During the month of December I am participating in #reverb14 as a means of getting my writing habits back on track. I will be altering the prompts as needed to fit within the scope of this blog. Today's prompt is: When did you feel beautiful this year? Why? Altered prompt: Discuss a beautiful heritage project … Continue reading From Pulp and Paper to Community Hub
Public History and Environmental Engagement: Scotland’s Coastal Heritage
The recent special issue of The Public Historian focused on public history and environmental sustainability. This issue builds on the sustainable public history theme that was the focus of the 2014 National Council on Public History conference and the digital collection Public History in a Changing Climate which appeared on the Public History Commons. The … Continue reading Public History and Environmental Engagement: Scotland’s Coastal Heritage
Books and Built Heritage: Trinity College Dublin
Long Room at Trinity College DublinI recently spent two weeks in Ireland. This trip included a number of visits to museums, historical sites, and natural heritage places. This post is the first of many recounting my experiences at these heritage spaces. One of the things I had been looking forward to prior to my trip to … Continue reading Books and Built Heritage: Trinity College Dublin
Cultural Landscapes at NCPH 2013
Tongariro National Park, NZ Thursday afternoon I attended the "Whose Public? Who speaks for Cultural Landscapes" session at NCPH featuring Susan Gray, Elizabeth Pishief and Aurelie Gfeller. This session was a more traditional format with the presenters each reading a formal paper. The common theme in the session was the preservation of cultural landscapes and … Continue reading Cultural Landscapes at NCPH 2013
Preservation of the Northern Michigan Asylum
One of the highlights of my recent trip to Traverse City was visiting The Village at Grand Traverse Commons. The built heritage preservation and adaptive reuse of the buildings contained in the 63 acre site is amazing and serves as a reminder of the possibilities encompassed by built heritage. The Village is built on the … Continue reading Preservation of the Northern Michigan Asylum
Community Archives and Sharing Information
Bates Hall, reading roomMorning North recently featured a segment on the facebook page "Sudbury's Fine Past & Future Let's Reminisce." The page aims to share photographs and memories of Sudbury. The page has over two thousand likes and over 50 photo albums focusing on all aspects of Sudbury history including theaters, hospitals, streetcars, and neighborhoods. … Continue reading Community Archives and Sharing Information
Digital Tools For Transcription
In the past when I have worked with audio recordings of oral history interviews I have worked with Audacity for the digitization and transcription of the recordings. Audacity is open source and does a great job in the digitization process and handles the manipulation (clean-up) of audio files well. Additionally, Audacity does allow users to … Continue reading Digital Tools For Transcription
Time Capsule History
I was recently listening to a speaker who used time capsules as the introductory hook in his talk. His description of time capsules focused on finding previously lost historical knowledge, the excitement of opening time capsules and the ability of time capsules to speak about the era they were created in.The idea of finding a … Continue reading Time Capsule History
Battle of Documentation
Documentation provides a written account of procedures, practices, successes, failures, and countless other big and small details. The benefits of documentation include preserving institutional memory, providing new employees with detailed explanations of work tasks, and avoiding personnel from reinventing the wheel. Even with all these wonderful benefits, documentation is often neglected in favour of more 'important' … Continue reading Battle of Documentation
Creating Archival Professional Development Workshops
Over the course of the spring and summer my work is holding weekly events focused on library and archives professional development, training, and themes. The sessions will be open current staff, university faculty, and local professionals. As part of this series a colleague and I are going to be facilitating three sessions focusing on archives. … Continue reading Creating Archival Professional Development Workshops