History 2.0 Remaking the Study and Preservation ofHistory Using Collaborative Web-based Tools

Lee Wrightlee@leewright.net@leewright

Presented at BarCamp Boston 5 at MIT on April 17, 2010

Goals today• The problem• Current approaches and why they are inadequate• Requirements for a successful system• Creating a scalable, lasting solution

Q: Why can’t I add this to the historic property report on our house?

[The invitation shown on the previous slide is to a barn warming party. Our house (c1780) was once part of a 100 acre farm and in 1918, due to an accident, the barn and many of the out buildings burned down. The party celebrated the new barn.]

[The entire official historic property survey write-up on our house is on the right. It’s two pages drafted in 1995. The items on the left are just a few of the many that we would like to add, including a current photo and a photo from the early 1900s, the article to the barn warming and the newspaper write-up afterword, and picture of George Carpenter, who grew up in the house and who came by unexpectedly one day and gave us these and several other photos. Note that our house isn’t special, just old, but this illustrates the gap between “official records” and the much richer local history that’s out there to be collected and shared.]

State• Maintain control• No motivation to evolve faster

Local• 1000 historical societies in New England• Most are all-volunteer• Very few resources• No tech resources• Core older volunteers are . . .

Major private institutions• Collection-centric approach• Maintain control• Museum science/library science approach• Control = status

Federal• Slow No incentives• Few good models• Grants—behind the curve

Solutions?• Local: Antiquated software• Larger: Omeka collection-centric• Reinforce old models

Dublin Core metadata Nomenclature:

“Buy the book” and “by the book”

Requirements• Open• Web-centric• Built with existing technologies, standards• No technical skills to use• Works with current staff (volunteer) and process model• No new hardware or software• Cheap—or free

Vision• Hosted platform for sharing and writing about historical artifacts and local history• Anyone can add text or images, comments, links, tags• Taps into any existing databases• Serves as a collection management system for institutions• A set of pages can be skinned to create an institution’s official document/site

Advantages• Every institution, individual can use• Crosses institutional and political (city/state/region) boundaries• Distributed scanning, uploading• Taps into global community to identify, provide context, contribute

Advantages• No longer have to surrender control of an item to contribute it to local history • Provides a way for a community to preserve and keep current their history

The imperative• Items are turning to dust in boxes• Aged volunteers who are best able to provide context are dying• Unlikely to reverse underlying trends• Unlikely to marshal sufficient resources for traditional approach• New approach is unlikely to be created from current industry players

Our choice• The perfect professional approach, which will only save a small fraction • Or, preservation using new technologies and a new model in order to preserve much more• If there are ever resources, better scans and traditional metadata can be added later

Contact• lee@leewright.net• @leewright

Updated January 2012:

New initiative: www.TheHistoryList.com

Platform for connecting people interested in history with history-related happenings in their communities and across the country.