to pull influence and resources through multiple routes, and sometimes they jumped out at me.

The Challenges in a Trail

Most of my challenges were internal. As a former Interpreter, I want to be a wealth of useless knowledge on a topic. Every story is important to me, and the inner Historian in me wanted to publish an entire website for each individual building on the tour. After watching Nancy Proctor’s presentation on mobile devices in museums, I was inspired to go against everything I wanted to do in order to keep it simple. From the development to the site, to the information on it, I needed to remember that not everyone is as endlessly interested in random information like I am. My goal for the project wasn’t to bore the user into never wanting to walk near anything historical (or developed by me) again.

In being a bit of a tech guru, I wanted to make the application/site very in-depth and feature-ridden. After developing the first template, I realized that not only would it be difficult to operate on a mobile devices, but that someone who isn’t as tech-savvy wouldn’t be able to understand the multiple layers of the site. I removed all of the navigation buttons except the large picture of the skyline at the top to return to the homepage, and a ‘Next’ button at the bottom of every screen. This way, the emphasis of the tour is focused on the content rather than the features.

As mentioned before, my main quarrel with this tour was in the information provided. Not only was I having difficulties omitting certain stories or facts, but also in finding those details out in some cases. Buildings such as Papa Joe’s, the Library, and the Literary Center do not serve the same purpose for which they were built, and have served many purposes over time resulting in a lost narrative. When I did eventually find out stories or facts about a place, even some city Historians and archivists were surprised at my findings. This result inspired me to complete it, because if no one puts in this effort than the histories of these places risk being lost.

What the Future Holds

My hopes is that this project eventually gets picked up either by the city or an outside organization so that Boise will be able to have a cohesive culturally themed tour to promote itself, but not necessarily have to provide additional staffing to join the sites. While I would love to pursue this myself, my impending military career would take both my time and my self out of Boise, leaving the research and development efforts to a severe detriment. The contacts that I hold in the Historical Society were aware of my project and the potential benefit that could result, as well as the ‘word of mouth’ that could hopefully be created by my research, presentation, and establishment of the application. Since this was an academic project, my resources were fairly inexpensive, especially in gaining permission from the Archives to use all of the pictures I didn’t take myself. If this project was to be developed professionally or by the city, a good portion of the research and collection would be provided to them in the form of the mobile site. If an outside organization was to pick this project up, grants and funding from the federal government or the city of Boise could be obtained in addition to personal and business donations, much like how the Freedom Trail in Boston came to be.

Advice and Hopes

The primary thing I hope to portray in my project is the importance of ‘insignificant’ history. When I was an Interpreter for the Old Pen, I focused on the small stories that made the site more personable. The story of the individual tends to interest the common person much more than the overarching theme. What also needs to be kept in mind is that not everyone has the time or interest to perform the level of research it usually takes to get the personal story of a site or the people who worked or lived there, but its those stories that are the most interesting to them. The grand tale of a site can be easily told through signage or literature provided by the site, however if an interpretation effort is extended in telling at least one seemingly unimportant story about a single person or event that occurred here, the tourist can imagine themselves being in the same situation and hopefully would inspire them to immerse themselves in the wealth of knowledge the site could provide.

The only advice I can provide in this type of research situation is to be persistent. Over the course of my 2 1/2 year tenure as an Interpreter, I slowly developed a tour that accomplished my main goals as a Historian; inform the public while enticing their further research or inquiry. I never wanted any of my guests to leave the site fulfilled with the knowledge they had received. I wanted them to leave asking questions, debating topics, or having discourse with others who may or may not have ever been to the site. An active conversation is the only life a historic site has to offer. Without it, the site can disappear into its own history.