ON RESPONSIBILE (PUBLIC) HISTORY

Private historians are supposed to conduct so-called ‘responsible history’; history which has been thoroughly researched, and addresses multiple points of view in order to demonstrate an unbiased scholarly approach. With this in mind, I would like to address the prospect of a responsible public history. Is it possible?

Public history is presented to the public, and as such, must be sensitive to the feelings not only of the majority, but also the minority. How does one present a controversial issue with the least amount of controversy? In 2007, this issue came to light with the roaring debate surrounding the War Museum’s exhibit about strategic bombing entitled “An Enduring Controversy.” Obviously, it is difficult to present both sides of the debate in a small text panel – it is even more difficult to present both sides of the debate using only visual displays. Should societal views play a role in determining public history? As history for public consumption, one would assume that public history would be reflective of widely held points of view. However, in this case, it is difficult to present the truth without going against widely held public opinions. However, there is another important factor which must be considered: public funds. After a review of the museum’s exhibit text panel, the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs acknowledge this implication, and concluded... “After due consideration, the Subcommittee respectfully suggests that the Canadian War Museum has both the public responsibility and professional capacity to take the lead in resolving the disagreement. We feel they have the duty to review the detailed presentation of the display panel in question and that they will want to consider alternative ways of presenting an equally historically accurate version of its material, in a manner that eliminates the sense of insult felt by aircrew veterans and removes potential for further misinterpretation by the public."

With so many interest groups involved in public history, it becomes difficult to assess what is responsible public history. In practice, public history should provide facts, and only facts. It is not the duty of public historians to underline the debate surrounding historical issues as there will always be debate surrounding historical events, especially those which are emotionally charged. By failing to acknowledge controversy, are public historians being irresponsible? If the debate surrounding historical events within the scholarly community spills into the public sphere, does this detract from the museum’s reputation as bearers of factual information?

ON THE ‘PUBLIC’

A recent discussion with a colleague raised the question as to who the ‘public’ actually are when referring to Public History. Almost immediately, individuals considered to be the ‘public’ imagine Public History as plaques on buildings and museum exhibits. But Public History is far more than just catering to people outside of the scholarly realm. In fact, the ‘public’ are professors, employers, employees, doctors, and so on. To examine this idea even further, Public History can be even more than just history for public consumption. There are many instances where Public History is produced for private individuals, and is kept as such.

In class today we had a lengthy debate about the use of a single word within a text panel for an exhibit. As public historians, we must appeal to the greatest amount of individuals when creating public history. Is there a way of presenting material acquired through scholarly methods in a way that can be consumed and understood by the greatest amount of people?

First, it is important to develop a thesis...and stick to it. It is inevitable that multiple ideas will work their way into a single text panel, and the ability to tie all of these back into the thesis is vital. Otherwise, the message can become skewed, leading to confusing and misinterpretation.

The ability to keep the language simple also ensures that the message is understood by the majority of individuals who examine text panels. To saturate text with advanced vocabulary will alienate the very public that a public historian is trying to cater to. Not everyone who examines public history will have a university degree, and even if they do, there is no guarantee that they will be able to interpret the text the way the writer intends. In the worst case, the individual reading the text quickly loses interest after becoming ensnared in ‘wordy’ paragraphs.

Less is more. According to Archives & Museum Informatics, the average attention span in a museum is approximately 45 seconds to 1 minute. This includes the amount of time spent looking at the exhibit itself, leaving very little time to read text panels. Looking back at the question of language, do public historians want individuals to spend a significant amount of time trying to understand the language used? A safe bet would be ‘no’.

ON COLLECTIVIZATION OF LANGUAGE

In her article The Hive Mind: Folksonomies and User-Based Tagging, Ellyssa Kroski notes, “In a traditional classification scheme, a controlled vocabulary must be made in advance in which one category term is selected which includes all related terms. When future objects are cataloged it must be determined that either they fit into a particular category or they do not. In a folksonomy, these items can fit into multiple categories.” With this in mind, I would argue that the collectivization of ideas and language is doing society a disservice. Philologists must be scratching their heads at the thought of society streamlining language to reflect easier user-based search results. While there does seem to be a disconnect between online vocabulary and spoken vocabulary, there is still a gradual decline in the perception of words. Kroski uses the example of the words “kitten” and “cat” retrieving different search results, and while this is a valid point for the online community, in my opinion this is a good problem that should not be addressed. Each individual produces a different emotional response to different words and streamlining language ensures that we distance ourselves from these emotional responses. This issue reflects the recent discussions we have had in class regarding the difference between heritage and history. ‘Heritage’ reflects the emotional (and perhaps nostalgic) response to history, and ‘history’ reflects the facts and opinions pertaining to studied historical events.

Social tagging is not necessarily a bad thing – it allows for greater interaction and exchange of ideas. In the context of social tagging, where thousands upon thousands of results can be generated, individuality should be embraced. Take, for example, flickr’s image search; after searching through their image database it is quite clear that language plays an important role in providing better search results. If a user wants pictures of an “office”, they will be inundated with 1.5 million results, while a search for “office tower” returns 23,205 results. Obviously, streamlining the language used for social tagging does the user a disservice.

Why then, would the online community want to remove this individuality? Collectivization of emotional responses to language removes what makes us individuals. In a world where every fifth word is “like” (ok, a mild exaggeration) and ‘internet speak’ is becoming more prevalent in everyday language, we should be embracing the ability to express ourselves in the most distinct way possible. Language is more than just a tool to explain what we want, it is a way of expressing our individuality. Then again, it could easily be argued that nobody will ever be able to truly interpret our thoughts appropriately since everyone has a different emotional response to certain words...

ON POST-MODERNISM AND DIGITIZATION

By digitizing historical artefacts and records, are historians in fact changing the way they are interpreted? Some post-modernists argue that any alteration of the original form of a document results in an alteration of its meaning. Mostly, this refers to the translation of documents from one language to another – the idea is that no translation can be perfect, and thus the true meaning of the document is lost. In essence, the argument presented is that in order to conduct responsible historical research, one must read all documents in their original form. Does this also hold true for changing the format of the documents? Furthermore, could this also be argued for the digitization of three dimensional artefacts?

Are digital representations of materials the same as their original copies, or have they been altered to a degree that changes their meaning? In an age where more and more research is being done online this seems a likely question to ask.

Documents and Records

The digitizing of records provides an ideal reproduction of the words/images/etc written on the page. However, certain profound alterations do occur. The digitization does not present the total ‘wear and tear’ of the document, nor does it indicate how firmly (in the case of hand written documents) the author pressed his/her pen to the page. As discussed in class, digitization does not include the smell of page, which can give indications of the situation the author was living in. The colour of the document would also be altered slightly if scanned. Finally, the only way a reader of a digitized record would know about the paper quality would be if the individual who digitized it offered an explanation of its state. Thus, digitizing removes the sensory context of the document.

To the question of altering the meaning, can it truly be said that digitizing record alters it greatly? In this case it does not. If read in its original language the document still has the same literal meaning as it originally did. I use the term ‘literal meaning’ because the contextual characteristics of the document are removed when reproduced. As previously stated, the reader gains no insight into the time period the document was written in without viewing the record in its original state; many interpretations can be derived from a record based on its physical characteristics. While the research value of the document is decreased, the literal meaning of the record remains unchanged.

Three Dimensional Artefacts

Obviously, these artefacts suffer the greatest alteration when digitized. Digital pictures or video cannot always offer the same depth of field that direct contact can, nor can it offer the same sensory replication needed to properly analyze a three dimensional artefact. The composition of the artefact cannot be identified simply by looking at it nor can one determine how heavy or light the artefact is. Furthermore, when viewing artefacts online, the artefact is usually presented in isolation from the rest of the collection. As mentioned above, the removal of the artefact from its collection can sometimes present the viewer with a narrow view of what the artefact represents. Unless the creator of the digitized copy offers explanations of the artefact, the viewer will be unable to conduct truly insightful research.

Once again the meaning is not altered drastically, or to the point where the overall meaning has been changed. As long as there is adequate background information presented with the digital representation of the artefact, historians would be hard pressed to find an alternate meaning. Nevertheless, there is a minor alteration in what the viewer gains from the digital representation of the artefact.

Conclusion

Ultimately, it is important to view records and artefacts being researched first-hand. While it may be simple to view the item online for quick research, it does not provide the wealth of information that personal contact provides.

ON GOOGLE-IZATION

An interesting discussion evolved in our seminar two weeks ago, and I’ve had some time to think about it – has Google made us lazy? My initial reaction was “no, it has just made us efficient.” That thought has had some time to marinate and I’ve reversed my initial conclusion. However, that is not to say that I think it has made us lazy either. Rather, I think it has changed the way we process historical information.

Instead of reading articles and books to conclude which information we find pertinent, we have put our faith in a search engine to provide us with the most pertinent (dare I say most factual?) information. Is this information pertinent to everyone though? I’d say no. The search results will lead everyone who types in “Acadian expulsion” to the same information and the same conclusions about the Acadian expulsion. This does not make the first return in the Google search the most correct information though. Unfortunately, I’m beginning to think that Google may be streamlining our viewpoints. As historians we are taught to examine as many sources as possible in order to support our argument. By putting our faith in the first few Google search results, we are in fact moving away from this rule. Instead, we look for the first result which provides the ‘best’ information for our use. We no longer spend hours searching through scholarly articles, books, etc, but rather, spend the least amount of time possible.

The problem with the centralization of this mass of information is the reduction in the variety of information we internalize. Ultimately, I think the most interesting aspect of academia is the wide range of interpretations that emerge from primary and secondary sources. These interpretations may not always be correct, but they do allow us as academics to review the information presented, cross-reference it with our beliefs, and finally come to a conclusion about the veracity of the argument.

To be brief

Good evening all.

A quick bio: I graduated from Acadia University in the spring of '07 and did what most recent graduates do - find a job. I worked for the past year with the federal government, until I realized that I wasn't ready for the whole 9-5 thing just yet. It took me a while to decide what to do next but thankfully Western's public history program seemed very interesting. And of course - here I am. Student turned blogger (slogger?), I hope this experience turns out to be fruitful as I always shudder when I hear the word 'blog'. The thought of other people reading my ideas is quite scary, as even I'm terrified of my own ideas.

Well, my seatbelt is fastened and my tray is in the upright and locked position...

Adios