The Wonders of Digital Technology

I stumbled across an interesting Newsweek photo essay earlier today, which linked me to a Library of Congress exhibit. It's a collection of color photographs from Russia, taken between 1907 and 1915. Yes, I said color photographs!

The Library of Congress has chosen to highlight certain images, but there are certain many more to enjoy - some of which you can see in the Newsweek article, or by searching the LoC website. They're truly amazing photographs and there's some interesting details about how the photographs were taken and how they've been reproduced for our enjoyment today.

So check it out: 1907-1915 coloured Russian photography by Prokudin-Gorskii

Life at OGS

Given that my internship for my public history program is already over half way complete, I thought it would be appropriate to finally share what it is that I've been doing.

I'm working for the Ontario Genealogical Society (a real mouth full when you try and answer the phone!) as an Image Technician. Basically, I travel around and digitize records of genealogical and historical importance. The idea behind this project is to digitize records that genealogists would find useful, as well as provide a second copy to historical societies.

I've been trained to use a book scanner - which is a bit misleading. There's no real scanner to it, instead it uses 2 digital cameras to digitize a book. It's been designed to cradle a book, without damaging the spine, and turns pages automatically through the use of air. A portion called the 'fluffer' blows air out to separate pages, and then a vacuum head comes over, and sucks up the page. You can see it in operation here. It is possible to move this machine, though it’s a tad on the cumbersome side – certainly not something to be taken lightly! Depending on the situation, either I take myself and the machine to the organization, or the records come to the office in Toronto.

After the physical scanning is complete, the editing begins – I figure for every hour of scanning that I do, there are likely 2-3 more hours of editing to do. This includes rotation of images, adjusting brightness and contrast, and cropping the photographs. The editing stage makes the digital record look like the original format – even down to the original colouring. Have a 100 year old book with yellowed pages? You can choose to have the pages cleaned up, to make them white again, or they can keep their yellowish tinge. It’s pretty neat.

It’s been an amazing experience so far – but there’s still much to learn! Tomorrow I’ll be trained on a copy stand – useful for larger books and maps.

Got anything you want digitized? Maybe I can help!

Digital History in Review

Eight months ago I began the Public History program at the University of Western Ontario. I was wide-eyed and had no idea what to expect from any of my courses – especially digital history. It was the course that intimidated me the most, as it was the furthest from my comfort zone.

The first lesson of that class: Don’t panic. Professor Bill Turkel made it very clear that the year was going to be entirely manageable and that he would be there for advice and consultation whenever necessary. He encouraged us to sign up for various roles on our course wiki – anything from project manager, wiki editor, hardware specialist, or presenter, among many others. For my two roles, I chose wiki editor and hardware specialist. I can safely say that I am not a specialist just yet!

Wiki editor was by far the easiest of my two positions. There were straight forward directions available online from other wiki users on how to go about changing various things – adding in links, making sure your links went where they were necessary, etc. That I caught onto fairly easily, and even if I didn’t, I could fake it with all of the tutorials available!

The hardware specialist, meanwhile, was completely outside my comfort zone. Bill encouraged us all to sign up for something challenging and kept reminding us that if something didn’t work, that was okay, because we would still learn. I started Lady Ada’s Arduino tutorials to make sense of the tiny little computer I was given. I became quite comfortable with making a light flash – that seemed easy. But then I had to learn how to program the Arduino to respond when a button was pressed on a model, so that the Arduino could communicate with my computer and the Processing program.

This communication between the Arduino, my computer, and Processing was what really tripped me up. Thank goodness though for my classmate Chris Waring. He really saved the day and got my Arduino troubles all sorted out. Chris completed an undergraduate in engineering and is currently working towards a degree in history – an unusual combination perhaps, but I’m ever thankful that he decided to do the unusual!

Under Chris’s direction, I quickly figured out how to make the Arduino respond properly when a certain button was pressed. Now, where were these buttons coming from? Glad you asked.

The group that I worked with, as a part of our overall exhibit on William Harvey, was a model of the operating theatre at Padua University, as Harvey would have experienced it. There were three areas on this model – the anatomist, the body, and the student. The idea behind the exhibit was that individuals would be able to learn about the roles of the three individuals. My group worked to construct the theatre, with its six levels, out of foam core and I figured out how to make 2 inch figures out of papier-mâché. These little dudes initially looked like aliens, but after a quick paint job, they looked like people. The body on the operating table even had his chest cut open. I was especially proud of that one!

So once the theatre looked presentable, the group concentrated on wiring the model, so that the buttons at the three individuals would be able to relate the appropriate information to the visitor when pressed. Meanwhile, the appropriate slides were also put together, so that the visitor would be presented with visually interesting material. Putting this all together was perhaps the most difficult project of the year.

Our efforts to get Arduino to talk to my computer and to talk to Processing was complicated by the fact that I was running an out of date copy of Processing. Arduino communicated quite happily with my computer – the buttons sent the appropriate ‘1,’ ‘2,’ or ‘3’ when each was pressed – but Processing was rather non-communicative. Enter Chris to the rescue! He figured out that it was the out of date copy of Processing that was causing us grief (I should mention that this was all in the 2 hours before our public presentation). Once we got the right version of the program all was right in the world.

At our presentation of the Harvey exhibit, everything went off without a hitch – so long as you were there about 5-10 minutes after the exhibit started! Our visitors were able to press the button at the body and learn about where students and doctors got their bodies from (either dead criminals or snatched bodies), what the anatomists role was in instructing students, and what student life was like when Harvey attended Padua.

The end result of the exhibit was fantastic – it was nice to see a year of work come together, and work like it was supposed to.

I must admit though, I faked it was a hardware specialist – I couldn’t have done what I needed to without Chris’s help, so thank you sir! I appreciate you saving my skin and letting me fake it as a specialist!

Technology, Nature, & History

In their respective articles, Rebecca Conard and David Glassberg discuss environmental history and preservation of both the natural environment and the historic environment.

Conard, in her article “Spading Common Ground” is especially critical of the various preservationists – historic preservationists, environmentalists, and land managers – for not fully communicating with each other and collaborating on projects that have similar end goals. Too often these three individual groups fail to network with each other, fail to pool their resources, and ultimately fail to achieve such similar goals.

For example, she discusses something as simple as a pier: One group of individuals wanted to make an accessible pier, so that all individuals could access the water to fish. Meanwhile, another group wanted to restore a historic stone pier that was still heavily used. It was somewhat accessible, but not without great difficulties. The two groups clearly had the same goal of allowing access for all to the water. Their approaches were different, as the first group wanted to construct an entirely new pier, while the second group wanted to restore an existing pier. Adaptive restoration to the stone pier would have satisfied all involved, but instead a new pier was created – all of the money and effort that could have been expended to modernize, while preserving, the existing stone pier went towards constructing a little used, modern pier.

In this instance, it was very clear after the fact that the two groups had a similar goal, but because of a lack of communication between the two, the historic pier didn’t receive the money it needed and instead a new pier was constructed, that simply is rarely used.

Conard also discusses the idea of ‘natural heritage’ and the establishment of American national parks in the 1930s. These places of ‘nature’ were not so natural, as the landscapes preserved had been manipulated and changed by Native American inhabitants.

Glassberg also discusses the ideas of fabricated nature in his article “Interpreting Landscapes.” Just as technology affected the development of cities and towns, technology impacted the establishment of the national park system. He argues that the landscape tourists experienced in the park setting was manufactured at the same time Native American reservations were established out west. The park system would not exist without the removal of Native Americans from the land, nor would it exist without the careful management of wildlife “to encourage picturesque megafauna and discourage pesky wolves.” (Glassberg, 25)

He also discusses the difficulties in preserving both natural heritage and built heritage. In the urban landscape, it is obviously much easier to preserve one building of historic significance, but much is lost if it’s just one building and the environment around it changes. In the urban setting, it’s much more beneficial, but also that much more difficult, to preserve as much of the neighbourhood as possible. In doing this, the heritage of the buildings and the people who lived in them will be properly preserved for future generations.

Along with preserving the built heritage of buildings, Glassberg also argues that historians can learn much from the buildings about the social, political, and economic standing of the peoples that lived in them. The structure of a neighbourhood can provide a historian with a wealth of information about the lives of previous residents – for example, he suggests that historians can learn about segregation during the time of the Jim Crow laws by the set up facilities in the American south, or that historians can learn about race relations through the development of reservations in the west.

Something that I identified the most with was Glassbergs discussion of how groups of people can interpret the same building or community so very differently. Simply by examining how a group of tourists see a church versus how the locals see that same church is very interesting. Having grown up in a small, tourist-trap of a town, this different interaction is very visible. Perhaps the best personal example is the issue with a new bridge in that town. Tourists did not want a new bridge, as it would alter the ‘charm’ of the town, meanwhile town councilors (my dad was one at the time) wanted a new bridge, as the old one needed to be replaced. For the sake of the town, a new bridge was necessary. Enter the tourist voter. Any councilor (including my dad) who voted in favour of the new bridge, which was constructed, were voted out of office. Did the ‘charm’ of the town change? Not really – the bridge looks the much same, it’s just modernized.

The key for both Conard and Glassberg seems to the be that there is much to be learned from both natural and built heritage. Society can better understand the past very simply through the type of heritage preserved: not every building or natural landscape passes muster. European-American created buildings were demolished to make way for the national parks, and the nature created by Native Americans was preserved instead. In urban settings, the houses of the elite have been saved, while the tenement houses are torn down in favour of parking lots or new houses. What’s been removed from the historical landscape is just as important, if not more so, that what has remained.


Articles:
Conard, Rebecca. “Spading Common Ground: Reconciling the Built and Natural Environments.” Public History and the Environment. Ed. Martin V.Melosi and Philip V. Scarpino. Florida: Krieger, 2004, 3-22.

Glassberg, David. “Interpreting Landscapes.” Public History and the Environment. Ed. Martin V. Melosi and Philip V. Scarpino. Florida: Krieger, 2004, 23-36.

Google, on your phone?

Obviously if you have internet access on your phone, you can access google. But did you know you can call google and search it that way?
Try it for yourself - 800-GOOG-411 - Just say the business name/type and the city and it will give you results and will connect you automatically if you so wish.
Neato! (See, these are the things you can find out on TED!)

Twitter

Twitter came up in class the other day and I just ran across this talk by the co-founder about how the concept of instant updates came to be, and how it has evolved in such a short time.

Enjoy! And while you're on TED, check out some of the other talks!

Fairy Tales

O the stuff fairy tales are made of. Like many children, especially little girls, I grew up on stories of princesses being rescued by knights in shinning armor. The two would ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. As a child, I never put much thought into exactly what that happily ever after might be. It’s interesting to see how Hollywood has portrayed the lives of princesses and how historical figures have been dealt with.

The film Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst, is a good example of happily ever after – almost. Marie’s life was certainly one of opulence, parties, friends, and generally having a good time. Of course there were a few small difficulties associated with being the Queen of France – the traditions of morning dressing for instance at Versailles, or her troubles consummating her marriage with Louis XVI. Her life goes along fairly well in this movie, until of course the French Revolution takes place. Then things go down hill. But for a while, it looked like those fairy tales of my childhood might have actually taken place in history according to Hollywood.

Recently I watched Keira Knightley in The Duchess, and while her character Georgiana isn’t a princess, her lifestyle is certainly close enough. As the movie started, it was somewhat clear that Georgiana would later fall for a male character, Charles Gray, introduced in the opening sequences. At the same time, though, she was thrilled to become the Duchess of Devonshire and didn’t pout to her mother that she wanted to marry Gray instead. The film quickly devolves from the typical fairy tale to almost a horror story. Obviously there isn’t a monster or something after Georgiana, but her marriage quickly turns out to be a bit of a sham. Her husband isn’t overly interested in sexual activity, at least with her. He seems to have several mistresses, until he takes Georgiana’s best friend as his live-in mistress. Her joy for life quickly dissolves from there.

I don’t recall anything spectacular in the special features of the Marie Antoinette that dealt with the historical accuracy (or inaccuracies as the case may be) of the film. Meanwhile, I was pleasantly surprised by the special features for The Duchess.

Part of the special features was obviously devoted to costume development, but another section was an interview with Amanda Foreman, the author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire. In this interview, Foreman discusses the collection of Georgiana’s letters that are available in the archives at the Cavendish family home in Chatsworth. In talking about these letters, Foreman reveals to the viewer the maturation of Georgiana – visible in her hand writing and in the topics she discusses. It’s also interesting, as Georgiana’s letters were censored by her friend (and her husband’s mistress) Bess Foster. Bess either scratched out or ripped out certain parts of letters and apparently only left select letters for future generations.

I was thoroughly impressed to see this section in the special features. It was a somewhat shameless plug for tourists to go to Chatsworth, but at the same time, it made archival history interesting and relevant to a movie viewer. How often do you really think about the evolution of a person through their handwriting and the subject matter of their letters?

Check out the movie if you’ve got a chance. It’s not too bad. Typical in many ways, but still a pretty good flick. If nothing else, the costumes are great!

Modern Soviet Dance?

I stumbled across this so-called modern Soviet dance video tonight.

It's an old recording of a group of Soviet dancers, likely propaganda of its time. What it amounts to, with the mix of more modern music, is basically a Soviet break dancing circle.

What an amazing way to mix old and new technologies, and keep the heritage of this Russian dancing alive.

Enjoy - There are some truly amazing dance moves!

Interactivity

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I stayed with my sister and her family in Kanata. Given the proximity to Ottawa and Carp, my boyfriend Karl and I decided to take in a couple of tourist attractions while we were there.

On Saturday we visited in the War Museum. Wow. What a place! It's incredibly huge. We spent about 4.5 hours in there and still didn't see everything. I was impressed by the number of interactive activities available. Everything from being able to zoom in on models of First Nation's villages to understand the various roles of the members, to walking through a mock First World War trench and being able to see no man's land. Lots of computer activities and even some interaction with some artifacts, or at least reproduction artifacts.

My first encounter with the reproduced artifact was a man with a musket teaching mainly children about things like cleaning it and how to carry it. He did a really good job changing his message depending on his audience.
The 2nd encounter was a medical kit. This one made me a little nervous, as children were allowed to pick up items, including sharp, potentially poke-your-eye out type items. Despite that nervous factor (risk management anyone?) it again was pretty cool to have someone there to explain to patrons exactly what each item might be used for.

Along with all of these interactive displays, there were lots of static exhibits, but because of how much interaction was possible, I didn't see any kids running around or pounding on artifacts. The only area that didn’t have interactive exhibits was the room full of tanks, artillery pieces, and other vehicles. This room certainly lacked the child friendly atmosphere of the rest of the museum, but there still weren't any kids playing with the artifacts.

Sunday we decided to tackle the Diefenbunker. Again, I can say 'wow' but certainly not with the same connotations as before...

Our visit was basically a 90 minute guided tour. We were welcome to explore once the tour was over, but there was no map provided, nor were there any directional signs to help you find your way around. Plus, the air quality was TERRIBLE. I couldn't wait to get out.
Unlike the War Museum, there weren’t any exhibits with interaction. As a result, I saw children pound on artifacts to make their own fun. I certainly can't say I blame them, as there isn't much to see or do at the Diefenbunker. Trust me, the concept makes it sound really neat-o, but I was rather disappointed with what I saw and heard.

Our tour guide couldn't understand why the federal government wouldn't leave all of their materials behind when the bunker was decommissioned in the 1990s. She seemed absolutely surprised that they wouldn't consider leaving desks, beds, paperwork, etc. behind for the museum to use. Honestly, I think the Diefenbunker museum is lucky that the government didn't fill in the bunker with cement like they did with so many others. How can individuals honestly expect the government to leave all of their materials and equipment behind when they move? I can understand where my guide was coming from - certainly it would have been much easier to create a museum had all of the necessary artifacts been left behind. But at the same time, it doesn't make good sense for an operating government department to leave its equipment behind for the potential use in a museum. The public would certainly not have stood for this.

The key lesson learned from visiting these two very different museums was that the ability to interact with exhibits dramatically effects the behaviour of visitors. People instinctively want to touch and feel things, to be truly involved in the learning process - this is especially true with children. If a museum fails (like the Diefenbunker) to allow the opportunity for interaction, patrons will inevitably find a way to play with artifacts and potentially destroy physical history for all those who follow.

Plagiarize much?

Using the wonders of Google, Skyline Inc. has just released it’s plagiarism-detector 8.0. It can check Word documents, PDFs, and power point presentations, among others, against any published source on the internet, using Google’s search algorithms. Sounds like a much better source than Turnitin.com – and it also looks like it would be one heck of a lot cheaper! Anyone concerned with the originality of their work can now easily run a plagiarism search from home.

Spellcheck much?

I just completed yet another round of marking (and, of course, was treated to some interesting words) when I came across this blog about trusting one's spellchecker. Take a look - it's certainly a useful tool when you're a terrible speller like me, but to blindly accept changes? Yikes!

Family History = Boats

For several generations, my family has been involved in commercial fishing. I spent many an early morning out on Lake Huron with my brothers, sisters, father, and uncles – until of course my eldest brother John forced me to pick up a half-dead fish, which at the age of 5 was slightly traumatizing. I’ll be honest, I went out for the junk food, and rarely went out again after that day.

Growing up the most complete photo albums were those that contained the numerous fish tugs owned and operated by the LaBlance family at one point or another. I was also treated to numerous stories including: the American ancestors who spent a fortune to outfit a tug in order to be rum runners, only to have prohibition lifted shortly there after; the time my father and his brothers were asked to help in the rescue operations of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and while they were unable to help due to weather, they were able to recover artifacts from the sunken vessel (which were accordingly handed over to the authorities); or the various life saving efforts my family has participated in, whether through the Southampton Water Rescue team, or simply due to the fact that they were in the right place at the right time.

My father is particularly interested in boats – little wonder given that from the time he was a wee one to about the age of 55 he spent almost every day on the boat, weather permitting. It was to my delight then, when I ran across a project put together by Bowling Green State University called the Great Lakes Vessels Online Database. It’s a database that offers information on numerous types of vessels – sailboats through freighters – as well as corresponding pictures. (For anyone interested in checking out the database, look up the La Blance – owned by the LaBlance family from 1947 until 1965.) My dad has spent hours going through this database, loving every minute, but of course finding errors as he goes. He also spends numerous hours on boatnerd.com.

One of my brothers is also keen on boats, and after the family was no longer able to fish, he began a contracting company. Part of that company, Willy’s Contracting, is dredging – which of course requires tugs. He recently had one of his boats, the Priderebuilt from a fishing tug to a steamboat tug. The Pride has recently been featured on boatnerd, which of course has my dad absolutely thrilled. I got an email and a phone call yesterday to be sure to check it out.

The heritage of my family lives on… if not through the people in it, then through their boats!

Broken Heart?

Imagine an exhibit dedicated to lost love. Imagine some of the things that might be in it – say fuzzy handcuffs, an axe, a pair of underwear, or the iconic ‘I love you’ plush bear. Stop imagining, because that exhibit exists.
The ‘Museum of Broken Relationships’ is a digital, as well as traveling, exhibit that showcases artifacts from failed romances.
Each artifact found within the digital exhibit comes with a story. Like that axe: it was used to chop up an ex-lover’s furniture. Or a cell phone that was given from a man to a woman so that she couldn’t call him anymore. (Clever way to get your point across that’s for sure!)
Currently the exhibit is in Singapore and will next be displayed in San Francisco, just in time for Valentines, the most overrated Hallmark holiday there is!
Check out the digital exhibit – it’s a short exhibit, but humourous in its own sad way.