Historical Reminiscents EP 15: Ableism and Accessibility in Public History

Posted on By krista
Woman walking up a flight of stairs. Text saying "Episode 15: Abelism and Accessibility in Public History. Historical Resminiscents Podcast"

New podcast episode! Some of the core facets behind public history practice are accessibility and community access. And preserved heritage should be accessible to all. In this week's episode I talk about ableism in public history and heritage sites.  I discuss job descriptions that include lifting requirements, inaccessible heritage sites, and digital accessibility. As a … Continue reading Historical Reminiscents EP 15: Ableism and Accessibility in Public History

The Cleanup Rabbit Hole

Posted on By krista

Recently I've been working on a fairly large archival cleanup project.  This project involves overhauling the arrangement of a collection, updating physical processing to meet our internal standards, and improving metadata online to improve accessibility of the material. This type of cleanup work can be hugely time consuming and it often reminds me of diving … Continue reading The Cleanup Rabbit Hole

Ontario Open Data

Posted on By krista

The Province of Ontario has announced that it in the process of making government data open by default.  This is part of Ontario's larger Open Government initiative that focuses on open data, open engagement, and open government more generally.   Since November 2012 the Ontario government has been publishing statistics in the open data catalogue.  … Continue reading Ontario Open Data

Public Domain Day 2012

Posted on By krista

Hurray for access! January 1st was Public Domain Day.  On that day, unpublished works by authors who died prior to 1942 became part of the public domain in the United States. This includes works by notable authors such as:Robert Baden-Powell (Founder of the Scout Movement)Frederick Banting (Canadian medical scientist, one of the main discoverers of … Continue reading Public Domain Day 2012

Citing in Popular Publishing

Posted on By krista

Recently, while at a friend's house I picked up a local history book that was sitting on their coffee table. The book focused on the history of Espanola Ontario that was written by a local history enthusiast. In the introduction of the book, the author stated that he had not made an effort to record … Continue reading Citing in Popular Publishing

Mishaps in a Machine Readable World

Posted on By krista

The Canadian history magazine The Beaver recently announced that the publication is changing its name. This name change is based in the desire to be more accessible to the online community. Currently the magazine's title is often caught in spam filters due to the title's possible sexual connotation. This name change is just one of … Continue reading Mishaps in a Machine Readable World

Collaborative Photo Encyclopedia

Posted on By krista

Fotopedia is a collaborative open source photo encyclopedia. The site is an interesting blend of the knowledge of Wikipedia combined with the expansive array of image of flickr. The emphasis is more on the side of the photos, however each collection of photos is accompanied by a brief encyclopedia article. The number of photos and … Continue reading Collaborative Photo Encyclopedia

Cheap Books on Demand

Posted on By krista

I have been in favour of the Google Books project for some time, mainly because the project allows for greater accessibility of scholarship. This past week Google announced a new facet to Google Books. Now, more than 2 million books, which are currently featured on Google Books, can be turned into "instant paperbacks." Google has … Continue reading Cheap Books on Demand

Google Books

Posted on By krista

My love for Google Books has been grown once again. Earlier this month Google released new features for Google Books. A variety of features were released including; the ability to embed books or book previews in html, better searching within book text, page turn feature, and an improved book overview page. For historians the improved … Continue reading Google Books