PHE: Public Humanities Experience

This semester has been a journey in Public Humanities scholarship and engagement.  Juggling the creation of a public engagement web page for a university archive ‘special collection’ while learning about the theory underlying that engagement has been challenging.  Students like to dream high and while studying are exposed to the best practices, which builds high hopes and expectations.  We explored exciting Digital Public Websites such as “Bracero History Archive” (2010); The Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory (1999)and Driving Through Time: The Digital Blue Ridge Parkway.  Learning has been directed toward thinking about the unique aspects of humanities interaction as well as the structural & interpretive components of web presence and websites.

The goal of my particular journey has been to develop a web resource that will provide awareness of resources, connections between resources, encourage scholarship and research and promote on going work on Women and their history in Northeast Ohio.  The real ‘engagement’ aspects of my experience forced me into the application of political, strategic politics as well as challenges of hardware and software, all while being confronted with insights of experts who exposed fallacies in practices and promoted a deeper awareness of audience needs and the connections between tools and conveyance of information.  Each aspect of the education, challenged my conception of the project.  The struggle with deadlines certainly simulated real life production pressure.  Meeting with collaborating individuals and institutions resulted in constant refinement and the dynamic challenge of conflicting goals and interpretations.

Ideas are made real by experiences and when they take place in the public setting they create true human engagement.

FYI: For Your Information

The purpose of digital humanities is to engage people in the ideas, purposes and actions of the world about them.  This does not sound so difficult until it is realized that communicating big and complex ideas to individuals who vary in age, culture, intellectual experience and ability is also being mediated by space, context and technology.  “Interaction (between presenter & receiver) is almost always necessary to accomplish your goals.”  Perspectives and cultures not only of people, but of the ‘organizations of collection’ themselves, among the objectives of the public education, and the audience which varies in capability & experience are all approaching this communication very differently.  It is only through building relationships, that clear and engaging communication can be developed.[1]  It is not merely thinking about the idea we wish to communicate, it is about rethinking about what the visitor is able to receive.  The idea of thinking about “visitors” to public museums, institutions and parks in terms of ‘relationships’ results in a radically different engagement.[2]  When “visiting” was solely defined by physical space, often difficult and expensive to access the “engagement” was much different than when access  to technology demands multi-sensory and multi-platform intersection.  Even though it still may be difficult and expensive to create, it is necessary for the audience to perceive the information we are trying to exchange.

If we want the audience to understand appreciate and act upon or incorporate our information; we must understand and intersect with their modes of communication.

FO: Field Operations

While Citizen Archivist,  The Postville Project and Digital Harlem have provided ideal types for my own ideas, it is not until I got into trying to create a project, that the complexity, collaboration and comprehensive strategy of these undertakings became evident.  These websites are masters of design and integration.  The elements of my project seemed fairly simple:

• create a list of resource links to make resources accessible in a centralized portal
• install an exhibit space where women’s history can be demonstrated
• provide a contact sheet so that information can be exchanged and
• enable a dynamic space where interesting projects can be announced and engage contribution

Immediately I was challenged by the concept of ‘is my concept of sharing information’ really sharing?[3]  Or am I maintaining control over the sharing, which is not really sharing.  Is there a deeper way to engage?  Am I providing a “newsletter” or a collaborative space?  Am I providing a design that invites the user into the topic and enables them to develop their own thinking as well as absorbing mine?[4]

Considering the audience as a specific individual, is an exercise forced me, as the creator of the site, to move from general concepts and overblown expectations as to who would really access this site.  It also made clear that engaging the content from different perspectives, helps define and present that content in more accessible ways.[5]  I experienced these different perspectives in meetings where interested potential users asked me questions I couldn’t answer.  So much for being an authority on the topic.  But even more humbling was translating my vision into technical reality.  Tools have always been limited.  They are extensions and helpers, but they are not the same thing as a concept.  The vision must be altered by what is possible to accomplish with the tool.  If the tool is insufficient it must be altered or exchanged for a different tool.  I tried to force a dynamic collaborative website concept into a tool that was meant for identifying and collecting things.  If I had technologic expertise or a collaborative team, I might have been able to adapt the tool.  However, I am also working with an established system and there was an unwillingness to adapt their system to my vision.  Back to the drawing board for reconception of how to convey my meaning within and established format.  It was necessary to share control, concept and expression.[6]

FUM: Formative Understandings & Musings

I had envisioned myself as an open and forward thinker.  My journey into digital humanities has challenged that self-conception.  I realize how my training in critical thinking has created its own set of biases and obstacles to communication.  Considering users as specific people with needs has shaped my thinking in terms of content selection. It also demands a broadening my use of tools, to facilitate my communication, rather than expecting others to put forth the effort to grasp my meaning.  Using technology has made me more aware of the multiple layers of interfaces and how that may limit our expressions and reshape our interpretations by focusing our content in “easily accessible tools or images”.  It has deepened my appreciation of the past and the present.  It has sharpened my awareness of the need to communicate ideas more frequently and engagingly.  It has indeed been a giant journey!

[1] Allen-Greil, D., et al. “Social Media and Organizational Change.” In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.) Museums and the Web 2011: Proceedings.Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Published March 31, 2011. And Corbett, Katharine T. and Howard S. (Dick) Miller. “A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry.” The Public Historian 28.1 (2006): 15-38.

[2] Lindsay, Anne. “#VirtualTourist: Embracing Our Audience through Public History Web Experience.” The Public Historian 35.1 (February 2013): 67-86.

[3] Michael Frisch, “From A Shared Authority to the Digital Kitchen, and Back,” in Letting Go?: Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World. Edited by Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene, and Laura Koloski (Philadelphia: The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, 2011) 126-137.

[4]Tim Sherratt, “It’s All About the Stuff: Collections, Interfaces, Power, and People,” Journal of Digital Humanities 1, no. 1 (March 9, 2012), http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/1-1/its-all-about-the-stuff-by-tim-sherratt/

[5] Tim Sherratt, “It’s All About the Stuff: Collections, Interfaces, Power, and People,” Journal of Digital Humanities 1, no. 1 (March 9, 2012) and Steve Lubar, “Exhibit and Exhibit Labels Workshop, On Public Humanities, March 31, 2015.

[6] Tammy S. Gordon, “Community Exhibition: History, Identity, and Dialogue,” Private History in Public: Exhibition and the Settings of Everyday Life (Lanham: AltaMira Press, 2010). 33-57 plus notes.

“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

So the question for this weekly progress report is “what constitutes progress?”

I am learning the ins and outs of Digital Humanities – I am evolving in terms of my understanding of the larger significance of changing presentation modes from text to Digital Formats.  There is improvement in my abilities to navigate tutorials and digital interfaces that are growing with practice, practice, practice.  This practice IS frustrating, but skills are skills and skills get developed through repetition.  Preferably the practice would be fruitful, rather than fruitless. I spent hours in tutorials, I then searched for videos on the tutorials, and user forums.  I have contacted complete strangers and asked for help.  I called in somewhat helpful techies, but they got frustrated also.  I studied other’s exhibits…. trying to figure out how they were adapting the same theme I was using and getting very different results.  I spent more hours with dual screens following the directions and trying to make my page work.  I have something similar to the plan…but not quite what I had envisioned.  I have another section to go… but don’t even know how to attempt it or if it is possible to do.

The challenge for the traditional historian is the shift in time.  Traditional historians spend time in documents and research, not in presentation.  The loss of research time to computer construction is quite frustrating because it feels like “wasted” time.  A portion of the frustration arises out of unrealistic expectations.  Omeka is “an open-source platform” for digital archives and collections.  It is described as,  “makes web-publishing easy”.  Furthermore, “The developers at the Center for History and New Media have done a wonderful job providing a concise and understandable tutorial for first-time Omeka users”.  Teaching Hist.org   There should be a caveat behind these words…..’if you are already a developer, have computer programing or web skills.

Our public humanities literature promotes awareness of audience.  Review of local history and community websites demonstrates their need to define themselves as relevant to outsiders.  I have become acutely aware of ‘unintended bias’.  While struggling to navigate digital tools and production, I am wondering if my historical content is as difficult for digital natives to learn or appreciate, as learning the digital platforms is for me.  I think about the classes I teach and I believe it is.  Historians have jargon and expectations – surely you know when the U.S. Constitution was signed.  ‘Everyone understands that there are 3 branches of government in the U.S. and why the Supreme Court decisions are significant’…but really, not so much.  In on-line tutorials, it is evident the person who wrote the tutorial knows the product.  Their knowledge assumes digital literacy in the person to whom they are explaining the process. I find myself spending as much time looking up instructional terms or for other sites explanations of the tutorial ideas, as I do actually implementing the tutorial. There is a gap between the novice user and the literature around web design and development.  There are gaps between the historian and the historical novice.  There are gaps between the person or organization creating a public humanities exhibit and the audience.

Some of the challenges I have faced are:  It took me 2 weeks to get my page sort of working and then I realized there was a problem with the version of the Omeka Exhibit Builder I was using (from others working on similar projects – all along, I thought the problem was me).  I upgraded my exhibit builder and lost my exhibit in the process.  Working with Support is difficult, because even Support acts like you should have a certain degree of expertise to even be attempting this, ‘What were you thinking?’  …’I don’t know, I believed your promo that this software is designed for the non-techie?’.

I have made progress in: The Support site told me to change the source code….yeah, right – well I did, but it didn’t work…so fortunately I was able to change it back.  But I actually had the courage to change the SOURCE CODE!  I have learned, I am capable of following instructions that are more and less helpful.  Dual screens are really helpful.  I have realized that techies in person are much like the tutorials – they are thrilled with what they are doing …while I struggle to follow.   This has led to a critical realization … when I talk history, I am thrilled with what I am doing and people may be finding it hard to follow.

History must be a public endeavor.  The world can become isolated in digital silos.  The rewards of digital history are more understanding and connection.  Humanities engagement teaches how other people think and how to conquer obstacles and how to work together.  Learning new tools and skills is time consuming  and frustrating and making the world PROGRESS!

Notes:

https://quotation.io/page/quote/progress-means-getting-nearer-place-want  accessed 3/30/18

http://teachinghistory.org/digital-classroom/tech-for-teachers/25115  accessed 3/30/18

Some of the work shaping my thinking:  Tim Sherratt, “It’s All About the Stuff: Collections, Interfaces, Power, and People,” Journal of Digital Humanities 1, no. 1 (March 9, 2012), http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/1-1/its-all-about-the-stuff-by-tim-sherratt/; Michael Whitelaw, “Generous Interfaces for Digital Cultural Heritage Collections,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 9, no. 1 (2015) http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/9/1/000205/000205.html; John Kuo Wei Tchen, “Creating a Dialogic Museum: The Chinatown History Museum Experiment,” in Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture, edited by Ivan Karp, Christine Mullen Kreamer, and Steven D. Lavine (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992) 285-326.  Katharine T. Corbett and Howard S. (Dick) Miller, “A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry,” The Public Historian, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Winter 2006) 15-38.  Michael Frisch, “From A Shared Authority to the Digital Kitchen, and Back,” in Letting Go?: Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World. Edited by Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene, and Laura Koloski (Philadelphia: The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, 2011) 126-137.  Spichiger, L., J. Jacobson, Telling an Old Story in a New Way: Raid on Deerfield: The Many Stories of 1704 , in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2005: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March 31, 2005. http://www.museumsandtheweb.com/mw2005/papers/spichiger/spichiger.html