Eight Years of Blogging

I started blogging back in September 2008 as part of a course requirement for a digital history class I took as part of my MA in Public History.  Looking back I have a hard time believing I've kept up with the practice for eight years.  There have been the occasional lulls in my writing but … Continue reading Eight Years of Blogging

NCPH recap: Day Two, March 17

I'm recapping my NCPH 2016 experience.  I wrote yesterday about my experience on the first day of the conference and the LGBT history workshop.  Day two was filled with sessions, connecting with colleagues, and quality discussions. New Member Welcome Day two started off bright and early at 7:30am with the new members breakfast.  As part … Continue reading NCPH recap: Day Two, March 17

Ask A Slave Web Series

The winter issue of The Public Historian included an interview with Azie Mira Dungey the creator of the "Ask A Salve" web series.  Dungey was a living history first person interpreter at George Washington's Mount Veron, where she portrayed Caroline Branham an enslaved housemaid.  The web series draws on her experience working at Mount Vernon … Continue reading Ask A Slave Web Series

Ontario Open Data

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

Virtual Tourism and Audience Engagement

A recent issue of The Public Historian contained an interesting article, "#VirtualTourist: Embracing Our Audience through Public History Web Experience" by Anne Lindsay.  The article highlighted the ongoing challenges that cultural heritage sites in engage new and diverse audiences.  Lindsay focused on the potential of institutional web presence in the development of audience and donor … Continue reading Virtual Tourism and Audience Engagement

Archival Sources: Diaries and Blogs

The Spring issue of Archivaria contains an interesting article by Richard J. Cox titled "Lester J. Cappon and the Creation of Records: The Diary and the Diarist."  The article focuses on the Lester J. Cappon's use of a diary for various functions including: a mnemonic device, documentation of scholarly activities, and a place of personal … Continue reading Archival Sources: Diaries and Blogs

Active, Digital, Public History

Friday morning at NCPH I presented as part of the "Reaching the Public through the Web: The Practice of Digital Active History" panel with Ian Milligan, Devon Elliott, Tom Peace, and Nathan Smith as the facilitator.  I won't rehash our panel as a lot has already been written to summarize our presentations.  Prior to the … Continue reading Active, Digital, Public History

NCPH2013 Thursday WordPress Thoughts

My time at NCPH 2013 actually started on Wednesday.  The majority of my Wednesday activities revolved around networking and talking with new and old colleagues from Western University. Interesting discussions but not really blog post fodder.  As such I'm skipping to Thursday in my run down of this year's NCPH experience.WordPress as a Public History … Continue reading NCPH2013 Thursday WordPress Thoughts

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