I recently discussed one approach to an open platform for the preservation of local history at Barcamp Boston 5– slides here: http://www.readwritehistory.com/2010/04/19/the-future-of-history/–and am interested in connecting with Eli and others who share this same interest.

Lee Wright

Citylore “curates” place based features from their own fieldwork and partners as well. The whole is polished and heavily produced but also accessible for both the casual visitor and, apparently, the contributor. The project features consolidation–bringing lots of disparate people and stories together in one place but it also has the potential to feature contributions from many partners. I’m curious how, and to what extent, we can produce something similar using opensource tools rather than a one off digital production. And how that production can have the quality of inviting social network gathering places. We are close to the point where enhanced cell phones will call up place based stories like these from the Web. But as much as you can access information in fragments by location, I’m curious how you can make the information accessible both by location and make the site a place to share, interact, enjoy, learn.

Though larger museums are great at promoting anniversaries, exhibitions, and strategic material releases, smaller projects seem to update intermittenly. I am not sure I know enough about smaller museums and archives, but it seems like exhibition strategies play a large part in attracting people to the physical space. I image most of those visitors will not return to research in the permanent collections. A digital permanent collection is easier to access when someone is attracted by an exhibit, and of course easier to comment on and add to.

I have never been a fan of history weeks or months. I would like everyday to be history day, but I think for getting people interested in place, lor objects, dates can be of particular use. I wouldn’t want to further consolidate the limits that time-periods put on understanding places. Could my old home town of Richmond ever be thought of as a post-war town given the abundance Civil War statues and markers all? Still, in some of my more utopian moments, I image a Digital Humanities pledge week, where all of the social media and google news links lead everyone who searches historical places, or times, subscribe to blogs, etc., to a mammoth network, where national and local content can reinforce each other. Did I just make an argument for media consolidation? This needs more work, but thatcamp time is running out. Looking forward to talking about this.