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...