Culture & Heritage Informatics - Recently Updated Pages

Blog

cshutchison — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:57:31 CST

14th November 2009

It occurred to me only today to add a blog page after realising that what I wanted to write did not fit neatly anywhere else in this wiki: the forensic use of the Internet to trace artefacts looted from the heart of the Sahel. I quote below, without further comment, from Jeremy Keenan's excellent The Dark Sahara (2009):

He had been invited to the conference by representatives of the local people themselves; notably the president of the Union Nationale des Associations des Agences de Tourisme Alternatif (UNATA) and members of the Association des Agences de Tourisme Wilaya de Tamanrasset (ATAWT), two local organisations in the forefront of the battle to protect the Sahara's fragile environment both from mass and unregulated tourism, and from the rampant looting of the region's prehistoric artefacts: stone axes arrow heads, grinding stones, stone jewellry and figurines, ostrich shell beads, pottery; on occasion, even paintings and engravings hacked from rock-faces were being spirited out of the country by the truckload to be sold on the world's illicit markets for stolen antiquities. It was not just the people's cultural heritage that was being destroyed, but their future livelihoods, for tourism--based on the region's fantastic scenery, prehistoric rock art and associated archaeology--was the region's major industry, the the one which gave the indigenous Tuareg peoples a modicum of control over the way in which what remained of their traditional way of life was being integrated into the modern and increasingly globalised economy.
The compilation of the dossier had begun in 2001, shortly after the Algerian Sahara had reopened to tourism after almost ten years in which violent political strife between Islamic militants and the government's security forces had claimed an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 lives. As tourists trickled back into the Sahara, the looting recommenced--in Algeria, Libya, Northern *****[Wetpaint's language filter replaced the name of this African country with asterisks presumably on the assumption that anyone who uses the offending word is also thick enough to mis-spell the word] in fact almost everywhere where the Sahara's rich prehistory lay exposed and accessible to plunder. Government agencies paid lip-service to the conservation of cultural heritage, but seemed both uninterested and unwilling to intervene. In some Saharan countries looters knew that a small bribe, combined with bureaucratic ignorance of the value of the artefacts, could go a long way. The looters, mostly Europeans, entered the Sahara with their own, often false-bottomed, vehicles, sophisticated navigational and communications systems, and other high-tech accoutrements. The Sahara was ripe for their exploitation.
The Tuareg knew all this. Those that understood the implications--and they were rapidly growing in number were incensed by it, but could do little without concrete evidence. The internet became their means of gathering such evidence. Soon after its arrival in Tamanrasset, the administrative capital of Algeria's extreme south, in 2001, they began searching the websites of European tourism agencies advertising tours to the Sahara Using code names, they elicited a stream of information from the chat rooms of Swiss, French, German, Italian and English Saharan travel websites. As they found data--names, addresses, telephone numbers, Saharan travel itineraries, photographs and sale prices of stolen artefacts--they transferred them to archaeologists in Cambridge for safe-keeping until such time as they would be required as evidence in a court of law. The first big 'stash' they found was that of a German, Helmut Arzmüller, and his Munich-based Rolling Rover operation. It contained everything from past and future itineraries to web-pages of looted artefacts and accompanying prices, and the bright, smiling, confident faces of his team of collaborators. One operator had undertaken as many as 80 raids on the Sahara. [...]
Within days of the dossier's revelation, Algeria's newspapers had given headlines and extensive coverage to the scandal. It seemed unlikely that the Algerian Sahara would ever again be such a carefree place for German travellers.

Heritage & the Web

cshutchison — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:56:28 CST

This unit has four purposes:

first as a general and partly historical introduction to, and critical review of, the ways in which the WWW has been used to support culture and heritage work since the early 1990s; this will include a review of some contemporary archives;
secondly, and with reference to some of the sites reviewed in [1], as an exploration and discussion of design and usability issues for museum web sites;
thirdly, as an overview of mostly end-user oriented contemporary web applications (genealogical and family history archives, personal and community histories, etc); and finally
as a more technology-focused introduction to "Museum 2.0"--the innovative application of cutting edge Web 2.0 technologies in the museums and heritage sector.

The general and partly historical introduction will be covered uniquely in this unit. Contemporary popular web applications will be previewed here and, where appropriate, studied in greater depth in further units ('contemporary culture', 'popular culture and community memory', 'virtual communities', ...). The general philosophy and the research agendas of Museum 2.0 will covered in this unit, with specific initiatives studied, where appropriate, in greater depth in further units ('intelligent heritage', 'museums without walls', ...).

[a lot to go in here ... for a very rough start:]

Heritage & the Web: a history

the WebMuseum (formerly the WebLouvre)
Libraries and archives

End-user oriented web applications

genealogy and family history

"Museum 2.0"

:: Heritage & the Web: a history ::

In this section we'll review the history of, and look at classic examples of, early adotpion of the web by museums--both real and also those that came into being as uniquely web museums--and consider some of the theoretical issues in using the web as a platform.

EXPO
One of the earliest virtual museums, originating in 1993 with an online guide to artifacts from the Vatican Library on display at the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Now archived at Ibiblio.
» http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/

The WebMuseum (a.k.a. the WebLouvre)
One of the earliest examples of a virtual museum, the WebMuseum was founded by Nicolas Pioch in France in 1994, while he was still a student. Formerly known as the WebLouvre, it was forced to change its name when the actual Louvre became aware of its existence. Now archived at Ibiblio.
» http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/

The Museum of Hoaxes
Established in San Diego, California, and on the web in 1997 the Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. An early--and thriving--example of how the web has been used not as mere 'brochureware' to promote a real-world museum but a bona fide museum in its own right.
» http://www.museumofhoaxes.com

:: Libraries and Archives ::

[t.b.c.]

General

Internet Archive
The biggest and the best general resource for digital archives. "The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public."
» http://www.archive.org

The UK National Archives (and LearningCurve)
» http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
» http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk

European Cultural Heritage Online (ECHO)
"The ECHO initiative aims to create an infrastructure to bring cultural heritage on the Internet, and builds up a network of institutions, research projects and other users which provide content and technology for the common infrastructure, with the aim to enrich the "agora" and to create a future Web of Culture and Science."
» http://echo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

Library of Congress
"The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library's mission is to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations."
» http://www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html

Books and literature

Project Gutenberg
The oldest (1971) and probably still the largest collection of full-text e-books. "Project Gutenberg ... is a volunteer effort to digitize, archive and distribute cultural works, as founder Michael Hart said "To encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."[2]. Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library.[3] Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, open formats that can be used on almost any computer. As of February 2009[update], Project Gutenberg claimed over 27,000 items in its collection. Project Gutenberg is affiliated with many projects that are independent organizations which share the same ideals, and have been given permission to use the Project Gutenberg trademark.
Wherever possible, the releases are available in plain text, but other formats are included, such as HTML, PDF and Plucker. Most releases are in the English language, but many non-English works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that are providing additional content, including regional and language-specific works. Project Gutenberg is also closely affiliated with Distributed Proofreaders, an internet-based community for proofreading scanned texts."
» http://www.gutenberg.org

The Open Library
"One web page for every book ever published. It's a lofty, but achievable, goal. To build it, we need hundreds of millions of book records, a brand new database infrastructure for handling huge amounts of dynamic information, a wiki interface, multi-language support, and people who are willing to contribute their time, effort, and book data.
To date, we have gathered about 30 million records (20 million are available through the site now), and more are on the way. We have built the database infrastructure and the wiki interface, and you can search millions of book records, narrow results by facet, and search across the full text of 1 million scanned books.
Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive, and is funded in part by a grant from the California State Library. We have a small team of fantastic programmers who have accomplished a lot, but we can't do it alone! This is an Open project - the software is open, the data is open, the documentation is open, and the site is open.
Now it's your turn! Everyone can participate in this project, whether you're a programmer who wants to build on top of this data, a librarian who wants to add records of digitized books to her local catalog, or a lover of books who wants to make sure his favorites are well represented."
» http://www.openlibrary.org

The Poetry Archive
"The Poetry Archive exists to help make poetry accessible, relevant and enjoyable to a wide audience. It came into being as a result of a meeting, in a recording studio, between Andrew Motion, soon after he became U.K. Poet Laureate in 1999, and the recording producer, Richard Carrington. They agreed about how enjoyable and illuminating it is to hear poets reading their work and about how regrettable it was that, even in the recent past, many important poets had not been properly recorded. ...
Using state-of the-art technology, the Poetry Archive restores poetry to its roots. It preserves for future generations uniquely valuable voices which might otherwise be lost. And it will re-energise, enliven and enhance the teaching of poetry at all levels."
» http://www.poetryarchive.org

Audio and music archives

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings of American and world music
"The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in Washington, D.C., is home to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections.
The Rinzler Archives is composed of two major collections. The first is the Moses and Frances Asch collection, which consists of the original recordings, business records, correspondence, and photographic material that came to the Smithsonian with the purchase of Folkways Records in 1987. In addition, it contains recordings on the Collector, Paredon, Cook, Dyer-Bennet, Fast Folk, and Monitor labels that have been acquired by the Center subsequently.
The Rinzler Archives also houses an extensive collection of recordings documenting ethnic music traditions from around the world, early American country music and bluegrass, blues, and examples of Folk Revival performances on other labels. Listening copies of most of the Folkways catalog are kept in the Archives, and are available to researchers.
The other major archival collection in the Rinzler Archives consists of the written, audio, and visual records of projects and exhibits sponsored by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage: most notably, more than three decades of recordings documeting fieldwork, research and performances related to the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival (formerly known as the Festival of American Folklife), which takes place each summer on the National Mall of the United States in Washington, D.C.
The Archives' holdings are global in perspective, and include such topics as world ethnic performance traditions, historical and spoken word recordings, sounds of science and nature, occupational folklore, and family folklore. The collections are also strong in American, and more specifically Euro-American, African-American, Caribbean, and Native American music and performance traditions. These are living archives, from which recordings and videotapes are regularly issued or reissued for enjoyment and scholarly research."
» http://www.folkways.si.edu

Historical Voices (Michigan State University)
" 'Hearing the actual voices of the past can bring history alive in a way that reading a transcribed text never can,' noted Mark Kornbluh, Director of MATRIX. 'Digital technologies now allow us to recapture the sounds of the past and make them freely available to students, teachers, and all Americans through the World Wide Web.'
Historical Voices (www.historicalvoices.org) is part of the Digital Library Initiative II funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Historical Voices is one of the first fully functional, multi-media, interoperable digital libraries available online. The primary goals of each of these projects will be the development of a rich set of both online exhibits and educational curricula, utilizing audio files as a key component of these resources.
Historical Voices is working to create a federated archives and trans-institutional resources. To this end, Historical Voices is working with several partners to build collections and galaries, including the Chicago Historical Society; Northwestern University; University of Michigan, Flint; Institut Fondamental d‚Afrique Noire (IFAN), Dakar, SN; West African Research Center (WARC), Dakar, SN; University of Capetown, SA; University of the Western Cape, SA; and University of Durban, Westville, SA. Historical Voices is also working with several research partners, including Center for Speech and Language Research, University of Colorado; Northwestern University; Speech Processing Lab, Michigan State University; Speech and Audiology, Michigan Sate University; and the Oral History Association.
Historical Voices is housed at Michigan State University’s MATRIX: the Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences online (matrix.msu.edu). MATRIX is devoted to the application of new technologies in humanities and social science teaching and research. The center engages in fundamental research in the development of digital libraries, creates and maintains online resources, provides training in computing and new teaching technologies, and creates forums for the exchange of ideas and expertise in new teaching technologies."
» http://www.historicalvoices.org

The British Library Archival Sound Recordings
"When complete, The British Library's Archival Sound Recordings website will provide UK Higher and Further Education staff and students free access to approximately 32,000 recordings. Currently there are over 12,000 fully searchable recordings located on the website with a further 20,000 to follow by the end of the project in March 2009." Categories include: UK accents and dialects; arts, literature and performance; classical music; environment (British wildlife); jazz and popular music; oral history; sound recording history; ethnographic wax cylinders; and world and traditional music.
» http://sounds.bl.uk

The Open Music Archive
"The Open Music Archive is situated within the current discourse surrounding notions of authorship, ownership and distribution, reanimated by a porting of Free/Libre and Open Source software models to wider creative contexts. The Open Music Archive concerns itself with the public domain and creative works which are not owned by any one individual and are held in common by society as a whole.
Under copyright law, a music recording has two automatically assigned property rights: A musical composition has a property right and a recording has a separate and independent property right. These property rights are limited by term. In the UK, the term of copyright in a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work is limited to the life of the author plus 70 years, while the term of copyright in a sound recording is limited to 50 years from the date of recording. The archive attempts to gather recordings and information about recordings whose proprietary interests have expired and make them accessible to a wider public.
Artists Ben White & Eileen Simpson have initiated this project following a series of projects which involved researching and gathering music which has fallen out of copyright. Much of this music, although legally in the public domain, is tied to physical media (for example gramophone records) and locked away in archives or private collections which are not widely accessible. The Open Music Archive aims to digitise as much of this music as possible in order to free it from the constraints of a physical collection.
The project aims to share the existing resource and to build a larger archive in open collaboration with others. The archive aims to distribute this music freely, form a site of exchange of knowledge and material, and be a vehicle for future collaborations and distributed projects."
» http://www.openmusicarchive.org

Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann (Irish Traditional Music Archive)
"The Irish Traditional Music Archive – Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann – is a national reference archive and resource centre for the traditional song, instrumental music and dance of Ireland. It is a public not-for-profit facility which is open, free of charge, to anyone with an interest in the contemporary and historical artforms of Irish traditional music. The Archive promotes public education in Irish traditional music through its own activities and through partnerships with others.
Established in 1987, the Archive is the first body to be exclusively concerned with the making of a comprehensive multi-media collection of materials – sound recordings, books and serials, sheet music and ballad sheets, photographs, videos and DVDs, etc. – for the appreciation and study of Irish traditional music.
The Archive now holds the largest such collection in existence, with coverage of the island of Ireland, of areas of Irish settlement abroad (especially in Britain, North America and Australia), and of non-Irish performers of Irish traditional music. A representative collection of the traditional music of other countries is also being made."
» http://www.itma.ie

The Music of James Scott Skinner
» http://www.abdn.ac.uk/scottskinner/index.shtml

The Archive of Popular American Music
A well-structured annotated and searchable database of sheet music with resizable high-quality scans of cover images. Allows users to create their own 'virtual collection'.
"The UCLA Music Library's Archive of Popular American Music is a research collection covering the history of popular music in the United States from 1790 to the present. The collection, fully accessible at the item level through the UCLA Library Orion2 catalog, is one of the largest in the country, numbering almost 450,000 pieces of sheet music, anthologies, and arrangements for band and orchestra. The collection also includes 62,500 recordings on disc, tape, and cylinder.
Particular strengths within UCLA Music Library's twentieth-century holdings include music for the theater, motion pictures, radio and television, as well as general popular music, country, rhythm and blues, and rock songs.
The Digital Archive of Popular American Music is an initiative designed to provide access to digital versions of the sheet music, and performances of the songs now in the public domain."
» http://digital.library.ucla.edu/apam/

Mutopia
"The Mutopia Project offers sheet music editions of classical music for free download. These are based on editions in the public domain, and include works by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Handel, Mozart, and many others." Also includes quite a lot of folk, gospel, and jazz.
» http://www.mutopiaproject.org

The Lannan Foundation Audio Archives
"The archives contain audio files from the popular Readings & Conversations series, other public Lannan events from the past 16 years, as well as selections from the award-winning literary radio program “Bookworm” with Michael Silverblatt.
Lannan has always made audio recordings of and often videotaped its public program events. These events may belong to any of the Lannan program areas: Art, Cultural Freedom, Indigenous Communities, Literary, Readings and Conversations, or Residency. The archive is an ever-growing collection of unique material as we add in recordings from each public event we host."
An excellent collection of audio 'readings and conversations' with speakers such as Salman Rushdie, Robert Fisk, John Pilger, Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky, and Tariq Ali.
» http://www.lannan.org/lf/audio/lannan-archives/

[t.b.c.]

Video archives of public history and public records

Repositories delivering media-rich content to the user

NewsPlayer
"Newsplayer is a web and mobile based service providing newsreel footage spanning the last 100 years. Having acquired a license of material from the libraries of ITN, Reuters, Paramount, Gaumont, British Empire News, Visnews and French Pathe, Newsplayer allows it’s users to browse and search it’s on-line digital archives featuring video news footage from 1896 to the present day and stream any of the 14,000 video clips on request."
» http://www.newsplayer.com

ITNSource
"ITN Source is the gateway to over one million hours of iconic footage and creative moving imagery captured over three centuries. From news to drama, celebrity, comedy, music, wildlife, natural history and film, to an inspirational stock footage section and growing at a rate of over 20 hours of digitised content a day, ITN Source is the most diverse commercial archive in the world. ITN Source represents the footage libraries of Reuters (including historic newsreel collections), ITN, Channel 4, ITV Productions, British Pathe, Fox News and Fox Movietone, Channel 9 News, UTV, Setanta Sports News and other specialist collections."
» http://www.itnsource.com

BritishPathe
"British Pathe are one of the oldest media companies in the world. Their roots lie in 1890s Paris where their founder, Charles Pathe, pioneered the development of the moving image. They were established in London in 1902, and by 1910 were producing their famous bi-weekly newsreel the Pathe Gazette. After the First World War they started producing various Cinemagazines as well. By 1930 they were producing the Gazette, the Pathetone Weekly, the Pathe Pictorial and Eve's Film Review, covering entertainment, culture and womens' issues. By the time Pathe finally stopped producing the cinema newsreel in 1970 they had accumulated 3500 hours of filmed history amounting to over 90,000 individual items. Over the last 30 years this material has been used extensively around the world in television programmes, home videos, advertisments, corporate productions and, most recently, in web publishing. Through the generosity of the Lottery Funded New Opportunities Fund it was possible to build this web site, and to encode the library for digital distribution."
» http://www.britishpathe.com

Moving History
"The Moving History website is a research guide to the United Kingdom’s twelve public sector film archives and provides a showcase for their collections. Moving History's role is to show, describe and provide links to these key collections located around the UK.
The Moving History guide aims to encourage research into archive film and film history, and to promote the value of these resources to all, including academics and students across the arts and humanities in higher education. It is hoped that the information found here will be of interest to all those who seek to expand their understanding and use of moving image material."
» http://www.movinghistory.ac.uk

Vanderbilt Television News Archive
"The Vanderbilt Television News Archive is the world's most extensive and complete archive of television news. We have been recording, preserving and providing access to television news broadcasts of the national networks since August 5, 1968."
» http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu

Lost Films
Rather than an archive of films themselves, this is--as its title suggests--a repository of documents relating to lost films. "Document types uploaded include surviving production records, such as scripts and set designs, as well as posters and other distribution materials, press items, censorship documents and music manuscripts. Also uploaded are numerous photographic stills and even in some cases digitised film clips." Uses CollectiveAccess.
"LOST FILMS is a new internet portal aimed at collecting and documenting film titles, which are believed or have been declared 'lost'. The ARCHIVE currently contains over 3500 entries, a number of which are extensively illustrated with surviving documents contributed by archives and individuals worldwide. The IDENTIFY section contains images and short video clips of around 50 unknown or unidentified films, which face the danger of also becoming lost if not identified by members. The aim of LOST FILMS is not to produce a definitive list of lost films but to provide a platform where members can frequently--and freely--exchange, add and update information."
» https://www.lost-films.eu

European Film Gateway
Still under development at the time of writing (7th March 2009).
"To date, an ever-growing amount of digitised collections including moving images and cinema related material is widely dispersed across Europe. Domain specific research across the various repositories, institutions and countries is still lacking.
Initiated by ACE (Association des Cinémathèques Européennes) and the EDL Foundation, the EFG project will develop a portal providing direct access to about 790,000 digital objects including films, photos, posters, drawings, sound material and text documents. Content will be provided mostly by film archives and cinémathèques, which are partners in the project. The collections to be made accessible have been selected to serve as a sample representing the actual digitised content held in the film institutions. The project started in September 2008 and will run for three years.
The European Film Gateway portal will be linked to the Europeana portal, which is creating the European digital library, museum and archive, providing integrated access to digital treasures from museums, archives, audio-visual archives and libraries of Europe. By making its archival content available through the common interface of Europeana, EFG will contribute to fulfilling one of the major promises of an integrated digital environment: enabling users to search and retrieve different media via a single access point.
While developing the EFG portal service, the project will address a number of key issues for access to digital content, namely, technical and semantic interoperability, digitisation best practices, metadata standards as well as best practices for rights' clearance and IPR management of cinematographic works."
» http://www.europeanfilmgateway.eu

:: Museums on the web: contemporary examples, innovative exhibitions, and models of good practice ::

Icons--a portrait of England
"Some people argue there is no such thing as a shared English culture. They say all those invasions by the Normans and Romans simply left us with a ‘hotch potch’ of other people’s cultures. Paradoxically, this melting pot is what makes England unique. And today’s multicultural communities make this mix even more vibrant and interesting. ICONS is a rich resource of material about our lives and cultural heritage. Teachers use it to stimulate classroom learning. Inspiring content continually sparks visits to arts venues and events."
» http://www.icons.org.uk

6 Billion Others
"6 Billion Others tries to draw a portrait of contemporary mankind by asking questions about universal values. What is happiness? What can we learn from life's difficulties? What is the meaning of life?" A fascinating concept: a compendium of short video interviews with people around the world speaking on such themes as happiness, tears, childhood dreams, God, love, fears, nature, dreams, first memory, money, freedom, anger, the meaning of life. Although there is no commentary nor interpretation, the interviews by themselves reveal "others" as very much like ourselves.
» http://6billionothers.org

:: Museums on the web: Design issues ::

Paul F. Marty and Michael B. Twidale, 'Lost in gallery space: A conceptual framework for analyzing the usability flaws of museum Web sites'
» http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_9/marty/

:: End-user oriented web applications ::

'Online e-heritage media' at the time of writing turns out to be a bit of a 'catch-all' for any resource that doesn't quite fit neatly elsewhere in this document. As an exercise in conceptual sorting, I can identify at least the following five kinds of resource:

rich genealogical and family history archives
family history research sites that support the above (e.g. the UK National Archives, Ellis Island, Ancestry.com, RootsWeb, MyHeritage)
collections of personal and community (oral) histories (e.g. MovingHere, TimeWitnesses, 'What did you do in the war, Grandma?', the Wartime Memories Project)
(personal) 'digital scrapbooks'. ((This is analogous to my more narrowly focused 2001 concept of the 'e-folio', an access-anywhere 'personal learning portfolio' documenting and integrating one's ongoing learning. This is documented on another of my sites.)) For a couple of years I've been thinking about online (and, to a degree, offline) "people's museums" and "personal museums" as interactive and densely interconnected heterarchical repositories of personal and family memories that collectively capture. In late 2006, I started my own 'personal museum' project ("My Life is My Museum") as a pilot node. In a rather chaotic fashion, personal blogs as online diaries serve this purpose, with 'blogrolls' connecting the individual to others through simple formal (rather than semantic) links. But clearly blogs per se are effectively no more than simple personal content management systems and have no inherent model that suits them specifically to e-heritage. Hybrid blog-photo-video-whatever personal sites such as MySpace and Vox, and communities-focused media collections such as OurMedia (see also below) show potential as models; but again there is nothing in the stated aims of the site or in the information architecture that orients them explicitly in the direction of 'community memory'. At the time of writing (17 April 2007) I've found no good examples of 'digital scrapbooks'.
niche sites offering audio-visual media for specific communities and interest groups (e.g. Clioaudio podcasts for History, Classics and Archaeology)

Listings:

Show Me
"... cool stuff from the UK's museums and galleries". A learning site for schoolchildren, with links to numerous interactive games for history, science and technology, life sciences and the natural world, and art and design.
» http://www.show.me.uk/topic/topic.html

Clioaudio Podcasts
Podcasts of ... "News and features about History, Classics and Archaeology. All the past from prehistory to the space age."
» http://clioaudio.com
OurMedia
I mentioned this above. The site highlights links to "a digital collection of over 6,000 cylinder recordings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries", "an archive of folk tunes covering the blues, country and other styles of music", a collection of animated short films, including several animation classics, spanning 65 years of animation at the National Film Board of Canada, "public domain senate and house footage under a free-document license", and much more. The greater the pity, then, that there is no explicit community (memory) model that integrates these resources in a meaningful manner.
» http://www.ourmedia.org/learning-center/open

:: Museum 2.0 ::

Mashed Museum
A resource "for anyone interested in ways in which museums can begin to consume, share and "mash" content on the web, using approaches like REST, RSS, OAI or OpenSearch". See also its accompanying Google group.
» http://www.mashedmuseum.org.uk
» http://groups.google.com/group/mashedmuseum

Software

cshutchison — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:27:40 CST

A note on hosting (10th November 2008): I have requested that try-out versions of the software listed below this panel be installed on a faculty server. These will, I hope, be in place by the beginning of the course; and will allow you to explore the different packages before deciding which, if any, will be the most appropriate choice for your own project. I should like it to be possible for students to create their own instances of the programmes on the faculty server; but this may turn out not to be feasible. In that event you will be expected to find third-party hosting for your project. To assist you, I've listed below some of the free hosting options I've found; the responsibility lies with you to create and use such accounts. http://987mb.com http://www.biz.ly http://www.absolutely-free-hosting.com http://www.freevirtualservers.com http://www.free-webhosts.com http://www.freehostia.com http://www.zymic.com/free-web-hosting/ http://www.000webhost.com http://www.yourfreehosting.net http://www.mister.net http://www.bravenet.com/webhosting/ http://www.sitesfree.com http://www.webs.com http://www.heartinternet.co.uk/freewebhosting.shtml http://www.freevirtualservers.com http://www.blackapplehost.com http://www.doteasy.com http://www.110mb.com There's also a fairly extensive listings at: http://www.thefreesite.com/Free_Web_Space/ http://www.webhosts4free.com/webhosts-01.php Issues you'll need to consider are: is hosting ad-free? (no banners, no pop-ups, etc) are you allowed to use your own domain name? (rather than a sub-domain) is the amount of disk space adequate for your purposes? is there a monthly traffic allowance? do you have FTP access? does the hosting service provide / allow PHP 5+ & MySQL 5+? does the hosting service allow other scripting? does the hosting service allow custom site builds? (rather than having to use their own site builders) are there any file type restrictions? does the hosting service offer mail support?

A note on hosting (10th November 2008):
I have requested that try-out versions of the software listed below this panel be installed on a faculty server. These will, I hope, be in place by the beginning of the course; and will allow you to explore the different packages before deciding which, if any, will be the most appropriate choice for your own project. I should like it to be possible for students to create their own instances of the programmes on the faculty server; but this may turn out not to be feasible. In that event you will be expected to find third-party hosting for your project. To assist you, I've listed below some of the free hosting options I've found; the responsibility lies with you to create and use such accounts.

http://987mb.com
http://www.biz.ly
http://www.absolutely-free-hosting.com
http://www.freevirtualservers.com
http://www.free-webhosts.com
http://www.freehostia.com
http://www.zymic.com/free-web-hosting/
http://www.000webhost.com
http://www.yourfreehosting.net
http://www.mister.net
http://www.bravenet.com/webhosting/
http://www.sitesfree.com
http://www.webs.com
http://www.heartinternet.co.uk/freewebhosting.shtml
http://www.freevirtualservers.com
http://www.blackapplehost.com
http://www.doteasy.com
http://www.110mb.com

There's also a fairly extensive listings at:

http://www.thefreesite.com/Free_Web_Space/
http://www.webhosts4free.com/webhosts-01.php

Issues you'll need to consider are:

is hosting ad-free? (no banners, no pop-ups, etc)
are you allowed to use your own domain name? (rather than a sub-domain)
is the amount of disk space adequate for your purposes?
is there a monthly traffic allowance?
do you have FTP access?
does the hosting service provide / allow PHP 5+ & MySQL 5+?
does the hosting service allow other scripting?
does the hosting service allow custom site builds? (rather than having to use their own site builders)
are there any file type restrictions?
does the hosting service offer mail support?

:: Free, open source, and non-commercial software ::

An annotated listing of free, open source, and non-commercial software.

Software for museums, libraries and archives.

OCLC (Online Computer Library Center)
Open source offerings for community use and development. OCLC Research offers open source software for the benefit of the library community. The offerings include useful utilities for the development of library-oriented software and ready-to-use components for library systems."
» http://www.oclc.org/research/software/default.htm
OpenCollection
Open source (GPL licence) collections management and access application, with free download. "OpenCollection is a full-featured collections management and online access application for museums, archives and digital collections. It is designed to handle large, heterogeneous collections that have complex cataloguing requirements and require support for a variety of metadata standards and media formats. Unlike most other collections management applications, OpenCollection is completely web-based. All cataloging, search and administrative functions are accessed using common web-browser software, untying users from specific operating systems and making cataloguing by distributed teams and online access to collections information simple, efficient and inexpensive".
Fedora
"Fedora Commons is a non-profit organization providing sustainable technologies to create, manage, publish, share and preserve digital content as a basis for intellectual, organizational, scientific and cultural heritage by bringing two communities together. Communities of practice that include scholars, artists, educators, Web innovators, publishers, scientists, librarians, archivists, publishers, records managers, museum curators or anyone who presents, accesses, or preserves digital content."
» http://www.fedora-commons.org
Concerto
"Assets within Concerto are managed by means of collections and exhibitions and can be assigned both structured and unstructured metadata. Concerto supports Dublin Core and Visual Resource Association (VRA) metadata standards, as well as any user-defined metadata schema. Concerto also provides a user interface for adding and editing tags (i.e. unstructured metadata) and generates tag clouds for tags within and across collections and users." Great software--worth looking at some of the example collections.
» https://concerto.middlebury.edu
» https://segue.middlebury.edu/index.php?&action=site&site=concerto
StreetPrint
"revolutionary new software for powering digital collections ... free software for creating your own digital collections. Our goal is to make formerly inaccessible and ephemeral texts and artifacts available to the widest possible audience, fulfilling the promise of the Internet and bringing information 'back to the streets'." Have a look at some of their example sites.
» http://www.streetprint.org/
DSpace
"DSpace captures your data in any format – in text, video, audio, and data. It distributes it over the web. It indexes your work, so users can search and retrieve your items. It preserves your digital work over the long term. DSpace provides a way to manage your research materials and publications in a professionally maintained repository to give them greater visibility and accessibility over time."
» http://www.dspace.org
Montala ResourceSpace
"ResourceSpace is a web-based, open source digital asset management system which has been designed to give your content creators easy and fast access to print and web ready assets." See the ResourceSpace wiki for the full list of features.
» http://www.montala.net/resourcespace.php
» http://rswiki.montala.net/index.php/Main_Page
steve.museum
Download the application from:
» http://sourceforge.net/projects/steve-museum
ccHost
"ccHost is an open source (GPL licensed) project that provides web-based infrastructure to support collaboration, sharing, and storage of multi-media using the Creative Commons licenses and metadata. It is the codebase used by ccMixter and other sites. Besides its focus on sharing content, ccHost differentiates itself from other multi-media hosting programs by emphasizing the reuse (a.k.a. remixing) of content between artists, not only between artists on any given installation of ccHost, but between all installations across the web and any web site that implements the Creative Commons Sample Pool API, including non-ccHost sites such as the freesound project."
» http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CcHost
Omeka
"Omeka is a web platform for publishing collections and exhibitions online. Designed for cultural institutions, enthusiasts, and educators, Omeka is easy to install and modify and facilitates community-building around collections and exhibits. ... Omeka will include basic Web 2.0 features such as an RSS feed, blog, and a tag cloud. Other planned plugins include a mapping function, and ways to collect and display stories and photos from web visitors who are demanding a different type of online interaction shaped by Web 2.0. Omeka offers organizations and individuals the opportunity to share in the creation of content. We encourage users to develop other Web 2.0 applications that fit into Omeka’s plugin architecture, and omeka.org will host a directory of all plugins created by the community. Interactive and participatory systems, like Omeka, build regular interaction with a base of online visitors and encourage democratic participation in the shaping of our culture." An excellent cross-platform digital curation and web publishing application; extensive and detailed text and video tutorials make this easy to install and manage.
» http://omeka.org
Hive Networks & Hivewares
"Hive is a new concept that promotes 'narrate and publish' approach to employment of ever advancing computing and communication technologies. Assuming the progress in microelectronic (embedded systems, DSP, etc), presence of public spectrum, and advance of open source, hive is looking into the emergence of narrative based networks, functions of which are defined by underlying platform, be it social network, (non)government initiative or commercial enterprise.
Such operation can be described as publishing systems that is the narrative itself. A system built upon Hive concept can be composed from variety of available technologies through combination of different platforms. Hive attempts to provide a model of such mechanism, that can guide through the process of building a functional communication environment. It is also important to hive to maintain associated information, tools and discussion forum.
Hive is also a smart concept whenever locality is important. Each hive component has it's own physical location as well as presence on the network. This creates the link between very defined physical environment and all flexible software techniques. Hive centred around embedded computers, small, cheap, mass-manufactured, that could be fitted almost anywhere. Small range digital radio combined with mesh routing provides flexibility of network. Hive builds on well accepted techniques used for TCP/IP systems that enables wide interoperation of components and resources. Through this Hive provides necessary ontological platform for distributed and location aware publishing.
Hive enables emergence of heterogeneous multi-tier networks, that reflect taxonomy of the originating narrative. Inevitable abundance of connectivity will demand sophisticated semantic mechanisms for building and navigating such environments. Biomorphic analogy represents suggestive character of Hive as creative exploration project. It is not a distant future when we will see what is a "street radio" or a 'street TV' or a "digital stash'!"
» http://hivenetworks.net
The Mobile Bristol Toolkit
" Imagine a digital landscape overlaying the physical world. As we walk around this landscape, we can tap into the digital sounds, sights and interactions that are positioned in the landscape and activated by our presence and actions. The digital landscape is formed from a dynamic and overlapping set of mediascapes which are context-sensitive combinations of digital media and interactions created and deployed by various authors. The project has created a toolkit, which provides a digital canvas over the physical landscape onto which digital experiences can be painted and new commercial opportunities can be explored. As people walk through the physical environment, a diverse range of digital media experiences augment the ambiance and bring these spaces alive." Download the non-commercial version from:
» http://www.mobilebristol.com/Download/download.html
TIKM (Tools for Indigenous Knowledge Management)
"a set of open source software tools which have been designed to enable Indigenous communities to protect their unique cultures and knowledge which are being preserved through digitisation. The software tools described here enable authorised members of communities to: define and control the rights, accessibility and reuse of their digital resources; uphold tribal customary laws pertaining to secret/sacred knowledge or objects; prevent the misuse of Indigenous heritage in culturally inappropriate or insensitive ways; ensure proper attribution; and finally to enable communities to describe their resources in their own words."
» http://tikm.sourceforge.net
Vannotea » Applications » Museums » Indigenous Knowledge Management
"In conjunction with the Indigenous Knowledge Management project, Vannotea is being extended to enable museum staff to share and exchange knowledge and digital representations of artifacts with the Indigenous communities who are the traditional owners. The aim is to deploy the software within museums to enable distributed groups to collaboratively discuss, describe and contextualize museum content from a variety of different perspectives.
In particular, Vannotea has been extended to enable users within videoconferencing environments to collaboratively attach descriptive, rights and tribal care metadata and annotations to digital images, video or 3D objects.
This sharing and exchange of knowledge will hopefully revitalize cultures eroded through colonization and globalization and repair and strengthen relationships between museums and indigenous communities."
» http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~eresearch/projects/vannotea/applications/museums.html
Greenstone
"Greenstone is a suite of software for building and distributing digital library collections. It provides a new way of organizing information and publishing it on the Internet or on CD-ROM. Greenstone is produced by the New Zealand Digital Library Project at the University of Waikato, and developed and distributed in cooperation with UNESCO and the Human Info NGO. It is open-source, multilingual software, issued under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Read the Greenstone Factsheet for more information.
The aim of the Greenstone software is to empower users, particularly in universities, libraries, and other public service institutions, to build their own digital libraries. Digital libraries are radically reforming how information is disseminated and acquired in UNESCO's partner communities and institutions in the fields of education, science and culture around the world, and particularly in developing countries."
» http://www.greenstone.org
Scriblio (was WPOpac)
This is a project I've been following since early 2006, though at the time of writing (April 2007) there is still no downloadable application. "What is WPopac? It’s an OPAC—a library catalog, for my readers outside libraries—inside the framework of WordPress." See the Lamson Library demo at:
» http://www.plymouth.edu/library/opac/

Information extraction / 'scraping' from the non-API web (NAW)

ArtEquAkt
A system that automatically extracts information about artists from the web, populates an ontology, then uses the knowledge to generate personalised biographies.
» http://www.aktors.org/technologies/artequakt/

OpenCalais
» http://www.opencalais.com

Hoard.it
» http://electronicmuseum.org.uk/2008/05/20/hoardit-bootstrapping-the-naw/
» http://hoard.it
» http://hoardit.pbwiki.com/Frequently+Asked+Questions+(FAQs)

Yahoo! Term Extraction service
"The Term Extraction Web Service provides a list of significant words or phrases extracted from a larger content."
» http://developer.yahoo.com/search/content/V1/termExtraction.html

Free and open source software for content creation & digitisation

In alphabetical order below are highly recommended general purpose applications for content creation.

Aptana
"Aptana Studio is a powerful, free and open source Ajax development environment which runs stand-alone or within Eclipse. ... Aptana Studio offers unparalleled tooling for Ajax including HTML, CSS, DOM, and JavaScript editing and debugging, plus support via additional free plugins for PHP, Ruby on Rails, Adobe AIR, Apple iPhone development. Aptana Studio's integrated code assist, documentation and API reference not only eases working with popular Ajax libraries like prototype, scriptaculous, dojo, jQuery, ExtJS, MooTools, and others, it also works for the core scripting languages and your own code. Plus, Aptana Jaxer is fully integrated into Aptana Studio 1.1 so that development of end-to-end Ajax applications requires no further installations or server setup."
» http://www.aptana.com

Audacity
Audio editor.
» http://audacityteam.org
» http://audacity.sourceforge.net
» http://audacityteam.org/wiki/
See tutorials at:
» http://www.macinstruct.com/node/131

GIMP
» http://www.gimp.org
» http://docs.gimp.org/en/
» http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/

[just notes--please ignore]

cshutchison — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:02:38 CST

<---- everything below this line is scrappy notes for the present: please ignore & go to next page ----->

Museums and the web

the virtual museum vs the museum online: representation and communication, or communication only? 'brochureware'
dangers: who can you trust? example: the Creation Museum and "intelligent design"; David Irving's notorious 'International Campaign for Real History'

Tagging exercise: Steve.museum (read 'Museums', then click Tag Art and start tagging)

Participatory museum--look at what others have done, and consider creating your own gallery: CollectionX.

Scunthorpe

Making History

cshutchison — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:18:15 CST

History has been envisaged in many long-term guises. Does it mark a process of deep-rooted continuity? Or, instead, one of gradual progress? Or one of persistent decline? Or, if avoiding the value-laden terms 'progress' and 'decline', does history consist of unending gradual change, neither systematically for better nor perennially for worse? Or, if pure continuity and gradualism seem inadequate for all these eventualities, does history instead unfold via a series of dramatic breaks? Or perhaps in a sequence of graduated stages? Or, alternatively, do events occur disconnectedly, in a miscellany of random fluctuations? The life-as-jumble viewpoint was once defined succinctly as 'one damned thing after another'. But even that verdict, it may be noted, contains a minimalist message of a sort. Or does history display none of those patterns? Or, by contrast, some elements of all, or some, of them?
... There are many possibilities--from history as narrative or story to history as myth, history as morality tale, history as national pride, history as heroic destiny, history as group therapy, history as autobiography, history as applied methodologies, history as record, history as judge, history as avenger, history as betrayer, history as a compound of lies and villainy, or history as mess and muddle.
... some sceptical theorists prefer instead to define history simply as 'what historiancs write'.
[Penelope J. Corfield, Time and the Shape of History, p.xiii, xvi]

Consider, for example, Marx's deterministic theory of historical materialism, encompassing @@@ [Hegel, Oswald Spengler,The Decline of the West (1918, 1922)]

Although other modes of representation are possible (see, e.g., White, 1990), history--and thus the heritage encoded in that history--almost invariably turn out to be, in the words of historian Arnold Toynbee (though also credited to Henry Ford), "just one damn thing after another"--a paradigmatic expression of what historiographers call the 'narrative' view of history (Mink, 1978; White, 1990). And, as a cursory browse of book titles and school syllabi will confirm, a characteristic--if not a defining characteristic--of such narratives is that they tell the story of a place (e.g. England, Byzantium), a person (e.g. Cromwell, Louis XIV), an event (e.g. the Spanish Civil War, the Great Depression), or (though often simply providing context or framework for some more specific theme) a named time span or period in time (e.g. Medicine and Healthcare in Roman Britain, Pleasures and Pastimes in Tudor England, the Renaissance, the Victorian Workhouse). (Note that 'narratives' are never either neutral or innocent; but that's another story, to which we return in the section 'Memory, Privatisation, and Power'.) A lifelong hoarder (I would prefer 'collector' or 'archivist', but I take on board what others tell me), I still have most of the history books I acquired and read as a child, many of these in turn inherited from earlier generations. Alongside The Story of the Plantagenets and The Story of Portsmouth, for example, I have the 1890 edition of Richard Lodge's A Smaller History of England. Although this latter volume does not, like the others, proclaim itself a 'story', it is a strict chronology "from the earliest times to the year 1887", a narrative nonetheless. And although I might in principle open the book at any page and flick across to any other page, the sequential text from page 1 to page 422 asserts its privilege by design to be read in exactly that order.

Enter the Museum of London, at the Barbican, and from the upper level entrance you will descend in a spiral from London's prehistory, through the Romans, Saxons, Normans, Tudors, Stuarts, Victorians, to the twentieth century at the lowest level. That passing through history is a descent, from prehistoric time down to the present, is symbolically interesting, but that's another matter; that the exhibition is organised along a time-line not only seems so natural that its arbitrariness passes unnoticed but also dilutes across the centuries thematically related displays. Had the museum galleries been organised by, say, location (the East End, the Thames, the City, the growth of the suburbs, ..) or theme (migration and citizenship, transport, domestic life, industry and commerce, leisure, ...) the history might have looked a little different, opened up new meanings, brought together artefacts otherwise lost in the time-line.

The web museum Exploring 20th Century London, a project in which the Museum of London is one of four partners, takes a different approach, its collections browsable by either timeline or place or theme (see screenshots below).

The inherently hypertextual character of the web liberates us from the linear, whether it be timeline or the linearity of text. 'Hypertext' is far from being a recent invention, examples traceable back to at least the 3rd century Eusebian Tables "in which the sections in question were so classified as to show at a glance where each Gospel agreed with or differed from the others". Hypertext is discussed in more detail below. For this introduction I simply want to note that digital media--preeminently the web, but equally any disk-based media--allows us avenues of exploration that are inhibited by the topography of the physical museum and discouraged by the linear chronology of the history book. How digital items may in practice be hyperlinked is also, of course, a matter of decision and a reflection of theories of knowing and classification; and this is the topic I address in this section of the course.

History on the Web: some examples

History World
» http://www.historyworld.net

The History Cooperative
» http://www.historycooperative.org

The History Guide
» http://www.historyguide.org

Spartacus Educational
» http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk

SchoolHistory
» http://www.schoolhistory.co.uk

English Heritage, Kids' Zone: Interactive Educational Games
A well-designed collection of interactive games (Time Traveller, Maritime Wreck, Sarum Shuffle, Find Jonngy, Life in the Abbey, Entertaining Elizabeth, A Day in the Life of a Monk)
» http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server.php?show=nav.1580

History on the Net
» http://www.historyonthenet.com

HistoryWiz
» http://www.historywiz.org

EyeWitness to History
» http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com

All Empires
» http://www.allempires.com

European Voyages of Exploration
» http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/eurvoya/index.html

The Mariners' Museum Age of Exploration Online Curriculum Guide
» http://www.mariner.org/educationalad/ageofex/

Readings

Loewin, J. (1996). Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc. ISBN: 0684818868. [Amazon]

Software

RunningReality
» http://www.runningreality.org

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
See also the section: Whose history? social remembering

Assessment

cshutchison — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:57:15 CST

Note: You are required to submit all your coursework via this wiki. This will:

enables me to give you almost instant feedback on your work
make your work available to future cohorts as models of what is expected of them.

:: Assessment strategy ::

100% coursework. Students will submit individual projects for assessment characteristically based on preparatory small group work. The group work might, for example, be technology focused (same technology—different clients), client focused (same client—different component tasks), or problem focused (same problem—different technical solutions). Although system design is deemed important, the project should not be construed simply as a technical exercise; seminal importance will be attached to the student's ability to demonstrate an understanding of, and to discuss to some intellectual depth, the theoretical issues underpinning the problem and its solution.

If you have any questions about the assessment that are not answered in the notes below, you should in the first instance post your query as a new thread at the bottom of this page. Do not send me your query as a personal email: your fellow students may have the same questions and may therefore have the same interest in my answers, and the only sensible way to share questions and answers (and have them remain there as guidance to future cohorts of students) is via the public forum.

:: Projects and groups ::

"Am I obliged to work in a group?"

No, you're not. But, for the reasons given below, it's to your advantage to work in teams. At the very least you should locate your project within a specific thematic work group.

"Why do you sometimes refer to 'groups' and sometimes 'teams'?"

Often I'll use the terms interchangeably. In so far as I consider there to be a difference, it's this:

a 'group' may simply be a loose affiliation of individuals who happen to be working in the same thematic or technical area (e.g. virtual communities, oral history, 3D museums, ...) and who may benefit from sharing resources (e.g. books, software, or URLs they may have discovered), technical know-how, etc. How closely (or loosely) the individuals work together will be a matter of choice.
a 'team' will be made up of individuals who work more concertedly together. This may be because they are, for example, undertaking different projects for the same client, or because they are doing very similar kinds of projects (e.g. video interviews for their oral history projects, or social tagging of digitised memorabilia).

I would strongly encourage you to work in teams, helping and supporting each other, reading each other's work, testing each other's system prototypes, etc.

"So why work in groups if the group itself is not assessed?"

The group is your most immediate resource and your primary support network. Depending on your chosen project topic, you may affiliate with more than one group (e.g. virtual communities and social tagging), though only one of these is likely to become your primary group. How will it work? what is the rationale?

Answering technical questions. I always try to answer questions students send me by email; but, when the volume of email queries and the time taken to answer them in detail becomes too demanding on my own time, some students may miss out. Students working in the same group may find they have the same kinds of questions; some may already have answers; some brainstorming between group members may generate answers; those questions and answers when documented in this wiki, either (if topic-specific questions) on the individual Work Group pages or (if general questions) in the FAQs, will provide a valuable resource for future generations of students. The group is consequently the most immediate resource for dealing with technical questions.

Answering assessment-related question. I receive numerous emails from individuals asking questions specifically about components of the assessment. In general I'd encourage such questions to be posted to the forum on this page (and they'll eventually make their way, with answers, to the FAQ page) where I'll endeavour to answer them in a timely fashion. Some questions, however, will relate to quite specific types of project (e.g. describing and documenting the information architecture of a collaborative wiki for a particular kind of user group) and these are better discussed within the team before posting, if unresolved, as a query.

Getting feedback on drafts. Giving individual feedback to students on drafts of their reports is, with a sizeable cohort, a significant demand on my time. You should bear in mind that you are not in competition with each other--there is no "first past the post"--and that you are likely to learn from each other by sharing and discussing your respective drafts.

Creating a thematic knowledge base. My notes in the Syllabus section of this wiki provide introductions to each of the course topics, but are of necessity generic: given the breadth of the field of study and the effectively limitless range of feasible projects that might be undertaken by students, I can never comprehensively anticipate each and every specific project that will be chosen.

Contextualising your work. Working with and within a group will, through collaboration and sharing, help each group member to develop a clearer and stronger sense of the intellectual framework within which you are working.

Finally, your working as a group will help me to help you more. The sheer number of students makes it hard for me to get to know you all personally; but the better I know you--and can work alongside you--the more likely you are to deliver good assignments. Since my working with you as a group is less demanding on my time than working with you individually, I'm more likely to get to know you--and help you--in a group context.

Choosing your project

You have a free choice of project. To ensure that you will have chosen an appropriate project for this course, please consider the following:

Choose an appropriate topic. Choose a project topic that you are certain falls within the broad area of culture and heritage informatics. Ask yourself, and try to answer for yourself, the following question: "In what way does my idea properly fall within the areas of culture, heritage, museums, the arts, or galleries?" If in any doubt, or if you feel you'd like to discuss your ideas at an early stage of conceptualisation, please ask me for advice or feedback (see last paragraph of this subsection).

Choose a topic that interests you personally. You are most likely to do well in the assessment for this module--and far more likely to enjoy the course!--if you choose a topic that interests you personally, one that you can get passionate about, one that you can feel a personal commitment to.

Consider who will use your application. Who would ever want such an application (system, web presence, etc)? who might commission it? for what purpose? who would, as client/sponsor or as end-user, use it? in what way? Unless (or until) you can answer these questions, you probably do not have a project.

Is your idea for a project really 'do-able'? Consider whether the project you've conceptualised is one that you really are capable of completing (to at least a good prototype / proof of concept) in the time available to you. The next two points ('Consider content' and 'Consider whether your project is technically feasible') address specific aspects; but, in very general terms, you will need to assure yourself that what you are proposing to do is--under constraints of time, technical skills, and access to content--really do-able as a project. The first thing you should do is create a rough project plan that, starting from what you hope to accomplish, backtracks through all the steps and resources you would need to accomplish it.

Consider content. Consider whether you will have access to all the 'soft' resources you will need in order to make a success of your project. Remember that you personally are unlikely to be an expert in the subject area, so you'll undoubtedly need to rely on user-generated content. Are you able to find your users? who are they? what content will you expect from them? are there likely to be copyright / IPR issues with regard to content?

Consider whether your project is technically feasible. Your choice of software is likely to be determined by a requirements analysis based on your conceptualisation. Are you able to find the software you need? do you have the technical skills to implement your project?

Consult me on your choice. Before committing yourself to a specific project in your initial project proposal (to be submitted mid-semester), talk to me in class about your ideas (the mid-course "Ideas Factory" is the obvious context for doing so) or send me a short description. I'll tell you whether your proposed project is appropriate for this course; and, if I confirm that it is appropriate, I'll ask you some questions about it and give you the advice you'll need in order to steer your project in the right direction.

To help you understand what makes a good project, here are a few indicative suggestions:

Propose, design, and prototype a web-based asset management system, with publicly accessible browse and search facilities, for Twickenham Museum (or any other museum of your choice). [... longer descriptions to follow ...]
Propose, design, and prototype a popular history of Kingston Market (or any other street market of your choice) based on the oral histories of past and present market traders. [... longer descriptions to follow ...]
Propose, design, and prototype a web presence for a small (commercial) art gallery. [... longer descriptions to follow ...]
Propose, design, and prototype a searchable and browsable document archive of old personal, work, or family photographs, with annotations (e.g. personal reminiscences), for a specific community (for example, the Royal Star and Garter Home in Richmond, the Kingston branch of the British Legion). [... longer descriptions to follow ...]
Propose, design, and prototype an online audio archive of out-of-copyright 78 r.p.m. records. Discovering, preserving and archiving in digital form, and re-issuing vintage recorded music from 78 r.p.m. records and wax cylinders is not only big business, it's also an important part of preserving the cultural and musical heritage of the early 20th century. Old records--and sheet music--are often discarded and lost; musicologists, private collectors, museums, universities, and record dealers are therefore anxious to find and rescue such recordings. In this project you will design and create a browsable audio archive for a real or imaginary client. For inspirational examples, take a look at archives such as the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings of American and world music, the Open Music Archive, at specialist collections such as Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann (Irish Traditional Music Archive) and the Music of James Scott Skinner (http://www.abdn.ac.uk/scottskinner/index.shtml), and at specialist record dealers such as Old Hat Records.

:: Major components of assessment ::

Assessment is by coursework only, of which there are four major components: the initial project proposal ([1] below, to be resubmitted after feedback as the Executive summary of the final report), the project report ([2-6] below), the prototype ([7] below), and the 'exhibition' ([7] below). See the module guide and cover sheet (attachments at the bottom of this page) for further details and submission dates for the current year.

You will submit your initial project proposal for feedback only at the end of the Spring Term. This initial submission is to ensure that you have a reasonably clear idea at an early stage of the project you will undertake and that you are starting it in good time to be able to produce a substantial prototype and report by the end of the semester. It also enables me to critically review your proposal and thus to offer you valuable feedback that will give you the guidance and confidence you will need to complete the project. A revised version of the proposal will form the 'executive summary' of your final report. Although for feedback only when initially submitted, submission of the initial project proposal is not optional, has a strict deadline, and must be submitted as paper copy through the student office and as digital copy in the student assessment area on this website. Please note: feedback will be given uniquely as a 'thread' appended to the digital copy.

Executive summary: [1] description of the client organisation and its activity (≤300 words), [2] brief synopsis (≤300 words) of the project undertaken, and [3] identification of, and brief statement on, the theoretical or intellectual issues addressed in the project (≤300 words) (20%)
Detailed description and analysis of the problem, challenge, or opportunity addressed in the project (≤500 words) (10%)
Detailed account of the system or service designed (and, ideally, prototyped) for the client organisation (≤1000 words) (15%)
Detailed exposition and discussion of the theoretical or intellectual issues addressed in the project (≤1000 words) (15%)
Project review, with recommendations for the further development and long term sustainability of the project (≤500 words) (10%)
Detailed annotated listing of resources used in the project: bibliography, software, web sites, etc. (10%)
Exhibition. A poster presentation and live demonstration of your project work. (20%)

The percentages expressed above include a maximum of 10% of the total mark to be accorded to the presentation of the written report (spelling, grammar, punctuation, coherence, formatting of bibliography, layout). Minor errors will result in small deductions; more than 10 avoidable errors (e.g. those that would have been identified by a spell-checker or grammar-checker) will entail a loss of the full 10% allocation.

:: Explanatory & supplementary notes on assessment requirements ::

More detailed notes on 1-7 above

For each of the components of assessment I have set an upper word-limit. This does not mean that you have to aim towards exactly that number of words! What it does mean is that you will probably be penalised for exceeding that word-limit. In general, I would expect most submissions to be in the region of 2,000 to 2,500 words (i.e. around 10 sides of A4) in their entirety. Please feel free to illustrate your paper reports with screenshots, photographs, or diagrams as appropriate and relevant; small images may be embedded in the main text, while large images or diagrams should be attached as an appendix.

Your report must have a cover sheet bearing your name and 'K' number, the title of your project, and the course code and title (i.e. CI3130 Culture & Heritage Informatics) just in case it gets mislaid. If you have an accompanying project web site (e.g. your prototype), please also display the URL. The page beneath your cover sheet should be a page-numbered table of contents with headers corresponding to the components of assessment required.

Below are specific notes on the individual components of the report you will be submitting:

When complete, this will be a succinct snapshot of your entire project, its purpose not unlike that of an abstract at the head of a conference or journal paper. This is useful to me, as a marker, in so far as (i) it will be the statement that assures me you project iswell conceived and relevant to the course content; and (ii) it provides me with a sort of 'map' to guide my reading and expectations throughout the remainder of the report. Although, in note form, it may serve to maintain your focus throughout the project, your executive summary is likely to be the last thing you write. Only on completing your project will you have a clear idea of what you have achieved. In this section you will

identify your client or client organisation (and, although a real client is preferred, this may be yourself or an imaginary client). Clients, effectively by definition, have a clear notion of what they want to achieve; having a real or imaginary client will therefore help you focus on well-defined outcomes as well as help you to conceptualise your work, in terms of both target goals and quality, as a professional project rather than simply an academic exercise. You might begin, for example, in something like the following manner: "The project described in this document has been undertaken on behalf of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (Markets and Street Activities Officers) who, as a component of their local history documentation project, have commissioned me to produce a multimedia 'living history' of the Ancient Market ..."
succinctly (i.e. in no more than a few sentences) describe the project you have undertaken. For example: "The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames is the oldest of only four Royal Boroughs in England and Wales. The Market House (1840) stands in Market Place, hub of a market that has continued uninterruptedly on these grounds for nearly 800 years. This project will, through an online exhibition comprising video interviews with stall holders, photographs, maps, etc, celebrate this long history ..."
and highlight the theoretical or intellectual issues addressed in the project that make it interesting
if your project includes the development of a web presence, you should cite the URL in your report
and please note: in this section, as in every other, do not write "I will / intend to design/build/whatever ..." unless you really mean that you haven't done it yet! rather have the good sense to write "I have designed/built/ ..."

You will write a detailed description and analysis of the problem, challenge, or opportunity addressed in your project. What kind of project is it (and why are you doing it)? digital asset management? historical reconstruction in a virtual (3D) environment? an exercise in social tagging? a participatory community memory web site? ... Your choice of project should be dictating that, first and foremost, you should be considering how you are--indeed, ought to be--engaging the end-user in your production (or system or service). This, in turn, should be suggesting to you what might be the appropriate functionality and hence the appropriate platform. You should be posing, and answering, questions such as: what is the purpose of the system I am producing? who are my users? how do I expect my users to interact with my system? where will my content come from? what are users going to do with that content? and why? etc.
Note that parts 3 and 4 of your report carry the bulk of the marks; and there will necessarily be some cross-referencing between the two. Regard part 3 as your technical documentation, and part 4 as the documentation of the conceptual and theoretical considerations that determined your design decisions and technical decisions. For some projects it might be more appropriate to discuss the theoretical issues first (part 4) and then subsequently (part 3) show how your technical achievement has addressed those issues; for other projects--for example, where your implementation is incomplete or does not offer the full range of functionality your project rquires--it might be more appropriate to first describe the system or service you have designed (part 3) and to subsequently explore in greater depth the theoretical issues that your technical work has sought to address. I therefore leave up to you the decision as to how parts 3 and 4 are ordered in your report; but please do ensure that, whatever the ordering, your section headings clearly flag which is which. In part 3 (this part) you will write a detailed account of the system or service you have designed (and, ideally, prototyped) for the client organisation. This might take the form either of a 'technical narrative' or project log chronicling in detail the evolution of the project or of a detailed technical description / walkthrough of the system or service in itself; which of these methods you use in documenting your project may be determined by the nature of the project itself, though the choice of reporting method is up to you.
You will write a detailed exposition and discussion of the theoretical or intellectual issues addressed in the project. Regard this as the heart and soul of your report: you will contextualise your project within a specific theoretical framework (and here you will find the Digicult publications undoubtedly useful) where you will make reference to (and review as appropriate) other such systems or services and to, in general, the relevant literature. What section 4 is really all about is bridging between the "why" of the project and the "what"/"how": it's your space for arguing that your technical choices (the "what" and the "how") have been thoughtfully determined by your conceptualisation of an opportunity / of what you want your project to achieve (the "why?" / "What am I endeavouring to achieve?")
In your project review you will briefly summarise (no more than 2 to 3 sentences) what you have achieved i.e. as far as you've got but no further. Note any problems or difficulties you encountered (if you have documented them in part 3 above you should simply refer back to the relevant section or page); and state whether or not you were able to overcome them (and, if so, how). Conclude with succinct recommendations (e.g. in the form of bullet points) for the further development and long term sustainability of the project.
List all the resources you have used. Whenever appropriate (e.g. books, journal articles, conference papers, newspaper stories, web sites) give full and correct bibliographic entries that conform to the Harvard style of referencing. If in doubt, or if you feel you need help, use the Harvard Reference Generator at: http://www.neilstoolbox.com/bibliography-creator/index.htm or use the Firefox Zotero plug-in to format the reference for you (see screenshot). See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_referencing, http://essential.tbs.bcu.ac.uk/harvard.html, and (for Mac users) the Harvard Referencing widget or (for Windows users) the Document it MS Word plug-in.
The 'exhibition' will be first and foremost an informal face-to-face presentation of your work (ideally to include, as appropriate, a 'live' demonstration of your technical achievement), accompanied by a 'poster' summarising the project and highlighting what you believe you have achieved. Since I am assessing intellectual content rather than appearance, your 'poster' may simply be in the form of a single-sided A4 sheet of paper (JPEG, PNG, or PDF). It is likely, however, to be much more than a conventional 'presentation': you may choose, for example, to additionally exhibit your work, where appropriate, in The Knowledge Zone (the university's island in Second Life) as a semi-permanent exhibition; or you may choose to profile your work, as individual or as group, in the form of a YouTube video or as a SlideShare presentation. Although none of these extensions to the core exhibition are required, you may expect to be given extra credit for innovations in the presentation and display of your work. Please again note that, if your project includes the development of a web presence, you should cite the URL in your report. The core 'exhibition' has several purposes:

it gives me the opportunity to view, discuss, and assess your technical work
as a group presentation, it gives you the collective opportunity to discuss general (technical, conceptual, design, access) issues with respect to your common topic (e.g. virtual communities, collecting oral histories, digital asset management)
it provides an opportunity for you to showcase your work to others

General points

Do not leave it to the last few weeks of the module to conceptualise, and begin work on, your project. You should be thinking about candidate projects from early in the module; and have selected your definitive choice of project by the end of the Easter break. You will thus have given yourself the time to plan, manage, and complete a project of the right scope and complexity. And please note: it is the university's and faculty's assessment regulations that determine that there will never, under any circumstances be extensions to hand-in deadlines, so do not even ask!
Do not think of your project simply as an academic exercise: your work should, when complete, have the potential to 'go live' as a real initiative. Only if you embark on your project with that attitude of professionalism in your approach are you likely to deliver quality work.
Do not be lazy! do not think that you can do the very minimum of work and expect to get a good grade. For example, do not opt for easy options like Wetpaint or Ning unless [1] you can cogently argue that this is an appropriate choice of platform (at least for prototyping your 'proof-of-concept'), and [b] you are prepared to invest time and energy--and obvious personal commitment--in customising, rigorously structuring, and 'branding' your installation. An uncustomised shell with just a couple of pages of text, and no evidence of user-generated content from your intended community, will probably result in a fail!
You are not writing histories! You have neither the subject expertise nor the time to do so; nor is it what the module is about. Rather, you are conceptualising, designing, and prototyping a platform / model / framework for the delivery of content, where that content in all likelihood will either come from a (real or putative) client such as a museum or will be user-generated. In other words, your focus must be as much (or more) on the technology as on the specific heritage content.
You can not use copyrighted content (text, images, etc) if you do not have explicit written permission to do so from the copyright holder.
I have repeatedly been asked by students what they have to do to get a "First" or "Upper Second". The answer is simple: deliver quality work, guidance for which I give above. There is no other answer, so don't ask me.
Finally, if you have questions about the assessment that are not answered on this page, please do not contact me personally without having, in the first instance, posted your question as a new thread on this page (see link at bottom of this page). It may be that others will have had the same questions; it may be that others in your class will have the answers; it makes a great deal more sense that you should therefore post your question publicly (to which I shall respond publicly via the discussion board) rather than me having to respond to the same question many times over in private emails.

Before you submit ... a checklist ...

[t.b.c.]

I hope these remarks will provide useful guidance.

:: Achieving a Pass ::

It IS NOT a requirement that any major assessment category must be passed separately in order to achieve an overall pass for the module. Note, however, that some components are weighted more heavily than others; it is therefore unlikely that you will pass the module overall if you fail to achieve pass marks in specifically these components.

Course feedback

cshutchison — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:10:15 CST

I'd like to get your views on this course. This is important not only because the Faculty requires us to collect students' views on each module but also because your views are often pivotal in helping future cohorts of students decide whether they wish to take the module themselves. Did you enjoy the module? Do you feel you learned something useful from taking it? Would you recommend it as an option to next year's students? and did I do well enough in generating helpful documentation and resources for it on this Museum101 module web site? Read previous year's responses to see what students have said about this course. When you have completed this module, please add your own feedback to the page for the current year. Many thanks for your feedback! Chris

I'd like to get your views on this course. This is important not only because the Faculty requires us to collect students' views on each module but also because your views are often pivotal in helping future cohorts of students decide whether they wish to take the module themselves.

Did you enjoy the module? Do you feel you learned something useful from taking it? Would you recommend it as an option to next year's students? and did I do well enough in generating helpful documentation and resources for it on this Museum101 module web site?

Read previous year's responses to see what students have said about this course. When you have completed this module, please add your own feedback to the page for the current year.

Many thanks for your feedback!

Chris

Course feedback 2008

Course feedback 2009

Course feedback 2009

cshutchison — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:03:55 CST

I'd like to get your views on this course. This is important not only because the Faculty requires us to collect students' views on each module but also because your views are often pivotal in helping future cohorts of students decide whether they wish to take the module themselves. Did you enjoy the module? Do you feel you learned something useful from taking it? Would you recommend it as an option to next year's students? and did I do well enough in generating helpful documentation and resources for it on this Museum101 module web site? Many thanks for your feedback! Chris

----------------------------------

<--- enter your feedback below, anonymously if you wish, leaving a space and a line between each entry --->

----------------------------------

I really found this module fasinating and educative, to find out that something like this exist is really awesome. I did not know what the course was all about but the fact that it hadculture to the name, I decided to register and see what it was all about. This coures bought me back to live on this part, as i got to understand what informatics was and how mesuems work and history preserved. Personally I must say a big thank you to Chris Hutchison for this wonderful idea of his and am sure this course will change the ways and thinking of other students whn it comes to cuktureand informatics. The lectures were well organised and support was offered when asked for, also the structure of the module was clear and well laid out with clear goals on what to do and how to do it.

Cheers
Jamil Mohammed

-----------------------------------

Hello Chris,

I really enjoyed the module. I did not know what to expect, but after completing it I learnt about all the different parts of the syllabus. I really would recommend this module to next year's students, it is one of the best I have taken. The documentation was very helpful and the resources on the web site was great. Thank you so much for being a brilliant lecturer.

Mark Cleverley (K0507854)

-----------------------------------

Personally I found this module one of the most interesting modules on the course to date the link between culture, heritage and informatics is one which is a growing trend, where the module has shown me how vital it is to keep our culture and heritage alive in the information age and how to go about it, among other aspects. I was inspired by this module and now have a small youth club running one which I am very proud of and wouldn't have been able to start without the help of this module.

The structure of the module was clear and well laid out with clear goals on what to do and how to do it. Support was always welcome by the lecturer and feedback was given on time and as promised. It was a lecture I enjoyed attending where the work load was similar to other modules. I would therefore definitely recommend it to students going into their final year.

Thanks for all the help Chris.

Re

Adnan

-----------------------------------

i did find it rather intresting. to be really honnest, before this coruse i woudlhave never thought of walking in fron of a meseaum. i agree with adnana that it is a growing sectors and personnaly i feel that there could be loads of money making oppurtunies in it.

i did enjoy the module as it has given me chance to open my eyes to the new world of information.

i would recomending to next year students. it is a chnace for you to relax whiles working on your project and enjoyable learning experince.

regards
erdem

-----------------------------------
Hi Chris

A very interesting module as it brings out the more interesting and fun side of boring old ICT. Ive learnt a lot about designing and buiilding websites with a purpose and also gained valuable information i wouldn't personally go out to seek, regarding the culture and heritage of my chosen topic.

All in all, i very much enjoyed this topic and hope it next year's students do too!

Thanks for teaching us Chris!

Regards

Murtaza Iqbal
K0526118

-----------------------------------

Course feedback 2008

cshutchison — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:03:14 CST

Did you enjoy the module? Do you feel you learned something useful from taking it? Would you recommend it as an option to next year's students? and, even though this was the first run of the module, did I do well enough in generating helpful documentation and resources for it on this Museum101 module web site?

Many thanks for your feedback!

Chris

----------------------------------

<--- enter your feedback below, anonymously if you wish, leaving a blank line between each entry --->

----------------------------------

This was a great module. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but the material covered is very interesting and gets your attention. The course is organised very well, Chris literally shows you everything you need to get a good understanding. I'm not saying he does all the work, but he actively finds current and relevant information and post them on this wiki, which acts as a good place to start when doing your own research.

Basically read, listen, browse, digest everything Chris tells you to, and you'll find you know a lot more than you think you do at the end of the module.

As for Chris, what a great lecturer. Clearly one of the best lecturers at this university, was a great help during the module. He has an obvious enthusiasm for the subject, which encourages you to get invloved and produce good work.

My main advice when doing this module is, you may have heard it all before, but don't leave the project to the last minute. It is easy to do well in this module, but only if you put the required amount of work in. get started early, you will be glad that you did.

Thanks for teaching the module and all your help Chris. Much obliged.

Zak

----------------------------------

Culture and Heritage was one of the most interesting and most excellent
modules i have attend all my time in the university.
The reason why i chose that course was not that it consists of 100% coursework but the fact
that the specifications for that module sound very interesting in the module guide.
Chris is a very supporting and helpful lecturer
and will assist you with any problems you may have during the course.
The documentation provided for the module was certainly satisfactory with
enough links to external sources to get help.
I would strongly recommend this module to Level 6 students but
for people who may select Culture and Heritage i would also encourage
them to choose the Desktop Virtual Reality module too (http://desktopvr.wordpress.com/). In virtual Reality people will learn how Second Life works ,how to create 3D models and other techinques like VR
Photography etc.. Some things you learn from the Virtual Reality module can be
used in the culture and Heritage module too ,at least in the implementation-Design part of the assignment.

Ioannis

----------------------------------

Hi Chris,

The Culture and Heritage module is one of the best modulesI have undertaken not only in the third year but all of my time at university. It gave me a chance to do something thatI felt passionate about, which meant I was not only doing the task for the sake of completing it and getting a good grade.The felxibility and availability of Chris (the lecturer) simply can not be matched by any otherlecturer at the university.Ireally enjoyed the moduleand recommendstudents tochoose it as I think they can really benefit from it in lots of different ways.

As to Chris:you have been the best lecturerI ever had, as you took a personal interest into my project, the response time when needed is very impressive, your flexibility allows students to get more creative and you have simply been the best lecturer. I want to take this opportunity to thank you very much forevery thing, much appreciated.

Thanks

Dawit

----------------------------------

This course was very interesting. Personally I underestimated this subject going into it. I believe that
due to Chris's passion for the subject and experience he was certainly able to make it interesting
and motivate me in trying to produce a high standard where I was encouraged to do as much as possible. I feel that he really was able to sell the importance of Culture & Heritage Informatics on a big picture scale and not simply as a class project.
The documentation provided was certainly useful in terms of project content delivery and the useful web
links and examples of existing projects makes it possible to model ideas and improve on them.
Karen
----------------------------------

Hi Chris, I’m glad that I took this module it gave me a great understanding into other culture as i worked along side people with different ethnic backgrounds. I enjoyed this module because it also gave me a change to understand my culture better. I recommend this module to second year student mainly because it 100% coursework moreover you have the most relaxed teacher that will support you throughout the module, Chris is easy to contact and get hold of when needed...thanks once again Chris..really did enjoy this module.
Keith Culpeper

----------------------------------

Culture and Heritage informatics was a great module to undertake. It gave me a chance to express in depth of particular issues and thoughts concerning history. The course also gave me experience in using external tools such as wiki platforms in the form of digital history. Chris himself was a great lecturer always there to offer help and passionate about his work and his teachings which was great as it made me want to learn especially during the hard times of third year. I would recommend this course to all! as i enjoyed this module and gained valuable knowledge.

Pravin

----------------------------------

I found this module to be incredibly interesting. It gave a real insight into matters of culture and heritage from many perspectives and backgrounds. I initially chose the module as it seemed to be less focused on the technical aspects IT, and more concerned with how technology can benefit and be enriching for people. The module definitely achieved this, and via my own project I was able to learn about different cultural and heritage that concerned me personally.

The module was well taught, and Chris deffinatly seems to have a passion for the subject, effortlessly and enjoyable addressing the lecture and asnwering questions enthusiastically and encouragingly. A welcome change from other, less engaging modules.

I wouldn't hessitate in reccomending this module to other students, it was deffinatly a positive experience which meant I went away learning alot, with a good understanding of how technology can directly affect and impact people.

James

-------------------------------------

This was an enjoyable and well organised module. I was able to learn the principles involved in the subject of Culture and Heritage and how current and emerging technology can be used in this field.

I really appreciated the opportunity to use the principles learnt on a project that had greater individual significance and cultural benefits to the wider community, unlike some other projects or coursework undertaken in other modules.

The delivery of the lectures are very good and the lecturer is passionate about the subject (something not so common these days).
I definitely recommend this module to future students.

Patrick

-------------------------------------

This was a great module. It is very interesting and found it to be one of the best modules I have done this semester. I enjoyed the content and the project that I did for this module. The modules prehaps could have been more organised with the assignment specification being posted earlier than it was. Sometimes Chris went of the tangent but I enjoyed other things he said. I enjoyed being taught by a lecture with real passion and a love of what he does. I wish there were more lecturers like that. My advice for students that are goint to do this module is to seek help and advice from Chris about the idea for your project. It is also vital to manage your time well. You can do this by creating a time plan. Start the module assignment early. To those of you that do oral history projects, which are projects that involve interviews with people, start the interview process early. You will find that it will be hard to interview many people and if you leave it late you will reduce the amount of people you could have interviewed. Publish work online if you are creating a site. Make sure that you meet the deadline. My advice would be to try and complete the module a week before and get it checked by the lecturer or ask other people in the class for feeback. This will improve your chances of getting a good grade. Do not post much effort into creating a wonderful poster as you will not get many marks for the poster. Concentrate on the demostration of the project and sell your project well. Chris like students to continue on with their projects and he is happy to helps those that want to continue doing their projects.
kofi Ofei

-------------------------------------

I found this module surprising, but thoroughly enjoyable. The way it was constructed was new and invigorating. It differed from most modules as the lecturer genuinely has a passion for what he is teaching. The lecturer would always provide sample data or examples to back up the teaching material and where as all other modules have three or four books listed as recommended reading, this module had three or four documents per lecturer that could be used for further research.

When it came to attempting my assignment, any potential idea’s were quickly offered, but not just straight forward generic one’s, but ideas which actually required some kind of thought.

My only regrets are that there aren’t more modules like this and that the lecturers showed this kind of enthusiasm.

Wayne Johnson

Blogs, wikis & fora

cshutchison — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:36:20 CST

:: Blogs, wikis, and fora ::

MuseumBlogs
"MuseumBlogs.org is a directory of museum and museum-related blogs as well as a space for re-postings. The purpose of the site is to raise awareness and increase the authority of blogs focusing on museum issues." Links to nearly 200 museum blogs.
» http://www.museumblogs.org
UK Museums and the Semantic Web
An Arts and Humanities Research Council funded Thinktank, the primary collaborators being the Museums Computer Group, the MDA, the 24 Hour Museum, and the Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, with strategic input from the Natural History Museum.
"The semantic web is a set of related technologies which will make it easier to find and share information online. The objective of the Thinktank is, over a series of workshops, to identify the key challenges and opportunities for museums and to define how the culture sector should respond to them.
The Thinktank brings together experts from a wide range of disciplines, including museum policy and management, cataloguing and computational science. Over the next ten months, a group of around 10 to 15 semantic web experts and museum professionals will gather in a series of closely documented meetings around the UK to explore the ways forward for the sector into this more digitally connected future.
The Semantic Web Thinktank falls under the project ‘UK Museums and the Semantic Web’, funded as part of the Arts & Humanities Research Council’s Research Workshops (Museums and Galleries) Scheme."
» http://culturalsemanticweb.wordpress.com
Past Thinking
"Past Thinking is a blog about where the past meets the future, covering archaeology, history, computing, and where they all meet." Personal blog by Tom Goskar, archaeological computing specialist with a particular interest in the application of 3D technologies within archaeology, and currently working as 'Archaeological Multimedia Developer' with Wessex Archaeology in Salisbury, UK.
» http://www.pastthinking.com/blog/
Museum 2.0
A blog "about active participation in museums. The transition from 'visitor' to 'user'. From curator-generated to user-generated. From closed content to open-source forums.
... The Web showed that one way to keep a content delivery platform current is to involve its users as meaningful participants rather than passive recipients of that content. No museum is as flexible or participatory as the Web has become. Should they be? What are the possibilities and challenges in creating 'an architecture of participation'?
This blog will explore the ways that museums do and can evolve from 1.0 (static content delivery machines) to 2.0 (dynamic content aggregation and network machines)."
» http://museumtwo.blogspot.com
Open Objects
"Thoughts and ideas about IT issues in museums and archaeology, particularly user-centred development for online museum collections, objects and public archaeology." Personal blog of Mia Ridge, database developer at the Museum of London/MoLAS.
» http://openobjects.blogspot.com
New Museums
"... contributing to an expanded discourse of technology in the service of cultural capital. A blog for Museum visitors, staff, practicioners and executives."
» http://newmuseums.blogspot.com
fresh + new(er)
"Fresh+New is a blog produced by the Web Services & Digital Media team at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. The purpose of the site is to act as a repository and sounding board for discussions around digital media and its use in museums."
» http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog/
Museums and the Web
"Taking a professional look at online web initiatives launched by museums and galleries worldwide."
» http://museumsandtheweb.blogspot.com
Musematic
"Rants and raves on the latest trends in the world of museum informatics and technology. An intrepid cast of experts from the Museum Computer Network and AAM's Media & Technology Committee share their insights, observations and tricks of the trade".
» http://www.musematic.org
Museum Blogging
"MuseumBlogging.com seeks to provide the best information on how museums and related institutions--including zoos, aquaria, science centers, and botanical gardens--can use blogs in support of outreach. Along the way, we'll discuss other forms of outreach, including exhibit, program, and curriculum development. Turn to MuseumBlogging.com for analysis, insight, ideas, and news of the latest research and resources on institutions of informal learning."
» http://www.museumblogging.com
Museum Virtual Worlds Wiki
"... a place for sharing information and resources for museum and other educational web developers about online virtual worlds". Comprises four areas: 'Featured Projects' (links to some virtual world projects), 'Theory and Practice' (publications documenting practices of museums and research learning environments experimenting with and using virtual worlds), 'Virtual World Platforms' (information and resources about current virtual worlds platforms including Second Life and several Open Source platforms), and a directory of 'Virtual World Portals & Blogs'.
» http://apps.exploratorium.edu/worlds/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=HomePage
Museums Wiki
A "new experimental Wiki for museums, set up by Jonathan Bowen". Not much to show for itself at the moment (and it's far from clear whether this site is about, or simply uses, ICT), but perhaps a site worth watching? See Bowen's conference papers at Museums and the Web 2006 and 2007:
Museums and Wikipedia
» http://www.archimuse.com/mw2006/papers/bowen/bowen.html
A Museums Wiki
» http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/bowen/bowen.html
At The Museum: Museum Groups in Flickr
A list of museum groups in Flickr, administered by Mamluke.
» http://www.flickr.com/groups/40181466@N00/discuss/72157600087036508/
Museum Professionals and Enthusiasts
"Consider this as a possible Museum-L 2.0--a place to pose questions, make contacts, exchange ideas, seek advice or just bask in the warm glow of the cyber-presence of other museum-oriented people." Not a great deal of activity there at the moment, but perhaps worth watching?
» http://museums.ning.com
museumsandmedia--the Museums | Cultural Heritage | Digital Media Blog
"The Museums | Cultural Heritage | Digital Media Blog ... is a research environment for exploring a variety of topics surrounding European museums and the preservation and dissemination of intangible cultural heritage by digital media."
» http://museumsandmedia.wordpress.com
DigitalHeritage
This is the blog of the “Digital Heritage” optional course of the Art Gallery and Museum Studies MA course at the Centre for Museology, University of Manchester.
The emerging field of Digital Heritage includes the theory and practice of digital media in museums, galleries and other cultural institutions. In this framework, the course aims to
• Develop a critical understanding of the theory and practice of using digital media in museums, galleries and other heritage and memory institutions;
• Provide a both broad and in-depth knowledge of the issues that arise by the use of new media for purposes of curation, interpretation, communication and learning;
• Offer some practical knowledge and experience of using digital technologies and designing and producing digital content for museums and galleries; and
• Provide a broad basis of generic theoretical and practical skills for museum professionals in the area of digital heritage.
The Digital Heritage Blog aims to:
• Provide an online collaborative notebook, where the class discussion on digital heritage is continued and expanded with the participation both of the course’s students and other academics and museum professionals;
• Offer students the opportunity to reflect on the course’s themes each week;
• Function as a bulletin board for class information;
• Collect and keep track of online resources relevant to the course’s themes;
• Enhance students’ learning experience through a blended learning environment that combines traditional paper-based methods with an online collaborative tool;
• Offer the opportunity to students to acquire experience and transferable skills in running and using a piece of social educational software;
• Present the students’ work to fellow students, academics and museum professionals, who are interested in the topic of digital heritage.
» http://digitalheritage.wordpress.com
Museums and Heritage
Blog of University of Salford, Centre for Heritage Studies
» http://heritagecluster.blogspot.com/

Courses & research

cshutchison — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:31:09 CST

:: University courses and research centres ::

The Ename Center, Interpretive Technologies
"The research of the Ename Center concerning Interpretive Technologies has a two fold mission: both to test the applicability of new technoligies for heritage presentation and to offer practical solutions to technical problems encountered in the development of specific heritage presentation projects. In close cooperation with site interpreters and heritage educators, the Center has tested Interpretive Technologies prototypes in real world situations, in order to evaluate the suitability and robustness of the methods, techniques and equipment used. In this way, experience and expertise has been gained in virtual reconstruction methods, user interfaces for exploring virtual reconstructed worlds in time and space, in the use of the Internet for heritage presentation and in on-site outdoor interpretation systems."
» http://www.enamecenter.org/content/category/5/16/108/lang,en/
University of Brighton, Faculty of Management and Information Sciences: Cultural Heritage Research
» EPOCH (Excellence in Processing Open Cultural Heritage)
» CHIRON (Cultural Heritage Informatics Research Orientated Network)
George Mason University, Department of History and Art History, Center for History and New Media (CHNM)
"Since 1994 under the founding direction of Roy Rosenzweig, the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University has used digital media and computer technology to democratize history—to incorporate multiple voices, reach diverse audiences, and encourage popular participation in presenting and preserving the past. CHNM uses digital media and technology to preserve and present history online, transform scholarship across the humanities, and advance historical education and understanding." CHNM is the lead developer of, among other things, Omeka, the web platform for publishing online collections and exhibitions, of the ScholarPress education plugins for WordPress, and of the fantastic Zotero plugin for Firefox. The CHNM web site is a fantastic resource, so rich in material that you'll find a long visit far more revealing than a simple listing here--go there now!
» http://chnm.gmu.edu
The University of Western Ontario: Digital History
"The server provides a home for research initiatives in history and computing, including blogs, tools and new technologies. It also supports courses for our Public History program, including History 513F, a new grad course on digital history."
» http://digitalhistory.uwo.ca
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Graduate School of Library and Information Science: Museum Informatics
Well-documented on its wiki, this is an excellent introductory course in 'museum informatics'.
» http://www.gslis.org/wiki/Museum_Informatics
University of Glasgow, Faculty of Information and Mathematical Sciences: MSc/PGDip in Information Technology, Cultural and Heritage Informatics (Arts strand)
Modules include: 2D Digitisation, Document Encoding, Multimedia Systems; Preservation of Electronic Records.
University College London, Centre for Sustainable Heritage
Research centre and taught masters (MSc Sustainable Heritage)
» http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sustainableheritage/index.htm
University of Leicester, Department of Museum Studies
A long established (1966) department offering courses at both undergraduate and post-graduate level, and with an active research group. The University's Digital Heritage Research Group hosted the 2005 UK Museums on the Web conference.
University of Portsmouth,MSc Heritage And Museum Studies
University of Westminster, UK and University of the Aegean, Greece, MSc in Multimedia Systems for Cultural Heritage
"The MSc in Multimedia Systems for Cultural Heritage seeks to provide an academic, creative and professional experience of both a theoretical and practical nature in the area of cultural studies, museology and interactive multimedia and draws together theory and knowledge from the disciplines of information and computer science, art and graphic design and museum studies. This broad understanding is stimulated by the course’s strategy of accepting students from a wide range of disciplines, such as archaeology, media and information and computer science, and by organising the curriculum so that there is a provision for diverse range of experiences, skills, and critical debate to expose students to new disciplines, as well as to allow them to apply their own expertise in a new medium or discipline."
Digital Heritage 2007
blog of the “Digital Heritage” optional course of the Art Gallery and Museum Studies MA course at the Centre for Museology, University of Manchester.
» http://digitalheritage.wordpress.com
The Virtual Museum research projects at Manchester Metropolitan University
Seemingly inactive since the departure of William Mitchell and Daphne Economou, the group placed "emphasis on medium not technology. The problems of new media are seen not just as technical but also of understanding the properties of these media and what types of activities and users they are best suited to." The three main projects were VRML models of the Tomb of Menna, Kahun, and Quarry Bank Mill.
» http://www.docm.mmu.ac.uk/RESEARCH/virtual-museum/
Kingston University, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture. BA (Hons) Museum and Gallery Studies
"Museums and galleries have become increasingly important elements of the creative and heritage industries. Today’s museums and galleries are perceived to be multi-faceted institutions of culture, dealing not just with the presentation of artistic works and historical artefacts but also with issues of regional and national identity, social, economic and cultural regeneration. The course provides the opportunity to study these multidisciplinary issues. The course’s modular structure enables you to explore the broad terrain of this subject while choosing your own particular paths of interest within it."
See also the MA Curating Contemporary Design
University of Salford, Centre for Heritage Studies
"The Centre for Heritage Studies is an established and highly regarded study centre based in the School of Art and Design at the University of Salford. The Centre is dedicated to the study of Heritage, Art Galleries and Museums as well as the wider set of references that contribute to its contemporary formation. Our potsgraduate programmes explore the relationships between the consumption of cultural heritage, its presentation, interpretation, design, management and audiences."
Offers Masters courses in:
* Arts & Museum Management
* Heritage Studies: Interpretation, Presentation & Design
* Museum & Heritage Exhibition Design
» http://www.artdes.salford.ac.uk/heritage/
Glasgow Caledonian University. MSc Cultural Heritage Studies
"The MSc Cultural Heritage Studies course is a research-led post-graduate programme, with a strong multi-disciplinary emphasis. It combines the development of management skills with a broader understanding of heritage contexts and policies. Its core aim is to produce graduates who are equipped with high-level skills and competencies to allow them to become active shapers of policy and practice in the cultural heritage field. ... Students will also be encouraged to grasp and apply the potential of ICT developments for the heritage sector."
Newcastle University, International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies (ICCHS)
A range of taught programmes, including MA/Postgraduate Diploma in Museum Studies, MA/Postgraduate Diploma in Art Museum and Gallery Studies, MA/Postgraduate Diploma in Art Museum and Gallery Education, MA/Postgraduate Diploma in Heritage Education and Interpretation, MA/Postgraduate Diploma in Heritage Management, MPrac in Museum Studies, MPrac in Art Museum and Gallery Studies, MPrac in Heritage Education and Interpretation, and Postgraduate Certificate in Museum Studies
University of Leeds, the Centre for Heritage Research
» http://www.leeds.ac.uk/heritage/

Museum101: A course in Culture & Heritage Informatics

cshutchison — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:10:10 CST

[Important note: please bear with me for a while. This course was taught for the first time in 2008, and I'm only slowly organising the syllabus and the site content, much of which will--due to constraints on time--remain in rough note form for a long while. So wherever in these pages you see t.b.c. or a place-holding "@@@" you'll charitably understand that life is too short and I am too busy to complete the text just at this moment.]

Welcome to your Culture & Heritage Informatics wiki

Background and context

This course, originating in the Virtual History, Virtual Archaeology, and Virtual Museums components of the final-year Desktop Virtual Reality module, was taught as a standalone module for the first time in the second semester (February to May) of 2008. While the focus is on digital heritage and museum informatics, the course also provides context through a broad overview of museum activities and heritage studies. Beyond core topics such as digital curation, the course explores not only the collection, management and display technologies but also the intellectual, theoretical and ethical issues relating to a wide range of heritage topics that includes inter alia the understanding and representation of indigenous knowledge systems, the collection and use of oral histories, and the discovery and digitisation of intangible heritage; students who successfully complete this course will consequently have both the technical skills and also the intellectual confidence to work alongside not only museum professionals but also historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and others.

The 'Heritage Industry'

The 'heritage industry', as Robert Hewison called it in his 1987 book of that name, is big business. Jane Glaser in the preface to her Museums: a Place to Work (1996) quotes Patrick Boylan, Emeritus Professor of Heritage Policy and Management at City University (London), who estimates that "at least 90 per cent, possibly 95 per cent, of the world's museums have been created since the end of the Second World War"; and that percentage has surely grown far larger in the decade since the publication of their book. Employing around 10 million people throughout Europe, in the UK the sector is most visibly represented by the nation's museums, galleries and archives, by such public bodies as the National Trust, English Heritage, the Historic Houses Association, Heritage Link, and the Heritage Lottery Fund, by festivals and events such as the Notting Hill Carnival, Trooping The Colour, and Black History Month, and most recently by new trends in cultural tourism, by the growing popular interest in family history and the burgeoning success of genealogy web sites such as MyHeritage.com, Genes Reunited and Genealogy.co.uk, by the popularity of television channels such as the History Channel and UKTV History and by programmes such as the BBC's A History of Britain, What the Victorians Did For Us, Who Do You Think You Are? and Meet the Ancestors.

Patrick Boylan, cited above, goes on to note that "This explosive growth in the number, range, variety, and richness of museums has been paralleled by similar developments in museum employment. From just two types of employees--the scholar-curators and the non-professional support workers (technical, maintenance, and security personnel)--the museum workforce now includes an almost bewildering range of positions and job titles". In response to the employment needs of the industry, UK universities are now offering a wide range of targeted undergraduate and post-graduate courses. A search on 'heritage' on the UCAS website, for example lists 68 undergraduate courses in 29 institutions, while a search on 'museums' yields 33 undergraduate courses in 14 institutions and the rather broader 'culture' reveals 992 courses in 81 institutions. Indicative course titles include 'Museum and Heritage Studies' (University of Brighton, University of Huddersfield), 'Heritage Management' (Bath Spa University, University of Northampton), 'Heritage Industry Management' (Southampton Solent University). Underrepresented, if not wholly absent, are courses in 'heritage informatics'; and yet it is information and communication technologies (ICTs) that arguably are bringing about the most radical and revolutionary innovations the sector has seen in more than a century. See, however, my listing on this page.

Heritage Informatics

ICTs have in the past decade or so changed not only the ways in which culture and heritage institutions (museums, galleries, national monuments, etc) present themselves and their collections to the public (trivially, for example, there can hardly be a museum or gallery in the world that does not now have a web presence) but also--and increasingly--the relationship between the public and the institutions. ICTs enable cultural and heritage institutions and their publics to engage with collections in new ways, in principle--and, in many cases, in practice--empowering audiences by democratising (digital) access and inviting participation, and yet frequently, with the increasing privatisation of memory institutions and the commodification of culture, defining and constraining the boundaries of cultural (re)production, access, and ownership.

This course will investigate recent trends and innovations in heritage informatics, focusing as much on the changing role of the cultural institution as on the technologies that have both driven and enabled such change. This will entail that, in addition to our core concern with technological innovation, we shall also by necessity be critically scrutinizing in some depth the cultural, social, political, economic, and legal frameworks within which digital 'memory institutions' are designed and presented to public view.

Students who successfully complete this course will have acquired the core knowledge and skills that will enable them to work as IT professionals in the cultural sector. Specifically, they will be able to:

identify application areas for information and communication technologies within organisations (e.g. museums, cultural tourism agencies, digital archives) in the culture and heritage sectors
identify the state-of-the-art technologies and technology trends that define the cutting edge of digital conservation, asset management, and public communication of heritage
advise on the development of systems using appropriate technologies, techniques, and software
and discuss the intellectual, technical, pedagogic, social, legal, and ethical issues (including diversity issues) involved in the acquisition, management, and presentation of (digital) collections

Employability of graduating students is a high priority for this course. To give you some sense of the kinds of jobs you might apply for in the sector, I've created an Employment section on this site, listing 'Good sources of job postings' and 'Indicative job advertisements'. Please refer to these from time to time.

The course will be largely structured around readings, case studies and examples, software testing, and consequent discussions. It is essential that you do the assigned reading each week: you will be expected to build a portfolio of your learning during the course.

You can access the main areas and sub-pages of this wiki from the sidebar on the left. You are encouraged to create an account for yourself on this wiki and to contribute to its content.

A brief note on your projects

You will each be assessed on an individual project that you will have undertaken during the latter part of the course. As information technologists you are obviously expected to be able to demonstrate competence in the technical aspects of your project, including selection of technologies appropriate to the project subject matter and intended use; you are obviously not expected to be content specialists, i.e. to have any expert knowledge of the subject matter. For your work to have the look of a bona fide culture or heritage project, however, there will necessarily have to be some content, and you should therefore consider how you will obtain this content. This will be made easier for you if you choose a project topic in which you personally have a firm interest, something you can get passionate about, excited about.

How do you benefit from thus engaging at least partially with the subject matter? In the first place, as technologists you will have acquired a clear sense of how you might work with museum, archive, and heritage professionals and subject experts. In the second place, you will have had the opportunity to broaden your personal horizons beyond the confines of technology alone,

For a detailed explanation of how you will be assessed, please go the the Assessment page.

Case study: The Digitization of Africa

cshutchison — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:26:17 CST

Case study: the Digitization of Africa

Web

Africa Research Central
Africa Research Central is your gateway to the archives, libraries, and museums with important collections of African primary sources. ...
Africa Research Central has as its goal to centralize and constantly update information about institutions with African primary source collections so as to facilitate international research in African Studies. Research in African primary sources--be they records, manuscripts, personal papers, photographs, film, or artifacts-- has posed challenges to the research community since the dawn of African Studies as a discipline. Scholars outside Africa struggle to learn about the holdings, services, and clearance procedures of African repositories, while scholars within Africa must cope with the fact that much of the African primary source heritage is housed beyond the borders of Africa. The core of the site is the Repositories section with its searchable database of African archives, libraries and museums with primary source collections. Although far from comprehensive, links to the web sites of North American and European repositories are also provided.
In addition to helping researchers, Africa Research Central also assists African repositories in the urgent task of preserving African primary sources. A growing number of African institutions have made their preservation needs known to Africa Research Central and may be searched easily in the Repository Wish List located in the Preservation section. In the same section, African institutions may search the International Funding Agencies database to locate possible international funders.
» http://www.africa-research.org

Aluka
Aluka is an international, collaborative initiative building an online digital library of scholarly resources from and about Africa. ‘Aluka’, is derived from a Zulu word meaning ‘to weave’, reflecting our commitment to connect resources and scholars from around the world. In 2008, we announced that Aluka became part of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization building trusted digital archives for the global scholarly community.
We seek to build digital collections by attracting high-quality scholarly content about Africa from institutions and individuals across the globe. By contributing their collections to the Aluka platform, content owners will have a means of offering access to their collections to an international audience—without having to develop and support their own technology platforms. Our web-based platform provides powerful tools for research, teaching, collaboration, and knowledge exchange.
The Aluka website includes a wide variety of high-quality scholarly materials contributed by our partners, ranging from archival documents, periodicals, books, reports, manuscripts, and reference works, to three-dimensional models, maps, oral histories, plant specimens, photographs, and slides. By aggregating these materials online, the Aluka collections link materials that are widely dispersed and difficult to access, opening up new opportunities for research, teaching, and broader public discussion. One of our primary objectives is to provide African scholars and students with access to scholarly materials originally from Africa, but now out of their reach.
We also works closely with partner organisations in Africa to build capacity in digitisation and the use of online materials for teaching and research. In some cases this includes setting up digital labs and providing technical training in scanning and creating metadata records; in others, we convene training workshops for librarians, archivists, faculty, and heritage professionals on topics related to digital imaging, preservation, and the use of online tools in the classroom.
To demonstrate the potential of Aluka as a scholarly resource, three collections are currently under development: African Cultural Heritage Sites and Landscapes, African Plants, and Struggles for Freedom in Southern Africa. New materials are added to the collections on an ongoing basis.
» http://www.aluka.org

Iyare!
"For centuries, Nigeria’s Benin Kingdom was one of West Africa’s most-renowned and powerful political states, its unsurpassed artists recording personalities, ceremonies, and deities. Benin’s Edo people still profess loyalty to their monarch the Oba, even as they fully participate in modern life. Inside the Benin palace, noblemen and women meet, as they always have, to play out rivalries, reenact historic conflicts, impress, inspire, plan, and gossip with one another.
Nearly 100 objects from the Penn Museum's extraordinary Benin collection of cast bronzes, carved ivories and wooden artifacts are in the exhibition. They date from the 16th to the 21st centuries and help to illuminate the activities—cultural, religious, political, and intensely social—that make up the experience of palace life. "Actors" and "audiences" alike--the Oba, chiefs, courtiers, commoners, and visitors--participate."
» http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/exhibits/iyare/index.shtml
» http://www.conceptvessel.net/iyare/home.html

Afro-IP - African intellectual property law, practice and policies
"This weblog has been set up in order to provide free, reliable, informative and entertaining news and comments about intellectual property law and practice throughout Africa."
» http://afro-ip.blogspot.com

African SIMs in Second Life
Virtual Africa
"On 30 March 2007, Alanagh Recreant (Dorette Steenkamp of South Africa) wandered into Second Life and started exploring the virtual world after hearing about virtual worlds on CNN …
It was life-changing. It was a new turning point for our registered NGO (non-governmental organisation) called UTHANGO Social Investments based here in Cape Town, South Africa, and for our clients. This blog is our record of the experiences we have as we pursue our dream to create a gateway for Africans into virtual worlds, and specifically into Second Life, as a starting point. We are indeed the very first registered African-based company - as far as we know and have been told - in virtual worlds. We strategically position ourselves in virtual worlds such as Second Life (R) to create awareness for our real world innovative programmes in sustainable development and established linkages."
» http://slurl.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Africa/126/93/23
» http://slafrica.wordpress.com

Robben Island
» http://slurl.com/secondlife/Robben%20Island/229/125/25

Real Africa Live
» http://slurl.com/secondlife/Estings/192/56/26

Saminaka
Virtual Nigeria. "Ekaabo to Tarkwa Beach and to Saminaka Island, a vibrant little slice of virtual Nigeria! Please come back any time, and explore all of the sim. There are different free gifts by the peacock.
The sim will always stay lovely, with Nigerian-style traditional architecture from different parts of the country. Other interesting & fun features include Guarara Falls and Wikki Warm Springs (look for romantic pose balls and the rope swing), a free palm wine bar, a free book store, shops with African and diaspora clothes, jewelry, furniture, art, pottery and shapes, and an art gallery. Play African music videos by picking "Party One" on the giant screen menu and dance by the beach!
We have informal lectures on African art and culture, occasional dances, and other events. Make us your African hangout and feel free to use us for your events.
To keep abreast of activities, join the Ngas Travelers group, or (for sales and special offers) join Afro-Atlantic World!"
» http://slurl.com/secondlife/Saminaka/63/209/22

Africa
» http://slurl.com/secondlife/Africa/193/137/27

[t.b.c.]

References and further reading

Britz, J. & Lor, P. (2003). 'A moral reflection on the digitization of Africa’s documentary heritage', World Library and Information Congress: 69th IFLA General Conference and Council, Berlin, 1-9 August 2003.

Britz, J. & Lor, P. (2003). 'A Moral Reflection on the Information Flow from South to North: An African Perspective', Libri 53, 3, pp.160-173.

Lalu, P. (2007). 'The virtual stampede for Africa: Digitisation, post-coloniality and archives of the liberation struggles in Southern Africa', Innovation, Vol.34, pp. 28-44. [PDF]

Limb, P. (2005). 'The Digitization of Africa', Africa Today, Winter 2005, Vol. 52, No. 2, pp. 2-19.

Limb, P. (2008). 'The Politics of Digital ‘Reform and Revolution’: Towards Mainstreaming and African Control of African Digitization'. Eighth North Eastern Workshop on Southern Africa (NEWSA), Bishop Booth Center, Burlington, Vermont, USA, 17-19 October 2008. [PDF]

Masango, C. (2007). Digital content licenses, a barrier to digital content?: A South African survey', Innovation, Vol.34, pp. 51-66

Pickover, M. & Peters, D. (2002). 'DISA: an African perspective on digital technology'. Innovation, Vol. 24, pp. 14-20.

Supplementary and background reading

Walker, R. (2006). When We Ruled. London: Every Generation Media. ISBN: 0-9551068-0-X [Web]

"This landmark publication, which is superbly illustrated with high quality photographs, maps and drawings, provides an extraordinary and cutting-edge synthesis of the archaeological data, the documentary evidence, and the historical linguistic research. It recounts the fascinating story of the origin and development of indigenous civilisations across the vast panorama of the African continent.

In particular, the author answers the key question in Black history: How much documented history is there beyond the Slave Trade, Mary Seacole, and Malcolm X? In 713 pages that question is answered again and again with a vast array of evidence that explodes the widely held view that Africans were without historical distinctions. In particular, there are ancient and medieval monuments that are still standing all over Africa. In addition, there are Black families and institutions that still possess their medieval manuscripts.

The history of Black people cannot be divorced from the history of peoples on other continents particularly Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Topic areas that have traditionally been ignored, such as Black Women's history, early African science and technology, and the two-way influences between Africa and Europe, are also discussed.

What is remarkable about this work is that for the first time it dares to connect Egypt, and its cultural affinities, with Africa and its chronological timeline within the vast chronology (nearly 90,000 years) of African achievement. It is now untenable for Egyptologists to consider themselves to be experts on Egypt without understanding the African cultural signature embedded within Ancient Egypt and its long history."

Web

The Swedish-African Museum Programme (SAMP)
"Samp, the intercontinental museum network, facilitates the development of museums as fora for dialogue promoting human understanding and human rights together with the community, through responsible use of heritage, history and science".
» http://www.samp.org

Centre for Heritage Development in Africa (CHDA)
"CHDA is an international Non Governmental Organisation(NGO) dedicated to the preservation, management and promotion of cultural heritage in Africa through a programme of training and development support services. Its core value is in the preservation of Immovable, Movable and intangible Cultural Heritage in Africa.

Various programmes have been undertaken throughout the life of CHDA. These programmes include:

* Training in Conservation of Movable Heritage, Training in Conservation of Immovable Heritage, and fund raising
* Training in Public Programming and Education
* Training in the development of nomination dossiers for World Heritage List
* Training in Heritage Impact Assessment
* Training in Exhibitions Design
* Training in Collections Management & Storage
* Training in Stakeholder participation"
» http://www.heritageinafrica.org

Popular culture and community memory

cshutchison — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:37:48 CST

Introduction and Overview: Oral history, popular culture, and community memory

"Popular History", largely technology-indifferent (text, images, audio and video are all natural media), is defined by its subject matter: histories told by ordinary people rather than by professional historians, collections of cultural ephemera that tell the story of popular culture. In this unit, I shall understand the term rather broadly to include:

oral histories / personal narratives (whether as text, as audio, as video, or some combination): highlights the first-person accounts of lived experience. These will paradigmatically be narratives that capture the memories of people still living; but might also include collections of written narratives (in diaries, letters, etc) from the remoter past. The defining criterion for inclusion is that they be personal narratives, eye-witness accounts, etc, rather than the work of professional historians.
cultural ephemera (for example, old newspapers or magazines, postcards, cigarette cards, tea cards, bubblegum cards, matchbox labels, beer bottle labels, posters, theatre or concert programmes and tickets, hand-written recipes, handbills, etc)
intangible heritage (oral traditions and expressions including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage; performing arts such as traditional music, dance and theatre; social practices, rituals and festive events; indigenous knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; traditional craftsmanship; cuisine; political, legal, moral and ethical codes and structures; traditional medicine and healing; popular beliefs, superstitions, and myths communicated orally from generation to generation).
Finally, I'm also including under this heading instances and uses of digital storytelling in education, whether or not the stories are either eye-witness accounts or traditional tales in the ways described above. Digital storytelling can play a potent role, particularly among young learners, in building a sense of identity and belonging; consequently it can be a powerful vehicle for the representation and communication of cultural heritage.

Oral history

Who 'owns' history? Popular history, oral histories, and community memory

[text to be inserted]

» http://www.ioha.fgv.br/ioha/english/index.html

The Oral History Society (UK).
From its web site:

"The Oral History Society is a national and international organisation dedicated to the collection and preservation of oral history.
It encourages people of all ages to tape, video or write down their own and other people's life stories.
It offers practical support and advice about how to get started, what equipment to use, what techniques are best, how to look after tapes, and how to make use of what you have collected.
In conjunction with the British Library National Sound Archive, it also holds one-day oral history training courses.
The Society's members come from all backgrounds with different occupations and interests but share a common love of the past.
Through twice-yearly journals and conferences it brings together a network of individuals and local groups from all over Britain and Europe to share ideas, problems and solutions.Recent successful oral history conferences have examined topics such as cinema, health, sport, religion, broadcasting, politics, migration and the lives of women."

Making Sense of Oral History

How are oral histories collected?

The Step-by-Step Guide to Oral History

US Army Guide to Oral History

A guide to editing videos

software

Linux:Jahshaka, Kino, Lives, Cinelerra
Mac OS X: iMovie, Final Cut (Pro and Express), Jahshaka, Cinelerra
Windows XP/Vista: Windows Movie Maker, Jahshaka

Examples of 'popular history' and oral histories.

Telling Lives (BBC)
The BBC claims to have "created the world's biggest archive of digital stories". Very slick; but with the professionalism comes a loss of spontaneity. From the web site:
"A digital story is a short film made from a script that tells a personal story illustrated with pictures from your photo album. The films are produced in workshops in which all the skills are taught. Everybody has a story to tell and anyone can learn the techniques. Discover how to write a script and use new technology to turn it into a short piece of television.
Each workshop begins with storytelling. Exploring ways of telling stories is an exciting and engaging process. Up to ten people in each workshop participate in games to discover words and how to put them into a script. Inside your collection of photos and memorabilia are pictures that hold fascinating stories. Put the pictures and script together in a laptop computer with editing software and you have a film."
» http://www.bbc.co.uk/tellinglives/

Moving here: 200 years of migration in England
"Moving Here explores, records and illustrates why people came to England over the last 200 years and what their experiences were and continue to be. It offers free access, for personal and educational use, to an online catalogue of versions of original material related to migration history from local, regional and national archives, libraries and museums. Moving Here gives visitors to the site the opportunity to publish their own experience of migration."
» http://www.movinghere.org.uk

Refugee Stories.
"The Refugee Community History Project has collected the previously untold stories of refugees who have settled in London since 1951 in order to highlight the enormous contributions they make to the city. Refugees flee to foreign countries, like the UK, because of persecution in their home country, or because of a well-founded fear of persecution. This may be because of a refugee's race, religion, nationality, social group, political opinion, or as a result of war. This major initiative to record refugees' first hand experiences for current and future generations to explore ran from June 2004 to April 2007. Over 150 refugees from 15 different groups have taken part. This web site contains sections--both audio and text--of those refugees' stories." Listen, for example, to Zaim Pasic's story.
» http://www.refugeestories.org

The Immigrants Project
"An Oral History Project that tells the stories of people from all over the world who came to settle in Reading. The stories and experiences of people who came to settle in Reading were collected in a series of interviews which took place in 2006. Those interviewed gave their time freely and generously so that we can hear them talking about their lives and how and why they came to Reading, UK."Themes include: childhood and children's identity, community, family values, racism, self sufficiency, and 'where home is'.
» http://www.theimmigrantsproject.org

Sam the Wheels
"Sam the Wheels is a participatory video and web project, which explores the heritage of Brixton, inspired by unique film footage of Brixton shot between the 1960's and 1980's by Clovis Salmon, a first generation Jamaican immigrant who arrived in London in 1950. Clovis is a 78 year old ex Pentecostal minister, locally known as 'Sam The Wheels', due to to his work building wheels at Holdsworth Cycles."
» http://www.samthewheels.co.uk
» http://www.theanthillsocial.co.uk/projects/sam-wheels

Angel Radio
Angel Radio is first and foremost a nostalia "radio for old people, by old people", playing music from the years 1900 to 1959. Select Oral History from the left sidebar menu.
"Angel Radio's oral history archive is not just the memories of local people spoken into a microphone. Our oral history programmes are educational, memory jogging, and entertaining. The conversation takes the form of a fireside chat in the home of an Angel Radio listener. The conversation is basically a chronological tour of the subject's life, starting with a memory tour of their grandparent's house and the local area. Shops, schools, dance halls, churches, factories, working conditions, entertainment and recreation, the war, courtship, marriage and housing conditions, may all crop up during the chat.
The music of the day is added during the editing process."
» http://angelradio.co.uk

Belonging: voices of London’s refugees
A Museum of London multimedia exhibition. "Being a refugee is devastating and traumatic. Refugees face huge challenges when building new lives in London and their achievements are hard won. Yet they make enormous contributions to the capital. They help to shape the city we know today. This website does not provide a history of refugees in London. Instead it shares the voices, memories and successes of people who have found refuge in the capital. All have certain experiences and concerns in common, but each person’s story is unique. They offer different perspectives on being a refugee, on London, and on what it means to belong."
» http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Community/Belonging/

Tales of three generations of Bengalis in the UK: Bengali Oral History Project
"There are approximately 300,000 Bengalis currently living in the UK. Not much history of those Bengalis who settled in the UK currently exists (except two books written by Caroline Adams & Yousuf Chowdhury). Many of the first settlers are now elderly (sadly some have already passed away) and their memories and experiences are being lost as their testimonies have not been recorded and preserved. Many young Bengalis do not know the history of their elders and cannot easily access information related to Bengali community. The project aims to preserve the memories and experiences of the elders before this loss. The project will offer unique opportunity to Bengali young people to research, document and celebrate Bengali heritage & history by recording the experience of three generation Bengalis in the UK. Interviews (interviews will be translated into Bengali or vice versa) will be recorded on audio (and if possible on video), materials (including photographs) will be used for exhibition, publication (including learning packs for schools) and website."
» http://www.swadhinata.org.uk/oralhistory.htm

The National Museum of African American History & Culture Memory Book at the Smithsonian Institution.
"Often America is celebrated as a place that forgets. This museum seeks to help all Americans remember, and by remembering, this institution will stimulate a dialogue about race and help to foster a spirit of reconciliation and healing.
There are four pillars upon which this museum will stand. The first is to create an opportunity for those that care about or who are interested in African American culture to explore and revel in this history. ... Equally important is the opportunity to help all Americans see just how central African American history is for all of us. This is not a museum that celebrates black history solely for black Americans. Rather we see this history as America's history. NMAAHC will use African American history and culture as a lens into what it means to be an American. ... Additionally, NMAAHC will use African American culture as a means to help all Americans see how their stories, their histories, and their cultures are shaped and informed by international considerations. ... And finally, as a 21st century institution, NMAAHC must be a place of collaboration. We must be a truly national museum that reaches beyond Washington to engage new audiences and to collaborate with the myriad of museums and educational institutions that have explored and preserved this important history well before this museum was created. Collaboration is one of the core values of this museum."
» http://www.nmaahc.si.edu
» http://www.nmaahc.si.edu/section/get_involved/view/76

The National Visionary Leadership Project (NVLP) Oral History Archive.
"The National Visionary Leadership Project (NVLP), a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, unites generations to create tomorrow's leaders by recording, preserving, and distributing through various media, the wisdom of extraordinary African American elders - Visionaries - who have shaped American history. Some of these elders are nationally recognized leaders, who are interviewed on videotape by NVLP's co-founders and board members. Other Visionary elders, known primarily in their local communities, are selected and interviewed by NVLP college Fellows. All of this invaluable primary source material is accessible worldwide on the NVLP website, and permanently archived at the Library of Congress, allowing students, scholars and the public to gain a whole new understanding of this country's past, and the lessons to be learned from it."
» http://www.visionaryproject.org/videos/index.asp

The Digital Memory Box at the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum, South Africa"The Soweto ’76 Digital Memory Box uses electronic multimedia to collect, preserve, and present the stories and digital records of those students who took part in the Uprisings of 1976. The Soweto ’76 Digital Memory Box contributes to the ongoing effort by South African historians and archivists to preserve the record of Black townships by collecting first-hand accounts, on-scene images, and blog postings. The Museum hopes to foster positive legacies by allowing former students still living in Soweto, and elsewhere, to tell their stories in their own words. These stories will become a part of the historical record and will remain accessible to a wide audience for generations to come."
» http://soweto76archive.org/archive/memorybox/

King's Cross Voices
"Since 2004, the King's Cross Voices oral history project has been working with community members and local partners to record people's memories and unique life experiences of the King's Cross area. ... the King's Cross Voices recordings are a vital historical record of the life and times of ‘the Cross’ as the physical reminders are forever changed, and as the composition of present communities are likely to be altered irrevocably. All the interviews reflect the enormous range of occupations, communities and characters that have made King’s Cross such an intriguing and well-known, yet until now, undocumented part of central London.The voices in the archive include teachers, shopkeepers, publicans, policemen, students, squatters, housewives, social workers, builders, actors, artists, campaigners, politicians, prostitutes, factory workers, cleaners, office workers and, vitally, a whole range of occupations within the railway industry which has been the epicentre of the area for the past 150 years or so."
» http://www.kingscrossvoices.org.uk

The Front Room"In association with Michael McMillan, Iniva presents The Front Room interactive website, live from October 2007. This fantastic resource for all ages looks at the common space of the front room and the different ways it's used and presented across diverse cultures.The website will let you visit other people's front rooms or living rooms online, find out a little about these spaces and how they're used. You can even return the gesture and invite others to your front room. Send us a photograph and let us know what your front room means to you, what you feel it says about you and how you use it. It's an opportunity for you and your front room to become part of this project!" The web project is based on a 2005-6 exhibition at the Geffrye Museum that explores "the essence of homes created by post-WWII immigrants who have come from the Caribbean to Britain since the 1960s. The central focus of the show will be an installation by writer and guest curator Michael McMillan which represents his vision of the traditional ‘West Indian’ front room, drawn from memories of his parents’ and relatives’ homes in the 1960s and1970s. Special attention has been given to the choices people made in furnishing their front room, the symbolism of particular objects and the links between objects and personal identity. Michael's evocation of a typical ‘West Indian’ front room includes a range of possessions popular in African-Caribbean homes at the time and which he believes had special resonance for their owners. His rich recollection of being a young boy in his parents’ front room describes some of these objects and evokes the textures, smells and sounds of that East London home:"
» http://www.thefrontroom.org

Trace
"Trace was a participant-led oral history project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, thatworked with young people at Key Stage 3 (11 – 15 years old) from Bethnal Green Technology College, a secondary school in Tower Hamlets. The project team of young people researched and collected oral histories from different generations, including their own, on what it means to be young and to grow up in Tower Hamlets. Along the way they learnt and put into practice teamwork, project management, research, and creative problem solving skills. Trace ran from April 2007 to March 2008. Highlights of the young people’s activities include:

They collected oral histories from people from the ages of 92 to 11, visiting local history groups, public library user groups, and youth groups.
They have interviewed former MP Tony Benn about how politics affect young people.
They have been advised by Jon Snow of Channel 4 News on interviewing tips.
They have visited Jack Petchey, the self-made millionaire and philanthropist fromEast London.
They have visited archive services to conduct primary research and have assisted in the filming of the documentary of the Trace project.
They have examined their own identity as young East Londoners"

» http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzwCDYaBVyE
» http://www.toynbeehall.org.uk/page.asp?section=00010001000100020006&pagetitle=Trace

Center for Digital Storytelling
"The Center for Digital Storytelling is a California-based non-profit 501(c)3 arts organization rooted in the art of personal storytelling. We assist people of all ages in using the tools of digital media to craft, record, share, and value the stories of individuals and communities, in ways that improve all our lives.
Many individuals and communities have used the term 'digital storytelling' to describe a wide variety of new media production practices. What best describes our approach is its emphasis on personal voice and facilitative teaching methods. Many of the stories made in our workshops are directly connected to the images collected in life's journey. But our primary concern is encouraging thoughtful and emotionally direct writing."
» http://www.storycenter.org

Timewitnesses
Personal memories of the Second World War. Text-only; though many stories available in 3 languages (English, French, German). "Many of the young people who lived during World War Two are still alive. Time has healed the wounds on both sides, but some of those survivors want to be sure that the lessons of the past will be learned by a new generation. We invite you to share these extraordinary stories of ordinary people. Schools may download them and use them as source material in classroom discussions about the events of those years."
» http://timewitnesses.org

Sea Your History, Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth
A museum of the Royal Navy in the 20th century. "What is it like when your loved ones serve in the navy? Listen to the experiences of their families." "Find out how naval medical staff care for sick and injured personnel at sea and ashore." "How was the Mary Rose raised? Listen to some of the people who did it." "Hear how the Navy's use of technology changed during the twentieth century." Select the 'Oral History Gallery' tab from the menu bar.
"The Oral History gallery is your unique chance to hear first hand from people who have lived and worked with the sea in the twentieth century. Discover what it is like for women to serve at sea, find out about diving on the wreck of the Mary Rose and uncover the truth about what it is like to be in a naval family."
» http://www.seayourhistory.org.uk/component/option,com_rnm_ohhomepage/Itemid,49/

The Wartime Memories Project and Web Quest
»http://www.wartimememories.co.uk

"What Did You Do In The War, Grandma?"
"An Oral History of Rhode Island Women during World War II"
"What Did You Do in the War, Grandma? was developed and produced at South Kingston High School by Linda Wood, an oral historian, and the school's librarian. The interviews were conducted and recorded in the Spring of 1989 with the support of a grant from the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities."
"Oral history is a unique way to learn about past events and experiences. It is a method which probes memory, evokes emotions and feelings which have long been dormant, and creates a relationship between narrator and interviewer which is often a very special one. The information can be dramatic when the narrator is an older woman, perhaps a grandmother, and the interviewer is a young teenager whose assignment is to find out about a war that began before most teenagers' parents were born." A collection of 26 transcripts of interviews, conducted by American High School students, revealing woman's lives and experiences during World War II. Although the sitedocuments a project from 1989, on a web site last updated in 1997, it remains an interesting example of oral history embedded in a specific community with a clear focus.
» http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/WWII_Women/tocCS.html

Profile of Bengal: "Evidence of Participants & Eye witness accounts (Oral History)"
"There was a war in the country at that time. I was living in my father-in-law’s home. My husband was a very well known person of this village. He was very brave and powerful. One day we heard that Hindu homes would be looted. Then my husband started to guard our village at night along with some other villagers. There was quite a few with him. They did it for about a month. But they couldn’t prevent looting. Suddenly some people started looting our village. In our house there were 3 or 4 grain storage rooms with sacks of paddy and rice. We had a lot of furniture, crockery, pots and pans; everything that a family needs. We had a cowshed with 30/35 cows and 2 ponds, whatever was needed for a full family. We were about 35/36 family members. They looted every single piece of belonging we had." A collection of thirty transcripts of interviews with Bangladeshi's who witnessed first hand the events throughout 1970 and 1971 that led to the emergence of Bangladesh as a nation.
» http://www.profile-bengal.com/evidenceofparticipants.html

Hurricane Digital Memory Bank: Collecting and Preserving the Stories of Katrina and Rita
"The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the stories and digital record of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. ... the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank contributes to the ongoing effort by historians and archivists to preserve the record of these storms by collecting first-hand accounts, on-scene images, blog postings, and podcasts. We hope to foster some positive legacies by allowing the people affected by these storms to tell their stories in their own words, which as part of the historical record will remain accessible to a wide audience for generations to come."
» http://hurricanearchive.org

Centre for Popular Memory and archive (South Africa)
"The physical archive houses over 2000 hours of audio and video. It includes text transcripts, images, biographical notes, collection summaries, metadata, narrative summaries and interview logs." The onlineWhat we do page, then go to the Online Archive (you'll need to register--it's free--to see the archives) and select a collection. The interface on the page you are then taken to may be confusing, presenting you with a search box when you've probably no idea what on earth you might be searching for, so your best strategy for accessing the collection is by clicking 'Subject', top right in the menu bar, and browsing the list it returns. All the documents--transcripts of interviews--are in PDF format. Note that many of the transcripts are in languages such as Xhosa or Afrikaans. Click here or here for typical examples in English archive, however, contains only the text transcripts. First read the .

Eye Witness to History
"Your ringside seat to history-from the Ancient World to the present. History through the eyes of those who lived it". Contemporaneous accounts, mostly eye-witness accounts, of events in history from the dawn of writing to the present day. Not exclusively the observations and narratives of 'ordinary people', but very few from professional writers.
» http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com

WW2 People's War

Hidden Histories (Southampton)
"Hidden Histories makes accessible some of the highs and lows of Southampton's 20th Century history, the glory of great ships and journeys as well as the disasters and long forgotten tales. Street Radio is a totally new way of experiencing the city. The system utilises wireless communication technologies such as WIFI and Bluetooth in combination with FM radio to create captive ‘puddles’ where particular stories and themes can be heard. By broadcasting using very weak radio transmitters a selection of stories from the Oral History Unit can be heard along 10 nodal points (locations) from where byte-sized stories are transmitted. These nodes link together to form a media rich walk that transports people through the changing life of the city."
» http://hiddenhistories.org.uk

Kelvin Grove Urban Village (Queensland, Australia) Sharing Stories project

Oral History collections at the British Library

Ephemera

The Authentic History Center
"The Authentic History Center is comprised of artifacts and sounds from American popular culture. It was created to teach that the everyday objects in society have authentic historical value and reflect the social consciousness of the era that produced them. Authentic also means conforming to fact, and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, or belief. To meet this definition by presenting an authentic interpretation of American history is our ultimate goal. When a collection is whole enough to be considered an authentic representation of the sources produced about an historical event, they are presented via interpretive essay. Until then, incomplete collections are presented as digital archives without comment for individual study. Additionally, a large audio archive of speeches and news broadcasts are presented for students to experience a level of historical authenticity distinct from written sources. The Authentic History Center is an ambitious work-in-progress and always will be."
» http://www.authentichistory.com

Without Sanctuary: Photographs and Postcards of Lynching in America
This one is disturbing; yet importantly documents (as you'll see from the quoted text that follows) a dark period of very recent US history that is too easily forgotten. "Searching through America's past for the last 25 years, collector James Allen uncovered an extraordinary visual legacy: photographs and postcards taken as souvenirs at lynchings throughout America. With essays by Hilton Als, Leon Litwack, Congressman John Lewis and James Allen, these photographs have been published as a book Without Sanctuary by Twin Palms Publishers . Features will be added to this site over time and it will evolve into an educational tool."
» http://www.withoutsanctuary.org

Intangible heritage

The 'intangible cultural heritage' means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This intangible cultural heritage, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity.
Article 2, Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Paris, 17 October 2003

Further resources and readings:

Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO)
This is a very important resource: with its extensive documenation and numerous examples, you should consider this your primary authority on intangible heritage.
» http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php

Intangible Heritage
Another UNESCO site, with links to, inter alia, 'Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity'.
» http://portal.unesco.org/culture/ ... URL_SECTION=201.html

The International Journal of Intangible Heritage
"The International Journal of Intangible Heritage is a refereed academic and professional English language journal dedicated to the promotion of the understanding of all aspects of the intangible heritage of the world, and the communication of research and examples of good professional practice. This web site aims to provide online space for sharing various ideas and concerns in the intangible heritage field at an international level. Visitors also can download or browse the Journal's article(s) in portable document format(PDF)."
» http://www.ijih.org

Museums and Intangible Heritage: the International Committee for Museums of Ethnography (ICME) Papers from the ICOM 2004 General Conference, Seoul, Korea, October 2-8, 2004.
A heterogeneous collection of interesting papers from the 2004 conference.
» http://www.museumsnett.no/icme/icme2004/index.html

Conference proceedings of Constructing and sharing memory: Community informatics, identity and empowerment, October 9-11, 2006, Monash Centre, Prato, Italy.
A conference on the themes of culture, oral histories, identity, representation, social remembering, metadata, archives, etc. Since a number of papers are of interest, I cite the proceedings rather than individual papers.
» http://www.ccnr.net/prato2006/archive/index.html

Langlais, D. (2005). 'Cybermuseology & Intangible Heritage', Proceedings of the 4th Annual Intersections conference, York University and Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, March 18-20, 2005
"can cybermuseology presents more than images of objects? Can the knowledge of localised cultural heritage be transferred without loosing the context it stems from? More specifically, can ICTs transfer tacit knowledge, human experience, and tangible cultural heritage, and if so, what can we learn from this new process of cultural codification? By addressing these issues, this presentation shall conclude that whether tacit knowledge can be transmitted or not by ICTs, tangible cultural heritages is a manifestation of the intangible, defined by the UNESCO as: “forms of popular and traditional expression - such as languages, oral literature, music, dance, games, mythology, rituals, customs and craftwork…” In 2004, intangible heritage has been made a priority by UNESCO, as a way to preserve and communicate the living knowledge societies create."
» http://www.yorku.ca/topia/docs/conference/Langlais.pdf

Kolgen, S. & Ann Laenen, A. (no date) 'How to open up our intangible cultural heritage in a digital age?'
"Abstract: Before reflecting on possible ways to preserve our intangible heritage for the future it useful to frame the subject. Once defined, this lecture looks at the current possibilities offered by the Information Society as well as the challenges that will be met when opening up this heritage towards the wider community and saving it for the future."
» http://www.kandl.be/archief/mayo.doc

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICMOS) Documentation Centre bibliography of intangible heritage.
» http://www.international.icomos.org/centre_documentation/intangible.pdf

Smithsonian Folkways
"Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution, the national museum of the United States. We are dedicated to supporting cultural diversity and increased understanding among peoples through the documentation, preservation, and dissemination of sound. We believe that musical and cultural diversity contributes to the vitality and quality of life throughout the world. Through the dissemination of audio recordings and educational materials we seek to strengthen people's engagement with their own cultural heritage and to enhance their awareness and appreciation of the cultural heritage of others. Our mission is the legacy of Moses Asch, who founded Folkways Records in 1948 to document 'people's music', spoken word, instruction, and sounds from around the world. The Smithsonian acquired Folkways from the Asch estate in 1987, and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings has continued the Folkways commitment to cultural diversity, education, increased understanding, and lively engagement with the world of sound."
» http://www.folkways.si.edu

Popular histories in education

Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling, at the University of Houston.
Start by looking at some of the examples.

Using Oral History in teaching

Innovative projects

cshutchison — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:05:22 CDT

:: Innovative research and development projects ::

Innovation comes in many guises. What I've looked for in particular in compiling this section are projects that not only use innovative technologies but also reflect innovative thinking about information architectures and user experience.

steve.museum
" 'Steve' is a collaborative research project exploring the potential for user-generated descriptions of the subjects of works of art to improve access to museum collections and encourage engagement with cultural content. We are a group of volunteers, primarily from art museums, who share a common interest in improving access to our collections. We are concerned about barriers to public access to online museum information. Participation in steve is open to anyone with a contribution to make to developing our collective knowledge, whether they formally represent a museum or not."
» http://www.steve.museum
CollectionX
"Conceived by the Art Gallery of Ontario and its partners and funded by the Virtual Museum of Canada, Collection X functions as an open-source museum created by the public for the public. It represents an experiment in sharing and community-building that celebrates life and art and encourages everyone to look at the world from different perspectives and to be creative in the process." With all the look, feel, and functionality one expects from a "Web 2.0" application, CollectionX allows registered users to:
- search and browse artworks, artifacts, videos and audio clips held in public collections
- contribute your own content in the form of images, video and audio to help build the collection
- use tags to describe your content as well as any other content you find
- create exhibitions using your content and/or other people's content
- connect exhibitions together around common themes, issues or ideas
- share your thoughts and engage in dialogue around what you see, read, hear and discover
- subscribe to RSS feeds and podcasts that let you know what other people are doing
» http://www.collectionx.museum
CHIP — Cultural Heritage Information Personalization
"Personalization enables changing the museum mass communication paradigm into a user-centered interactive information exchange, where the museum monologue turns into a dialogue, and personalization is a new communication strategy based on a continuous process of collaboration, learning and adaptation between the museum and its visitors. ... In CHIP, we propose an interactive approach for determining user interests in a museum collection with the help of a dialog which uses artefacts from the semantically annotated collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam to elicit specific user's interests in artists, periods, genres and themes and uses these values to recommend relevant artefacts and related concepts from the museum collection."
» http://www.chip-project.org
and read:
Aroyo, L., Brussee, R. Rutledge, L., Gorgels, P., Stash, N. & Wang,Y. (2007). 'Personalized Museum Experience: The Rijksmuseum Use Case'. Paper presented at Museums and the Web 2007, San Francisco, California, April 11-14, 2007.
» http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/papers/aroyo/aroyo.html
OpenCollection
"... a full-featured collections management and access application for museums, photo and moving-image archives and digital collections. OpenCollection is designed to handle large, heterogeneous collections that have complex cataloguing requirements and require support for a range of metadata and media formats. Unlike other collections management applications, OpenCollection is a true web-application. All cataloging, search and administrative functions are accessible via the Internet using common web-browser software, making cataloguing by distributed teams and online access to collections information simple, efficient and inexpensive." Open source (GPL licence) with free download.
ARCO (Augmented Representations of Cultural Objects)
"ARCO is a research project, funded by the European Union, aimed at developing technology for museums to create 3D Virtual Exhibitions on the Web. Virtual exhibitions are created by digitising museum artefacts, which are then transformed into Virtual Representations, which can be X3D or VRML models or scenes. These virtual representations together with associated Media Objects described with XML complete the virtual exhibition. A museum focused Database and Content Management Application, together with X-VRML technology allows museums to easily create these virtual exhibitions. X-VRML defines the virtual exhibition layout and allows dynamic updates of the virtual exhibition by simply changing the database contents." Intellectually interesting and ambitious use of X3D.
» http://www.arco-web.org
Archaeoblender
"Started by UC Berkeley Anthropology faculty, students and staff, Archaeoblender is a Web site and online community for sharing and remixing archaeological multimedia. Anyone can browse and use materials for educational or noncommercial applications." In other words (though I'm maybe pushing the metaphor a bit far), a sort of YouTube for archaeologists' digital objects.
» http://www.archaeoblender.com

0

megahommie — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:29:24 CDT

Individual project list 2009

megahommie — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:26:29 CDT

Please add your name and brief project details in the table below. If you need to add a new row, simply 'tab' from the last cell of the current bottom row.

Enter only the digits of your KU number (i.e., no leading "K ...") in the first column; enter your first name followed by your surname in the second column (for example, Chris Hutchison). Create a hyperlink from your name to your profile: go to your profile page and grab the URL from the address bar (e.g. http://museum101.wetpaint.com/account/cshutchison), then return to this page and click the 'EasyEdit' button, select your name and click the Link button in the EasyEdit Toolbar, paste your profile URL into the 'Link to' field, and click 'Add link'.

Enter a short (but descriptive) title for your project in the third column (not more than 10 words). Add a short descriptive summary of your project in the next column, 250 words maximum; and in the final column identify the thematic area(s) (e.g., "oral histories", "contemporary art gallery", "virtual community", "audio archive", "intangible heritage"). Save and close this page when you are finished.

When you are ready to do so, create a sub-page to this page (the name of the page should be your real name) and enter a more extensive proposal--see examples in the side menu. I shall give feedback on this full proposal which, when complete, will be your first coursework submission (both here and on paper via the student office).

Finally, as and when your project prototype has an
internet presence, add a hyperlink to it from this page and / or from your proposal page.

Your KU number	Your name	Your project title	Project summary	Thematic area
k0638369	Konika Bahl	East African Asians digital Archive of their History in Uk 1960-present	A Digital Archive of the History of East African Asians (EAA) in the UK 1960-present	Digital history,Social Tagging
K0625207	Jamil Mohammed	The Story of the troubled region of the ***** Delta	A digital history telling the story of the troubled region of the ***** Delta and the events surrounding it.	Digital history
k0641040	Richard Doherty	The Origins of the Great Depression	The project analyzes the great depression. Its main aims are to provide a brief history of the great depression (origins) and analysis on how the different actors (households, firms and governments) in the economic system were affected. Theoretical and intellectual elements will be explored to ensure the reader has enough information to understand the issues which resulted in the great depression, and how it affected different members of society. Click link for detailed description	Global Repository
K0541641	Sandeep Ruthu	1947 India Partition - Eyewitness Accounts	My project invites individuals who personally experienced unique memories in India during the volatile racially influenced 1947 India partition to log their accounts and share them with others from all cultures and backgrounds across the world via my Web site.	Digital History
0520695	Adnan Nawaz	The Pathans A Tribal Journey (Tracing Footsteps)	From across Afghanistan to the North-West Frontier of Pakistan the journey of the Pathans (Pushtuns, Pakhtuns, Pukhtuns) begun where now they are across the world. They are said to be the world's largest patriarchal ethnic group, with an estimated population of 42 million and over 60 major tribes with 400 sub-clans. History dating back for several thousand years, the story of the Pathans is one of great appeal, intertwined with a history of tragedy, courage, love, pride, vengeance, honour, chivalry and innumerable feuds and battles. Since most tribal history was recorded by oral tradition rather than in writing, I aim create a social networking site where users are able to share their stories about their family and friends showing where they have come from and who they are. With videos of tribal stories, songs and dance, written accounts from some of the heroes today, pictures and drawings dating back in time, I feel my project will provide people with the opportunity to not only learn about the Pathans but also create an interactive platform where users can also input to help the site grow to become an online community.	Intangible Heritage & Social Networking
0401209	Duane Wingell	The history of Goa’s exoneration from Portugal; and its Indian Heritage	Goa is the smallest state in India in term of dimensions. It is also the fourth smallest in terms of population. Goa in its self has its own cities and capital, which sets it apart from the rest of India. This influence and heritage came from the struggle between Portugal and India over dominance of this piece of land. On its western course, Goa is surrounded by the Arabian Sea; this played an important part in the Portuguese invasion. Panaji, which is also known as Panjim, is Goa’s capital city. It has direct access to ports and the rail infrastructure. Vasco Da Gama is by far, the largest city and has much influence from the Portuguese. In 1961 this Portuguese territory was exonerated after 450 years under Portuguese rule and finally became part of India. Heritage is an important part of a persons being. I aim to implement a website with information on how the Portuguese invaded Goa, their dominance over the 450 year period, and how Goa finally became part of India. The website will contain imagery on Goa’s history, beaches and information on why each year millions of people have travelled to Goa. With direct access and communication with the curators of the state museum in Goa, I hope to implement a well-informed site that displays enough information and interaction for the user.	Digital Forms of History
K0501260	Natasha Deboo	Zoroastrianism – the legend and history of my heritage	Zoroastrianism is known to be the oldest first religion. Dated back 8,000 B.C. The religion is a founder of Zarathustra in Persia, which nowadays is modern day Iran. It was of the Persian empire, however nowadays numbers have reduced rapidly to 200,000 today. Zoroastrianism has known to be the world’s first monotheistic faith. Also religious historians, like Christian, Jewish and Muslim believe in one God and Satan, heaven and hell, the soul and resurrection – final judgement, these were all derived from Zoroastrianism. I will produce a website that will contain the history of Zoroastrian, how the religion came about. Our prophet Zarathustra. Ahura Mazda (God) meaning wisdom. How we moved from Persia to India. Some of our traditions and culture, food recipes, how we dress, songs, dancing etc… this will include images and some videos. Our three main principles in life, taught by our prophet Zarathustra Good words, good thoughts and Good deeds.	Digital History
K0513862	Erdem Gezer	Hackers, Crackers, Gamers and Noobs	Since the introduction of the computing to both domestic and industrial sectors, there have been many new trends started to appear. Especially in recent years, online gaming has made a big breakthrough in the world of entitlement. The project looks at some snapshots of online gaming and shows how online gaming communities interact with each other. Through this I am aiming to offer advices to parents, schools, and any other institution to help them to visualise what online gaming is all about. Through this approach I am also planning to demonstrate advantages and disadvantages of online gaming across different age groups. The project will take form of short video playbacks of gaming sessions and possible interviews with members of the various gaming groups (clan/gilt members) to represent they view about online gaming and what they achieve out of it.	Digital History, Digital Heritage, Captuing Current Digital Content to form history
K0637979	Chamali Mahanama	UK Sri Lankan Buddhist cultural & digital Heritage	The proposed project is to invite all members of UK Buddhist temples to publish their own digitized collections of images ,photos ,videos,and other archives to the community memory web site .	digital history
K0632231	Kelly Mahillet	Manga History	My project focuses on the history of japanese comic books (also known as Mangas) and their evolvement to manga animated versions. The website will contain the history, links to related sites, an archive and maybe if possible videos and an event calender.	digital history
k0641215	Sophie Burgess	Great Potato Famine.	I am creating a website describing the history of the Great Potato Famine in Ireland. The aim is to show people the history of the Irish, their culture and to explain the effects of the starvation and mass emigration caused by the famine still felt today.	Digital History
K0526157	Emmanuel Yeboah	The Indepence of Ghana	This project looks at the one of the first indepent west african countires. I will be exspresssing in detail of how the country was colonised by the britsh and dating back to the slave trade. This includes the battle of the ashantis and the british. All content will be collected and manged on my wiki website.	Digital history
0509052	Waqas Zafar	The History and Growth of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts)	In the late 1960s to early 1970s the concept of combining the elements of multiple martial arts had was popularized in America by Bruce Lee through his system and philosophy of Jeet Kune Do. Bruce Lee believed that "the best fighter is not a Boxer, Karate or Judo man. The best fighter is someone who can adapt to any style." I will be looking into the history of MMA and how it has evolved into what it has become now. In addition to this, I will be showing all the major stages that have influenced the rapid growth of mixed martial arts and explain why it is currently the fastest growing sport in the world.	Digital History
K0516885	Zaki Danishyar	Culture & Heritage in Hajj	Hajj is based on a pilgrimage which has quite an ancient history as it has been known since 7th century. Hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca (Makkah), which is the largest annual pilgrimage in the world. It is the fifth pillar of Islam, which is an obligation that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able bodied Muslim who are physically well and can afford to do so. My aim is to implement a website that will provide information, images, and videos regarding Hajj for people. This website will help them in various aspects such as, what Hajj is, why do millions of people from around the world go to Hajj, what process do people go through to complete their Hajj and so on. In order to achieve the above-mentioned aim, I will interview a lot of people; who have already been in Hajj, to get pure information from them about Hajj. I will put my full effort to implement this website user-friendly and informative to help people around the world.	Digital History
K0626058	Ayo Agoro	African Image History	The project is to lower the threshold for archives to make the African image collection available via internet. Also to improve the accessibility to historic photographs and archival information so that the general pubilc can be attracted and the multimedia industries stimulated to make use of these resources.	Digital Image History
k0526118	Murtaza Iqbal	British Asians and the Punjabi language	Punjabi is the native language of Punjab-India, the most common language in Pakistan and the prominent language of Sikhs. It is spoken by more than 100 million people across the world and is ranked just outside the top ten languages of the world. According the 2001 UK census, there are 2.33 million British Asians, making up 4% of the UK population. 2006 estimates showed that this figure increased by over 1.2 million. Yet the second generation of British Asians, such as me, find ourselves detaching from our parental cultural background and find it increasingly difficult to include our ancestors native language in to today’s society. My project will enable first generation British Asians to tell their accounts of learning and using Punjabi in day to day life and how language requirements have changed since their childhood. It will also give a chance for young second generation British Asians to talk about how it is to grow up in a Punjabi household and how it could be made easier to preserve the native language.	Digital Heritage
k0416292	Stanley Robertson	The history the Ashanti people in Ghana.	Asante (Ashanti) History Much of the modern nation of Ghana was dominated from the late 17th through the late 19th century by a state known as Asante. Asante was the largest and most powerful of a series of states formed in the forest region of southern Ghana by people known as the Akan. Among the factors leading the Akan to form states, perhaps the most important was that they were rich in gold.	Digital History and Heritage.
0412478	Rima Patel	My family tree and time line history	My project will be exploring my family (parents/ grandparents) history from both sides, and how culture and the hertiege played a huge part whilst growing up. I will also talk about about how it felt for them when they arrived in the western culture from India and Africa in the 1970s. I will also given my own insight as a british born and include photographs of my family A family tree will be included with as much information as i am able to find as now i only have one set of grandparents left so they will help as well as my parents.	Digitial History/Heritage
k0515745	Rita Sandhu	Sikhism over time	Has western modernisation finally taken its toll on Sikh heritage? Are Sikhs’ values fading as they change their distinguishable images to blend in with the rest of society? Over time the number of religious Amritdhari/Khalsa Sikhs appears to have decreased. In today’s society it is more common to find Sahajdhari Sikhs (non-baptized Sikhs). My project will talk about Sikhism and allow people to express their opinions on the religion and interactively contribute to forums discussing important issues facing Sikhism such as the possibility of Amritdhari/Khalsa Sikhs becoming extinct in generations to come.	Digital heritage
K0523796			The aim of the project is to record the memories and experiences of CISM final year students reflecting on how their years in the university has affected their personal development, through an online exhibition comprising of an audio interviews with a combination of still images.	Oral History
K0629257	Daramfon Umoh	Ethnical Inequalities in employment in England
K0627947	Elsa Gaspar
K0510572	Mustafa Iqbal	The Polish Migration to Reading Town	Poland became a member of the European Union in 2004, and its citizens won the freedom to work in Britain. The effect of the above EU membership has triggered a major influx in recent times of Polish people migrating to cities and towns all over the UK. My project is being based solely on the migration of Polish people to Reading, a town based in the U.K.	Digital history,Social Tagging
K0744400	Brandiemary	The war in south-Africa	My project is based on the war and apartheid in south-africa, how it gained independence and how the country has developed	Digital history
K0406585	Edrine Bwambale	The Republic of Uganda And Idi Amin Dada.	My project is about the history of the Republic of Uganda and the times of the late Idi Amin Dada as the 3rd President of Uganda. The website will contain the history information about the life and the dictatorship of the Idi Amin , links to other related web-sites, videos and images and purhapes archives.	Digital History
K0431621	Carolina Reyes	Colombia's Culture & Heritage	I will be sharing the beauties of this country, to show people a bit more about this beautiful country and its culture, Colombia has many things to offer, from its beautiful land to talented people.	Digital Culture & Heritage
K0622045	Moses Sangobiyi	Fables, Folk-tales & Urban legends	This project will be as the title suggests, based around Fables, Folk-tales & Urban legends. As part of our upbringing, many of us were told stories by our elders in order to keep us on the straight and narrow. These range from Aesop's fables to those told in the far lands of Africa. Now I propose to collect as many of these stories as possible in order to create a digital library.	Digital History
K0507854	Mark Cleverley	Waxworks of Famous People	My project is to create a website about one hundred waxworks of famous people from different cultures and backgrounds.	Digital History
K0516559	Ayo Sam-Amoye	Yoruba Culture	The Oyo Empire was one of the Largest states to exist in west Africa, established by the Yoruba; it is widely accepted to come to prominence in the 15th century. Although long diminished as a major state in the region in over the years the main ethnic group have continued to exist in parts of West Africa mostly in southwest Nigeria. My project focus will be on the cultural progression of the Yoruba ethnic group and how well they have settled in the western world.I also intend for the site to accommodate some form of social indexing from the public in terms of were users will be able to share thier experience in cultural transition/integration with western culture.	Digital History & Social Indexing
K0849297	Andrew Pickard	Aboriginal Culture and History	My project will look at the history and the culture of the Aboriginal people of Australia. The site will give an insight of how the indigenous tribes survived in the bush and look at the religions and art works too. What this site will also do is allow backpackers and tourisits to share their experiences and stories of this fascinating culture for others to read and comment on.	Digital History
k0516265	Adam Zand	Zand Family Dynasty	The client for my project will actually be myself and my family as I intend to do a history of the origins and history of my ancestors and such of the famous Iranian Zand family. I myself am of course a member of this family from my father’s side but I will be focusing on the much early generation of my family from around the 18th century when the Zand Dynasty ruled and controlled all of Iran.	Digital History
0405437	Vimal Solanki	How American culture has influenced the youth in the UK	The American culture at various time periods has had a substantial impact on the young generation today. There are numerous aspects that has influenced the youth from music, clothes to gangs etc. This project will enable users to gain information on the various topics and get their views and experiences across.	Digital History
0523496	Kazeem Bakare	Music of Nigerian Culture	My project will be a system that depicts the culture and heritage of Nigerian music. The proposed system will show information on this musical heritage using different methods. This will include personal interviews via sound and video clips which will be very effective in giving users of the system a great insight into the music culture.	Digital History, Digital Heritage
0301315	Heena Patel	Hinduism and the Ongoing Controversy	Hinduism is one of the oldest religions in the world. Dated 3000 BCE, it is a blend of ancient legends, beliefs and customs which has adapted, blended with and spawned numerous creeds and practices. Even though Hinduism originated solely in India there is still ongoing controversy over which version of Hinduism is the correct one.	Digital History
K0625253	Anil Hirani	Me, Myself and I as a Museum	The aim is to build an accurate online portrayal or an exhibition of the client (myself), so that future generations can have an insight of my life, experiences and opinions. This will be done by encapsulating the past, present and even hopes and aspirations, evidencing how it all shapes and forms my life and the impact of society and how I live.	Digital History, Digital Heritage
K0615872	Harran Kumarason	Conflict In Sri Lanka	The project aims to bring understanding towards the reasoning, intent and justification from both sides (Sinhalese and Tamil) who are contesting in the ongoing conflict of civil war in Sri Lanka.	Digital History, Digital Heritage
0541636	Laxman Shah	London couch surfing experience	The aim of this project to create a social networking site for London couch surfing community to share and express their experience of traveling and events through pictures, videos, blogs, forum etc.	Social networking
K0525764	Olawole Akinkugbe	History of 3D imagery and films in Art	The aim of my project is to research into the history and gather information about the history of 3D imagery in art. And by using technology I shall build an archive to aid people to understand how 3D imagery and Film changes the way we look at art & pictures.	Digital History, Digital Heritage
K0618725	Samuel Ketter	Journey through Black History	Virtual museum exhibition of Black History	Digital, Virtual History

Exhibitions and events

cshutchison — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:16:29 CDT

Our History In Our Hands

Museum of London Docklands, No. 1 Warehouse, West India Quay, Hertsmere Road, London, E14 4AL

------------------

Bobby Baker's Diary Drawings

Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK. 19 March-2 August 2009

"Bobby Baker is one of the most widely acclaimed and popular performance artists working today. She began her diary drawings in 1997 when she became a patient at a day centre. Originally private, they gradually became a way for her to communicate complex thoughts and emotions that are difficult to articulate to her family, friends and professionals."» http://www.wellcomecollection.org/exhibitionsandevents/exhibitions/Bobby-Bakers-Diary-Drawings/index.htm

------------------

Living Ancestors

The artist may be contacted by email at: livingancestors@gmail.com

-------------------------

Mick Jones: The Rock & Roll Public Library

Chelsea College of Art and Design, 16 John Islip Street, London SW1P 4JU. 18th March-18th April 2009.
"Mick Jones, iconic guitarist and songwriter with The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite, and Carbon Silicon, has amassed an impressive collection of the paraphernalia of performance and marketing materials of the bands he has worked with. This archive sits alongside a parallel general collection of books, magazines, videos, ephemera, toys and games which mark out his life, times, and influences. In his west London recording studio and adjoining store, customised stage clothes, instruments, flight cases, records, amplifiers and recording gear, posters, books, boxes of correspondence, photographs and song lyrics, etc all vie for attention in a kind of Aladdin’s cave of popular culture.
In this exhibition, as much of the contents of his west London archive as possible will be transported lock, stock, and barrel to CHELSEA space. The installation of this material will create a remarkable visual spectacle that raises questions about the act of collecting and offers some small insight into the influences and interests of a musician and cultural icon.
For Mick Jones, this will represent a first attempt to unpack, look at, and think about a small proportion of the mass of material he has accumulated and decide what to do next. He envisages this collection one day becoming a freely available resource – a 'Rock & Roll Public Library'."
» http://chelseaspace.org/archive/jones-pr.html

-----------------------

ASAUK and Museum of London: Workshop on African Images

Museum of London Docklands, Saturday 25 April 2009.
"The African Studies Association of the United Kingdom is exploring a closer relationship with the Museum of London. The Museum is keen to reach new audiences and to reflect, in its programme and displays, London’s cultural diversity. One example is the new gallery at the Museum of London Docklands on London, Sugar and Slavery.
We are planning a joint workshop that may contribute ideas, in the longer term, towards a museum programme and exhibition. The workshop is aimed at bringing together some of the academic work on the history of photography and image making in Africa and beyond. We are interested in discussion of photographs and images produced by and of African people and those of African heritage. We hope to attract papers and presentations that discuss the work of particular photographers, which analyse iconic images of African people, and which explore diverse elements of fame, dress, style and beauty.
We are particularly interested in the way that people present themselves to the camera: what they emphasise in different places and different eras. We are also interested in the way that contemporary popular media presents people of African heritage especially to young audiences and the Museum is keen to establish programmes that are relevant to and encourage participation from young people. There is a considerable body of work especially on the history of African portrait photography, as well as books on exhibitions, photographers and film-makers.
At this stage, the Museum would like to get a better grasp of the range of subjects being discussed and the key themes that are emerging. We are seeking short presentations that illustrate diverse themes. A few ideas have come up in preliminary discussion, but it is not our intention to restrict coverage to these: ethnographic images and their representations of dress and beauty; iconic images of political leaders – e.g. a history of images of Mandela; images of African sportsmen and women; work on specific photographers from the celebrated to those as yet undiscovered; discussion of exhibitions that have taken place; debates on black models and representations of them, for example the recent edition of Italian Vogue magazine that featured all black models; cross-cultural representations and understandings of beauty."

-------------------------

Art of Intervention: Critical Perspectives on Private and Public Memory

International Colloquium, Kingston University-Kyoto Seika University
The Stanley Picker Gallery, Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture, Knights Park Campus, Kingston University, London. Saturday 14 February 2009 12.30-5.30pm
"The Art of Intervention project brings together a critical mass of multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary researchers in the arts and humanities from the UK and Japan to explore the intersections of private and public memory in the articulation of shifting national and transnational identities through the study of contemporary performative art practices. These encompass two specific forms of interconnected interventionist projects:
(i) The performances and writings of the Kyoto-based collective Dumb Type S/N that explored the tensions between private and public memory through the body and sexuality;
(ii) The ongoing work of contemporary performance artists that focus on the questions of national and transnational identity, ethnicity and gender.
This is the 2nd International event building upon the Kyoto Symposium held in January 2009 which attracted over 350 participants: former S/N Dumb Type members including Bubu de la Madelaine, curators, artists, activists, and writers and thinkers from a variety of disciplines."

---------------

Memory Factory 2009

Coleman Project Space, 94 Webster Road, SE16 4DF, 23rd January – 8th February 2009
"A free exhibition reflecting on life and work at the Peek Frean Biscuit Factory in Bermondsey on the twentieth anniversary of its closure.
Peek Frean biscuit factory returns to Bermondsey as Memory Factory 2009, with three weeks of free events, a new film and a free booklet to take away, featuring old photographs and the memories of former Peek Frean workers.
Memory Factory 2009 builds on previous projects relating to the Peek Frean biscuit factory situated in Bermondsey. In 2004, Coleman Project Space together with msdm (artist Paula Roush) held the first Memory Factory running a number of tea salons inviting former workers, their relatives and members of the public to meet in the gallery to reminiscence and share their stories about work and life at Peek Frean. Later in 2004, Paula Roush staged SOS: OK an emergency food relief operation, consisting of distributing emergency biscuits recreating memories around real life provision from Peek Frean the first ever food relief to the starving people of the siege of Paris 1874. In 2006, Coleman Project Space presented Memory Factory 2006, on the anniversary of the famous Cricks and Martin film of 1906 again inviting former employees to share memories and view the new digitally re-mastered films Biscuit Town & Old Ways New Ways by Sands Films.
Peek Frean operated in Bermondsey from 1867 to 1989, the factory played an important role in forming the economic and social climate: the factory was one of the largest employers in Southwark, at its peak 4000s people worked there. Families worked at Peek Frean for several generations, they met spouses and friends in the factory. The area surrounding the factory was fondly referred to as Biscuit Town, as mainly Peek Frean workers lived there. Biscuit Town is often remembered as a place with a unique social and communal atmosphere, where values of kindness, helpfulness and safety mattered.
Memory Factory 2009 captures memories associated with Peek Frean told by former workers at the tea salon events in 2004 and 2006. Memories connect the past to the present, the collection of memories and oral histories creates a platform for intergenerational communication, exchange and learning."
» http://colemanprojects.org.uk

---------------

African Caribbean Treasures: Caring for our Heritage

Museum of London in Docklands, West India Quay, E14 4AL, Saturday 15th November, 1:30-5:30pm
"Do you have family objects - eg photographs, textiles - that tell the story of your family's cultural and historical background? Bring your family treasures into the Museum to find out how to care for them and discuss their importance with our panel of conservators and historians. ...
You are invited to attend this event and to pass on to friends, family and
colleagues, who may have African Caribbean - related historic photographs and
objects in their homes that they may want to bring along, talk about and
possibly find out more about."

» http://www.museumindocklands.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/events/eventDetails.htm?eventID=1828

Laxman Shah Poster

laxku — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:45:31 CDT

Laxman Shah

laxku — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:30:11 CDT

Executive summary:

Couchsurfing International (www.Couchsurfing.com) is a non-profit, hospitality exchange network devoted to the worldwide community. It was created so that everyone could travel the world and share, participate in culture exchange. Its mission is to bring whole world together by internationally networking people and places, help understand cultural knowledge, raise awareness, create educational exchanges, spread acceptance and open-mindedness. It was officially launched on 1st of January 2004 and currently has over one million members in two hundred and thirty countries.
Registered member manage contacts and offer home space known as couch on the website when requested by the other network member around the world. Website allows user to fill in the detail profile and use recommendation from other members known as reference, vouching along with three level of security confirmation as of locking name, address and credit card verification system to boost security and trust between members. Members have option of suggesting couch availability by adding the status of either definitely, yes, currently travelling or meet for coffee to show their surrounding around or attend or organise events with other network members.

Following are its activity:-
1) It allows people (the members-surfers) to travel and request for accommodation (couch) with host registered in different countries.
2) It allows travellers to meet up with registered locals and know more about the place and culture.
3) It allows members to create different meetings, events where people can interact by getting together.
4) It has the feature of discussion group, meetings and chats where likeminded member can interact with other members.
5) The extensive profile allows to users to add pictures, links, add friends, send emails.
6) Members can write personal reference to other known members when they had interaction while surfing, meetings which others can view.

Brief Synopsis of the project undertaken

CSINSPIRE.COM
This will be a social networking and culture sharing website. The original idea has developed from the Couchsurfing website for the London couch surfing members, who would like share with the rest of the world unique and wonderful things they have seen and experienced during their travelling experience. It is just not about travel experience but celebration and sharing of culture, people, language, places etc. The website will have different pages categorised under:-
Members: This will be basic page where members give basic information about themselves. Members are able to social network with other member. The signup members would have essential administrative rights.
Members Experience: Under this page the member can share their travelling experience, agenda, and add videos, pictures and tag other members.
Events: Under this page, the videos, pictures regarding particular events can be uploaded for the other members viewing and information.
Blogs/Wikis: There will be blogs where users would be able to share, ask, comment or inform about their exciting culture experiences they have experienced.
Forum: Forums will be used to create a discussion page for the members to discuss about particular events or submit their question.
Pictures: User would be able to upload pictures and put them in category like cultural, unique, people, religion, place etc. Other users would be able to tag this picture, give the rating, comment on the picture after they have logged in or registered.
Videos: - User would be able to upload videos of cultural experiences under different section again categorised by title and their related field..
Instead of using Flickers and You tube to share the pictures and videos, the London Couchsurfing community and the other travellers could use this site to upload their content to share with the world. Detail about this site will be informed through different London groups on the Couchsurfing website.

The theoretical or intellectual issues addressed in the project

For this project purpose I will be creating this website using content management system – Joomla. Joomla would be an excellent platform as it is open source and will not require any expenses apart from hosting. It has a large user base and thus is heavily supported. Solution to the problem can be asked in forum and in case of solution unavailability it can be outsourced commercially still cheap and other resources. It has loads of extension. Extensions are program created by third parties that extend the functionality of Joomla e.g. membership sites or shopping cart etc. It is secure and by updating regularly and paying special attention to extension installed it is a secure content management system which makes updating website effortless.
Due to vast amount of texts which will be written on blogs and Forum and pictures and videos which will be uploaded for the events- for content suitability, copyrights sensitivity a moderator will be chosen. There are numerous moderators in couch surfing who do this task as a volunteer. Once the content is approved the users will be able to add and upload and share it with other members.
The moderator would also supervise that there is no data duplication of pictures and videos that are uploaded by different members. For the later stage when this would develop into bigger project which would involve good numbers of members as a frequent user, volunteer who have web designing skills will be asked in the maintenance and improvement of the website. This is so that it can be developed into simple and effective website using the concept of web 2.0.

Reference:

www.couchsurfing.com (Accessed on 22nd March 2009)
www.ning.com (Accessed on 22nd March 2009)

Culture & Heritage Informatics - Recently Updated Pages

Blog

14th November 2009

Heritage & the Web

Contents

:: Heritage & the Web: a history ::

:: Libraries and Archives ::

General

Books and literature

Audio and music archives

Video archives of public history and public records

:: Museums on the web: contemporary examples, innovative exhibitions, and models of good practice ::

:: Museums on the web: Design issues ::

:: End-user oriented web applications ::

:: Museum 2.0 ::

Software

:: Free, open source, and non-commercial software ::

Software for museums, libraries and archives.

Information extraction / 'scraping' from the non-API web (NAW)

Free and open source software for content creation & digitisation

[just notes--please ignore]

Making History

History on the Web: some examples

Readings

Software

Assessment

:: Assessment strategy ::

:: Projects and groups ::

"Am I obliged to work in a group?"

"Why do you sometimes refer to 'groups' and sometimes 'teams'?"

"So why work in groups if the group itself is not assessed?"

Choosing your project

:: Major components of assessment ::

:: Explanatory & supplementary notes on assessment requirements ::

More detailed notes on 1-7 above

General points

Before you submit ... a checklist ...

:: Achieving a Pass ::

Course feedback

Course feedback 2009

Course feedback 2008

Blogs, wikis & fora

:: Blogs, wikis, and fora ::

Courses & research

:: University courses and research centres ::

Museum101: A course in Culture & Heritage Informatics

Welcome to your Culture & Heritage Informatics wiki

Background and context

The 'Heritage Industry'

Heritage Informatics

A brief note on your projects

Case study: The Digitization of Africa

Case study: the Digitization of Africa

References and further reading

Supplementary and background reading

Web

Popular culture and community memory

Introduction and Overview: Oral history, popular culture, and community memory

Oral history

Examples of 'popular history' and oral histories.

Ephemera

Intangible heritage

Further resources and readings:

Popular histories in education

Innovative projects

:: Innovative research and development projects ::

0

Individual project list 2009

Exhibitions and events

Our History In Our Hands

Bobby Baker's Diary Drawings

Living Ancestors

Mick Jones: The Rock & Roll Public Library

ASAUK and Museum of London: Workshop on African Images

Art of Intervention: Critical Perspectives on Private and Public Memory

Memory Factory 2009

African Caribbean Treasures: Caring for our Heritage

Laxman Shah Poster

Laxman Shah