Category Archives: Annual Conference

Wave of the future or budget cut tsunami? Evaluating technical conference solutions

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What do you do when suddenly your panel goes from six people to two? When the U.S. government sequester and tightened institutional budgets mean that your carefully crafted slate of experts can’t make the trip to Ottawa to present in person? This is exactly the situation in which Adina Langer and I found ourselves, mere weeks before this year’s NCPH conference. We had been planning our panel, on the ways that different sites present stories of September 11th, since before the call for proposals last July. We had recruited panelists from the National 9/11 Memorial Museum, the Pentagon Memorial, and the Flight 93 Memorial Park. We had discussed and planned and collaborated.

A screenshot of the Google Hangout interface, courtesy of Adina Langer

A screenshot of the Google Hangout interface, courtesy of Adina Langer

And then…one by one, our panelists began breaking the bad news. They couldn’t make the trip. What to do? Everyone was still excited to talk about their work and their audiences, but we couldn’t fund them to get to Canada. Adina and I decided to turn to some of the same technology that had allowed us to collaborate on planning the panel in the first place, and see if we could make the show still go on. Continue reading →

The telephonic heart: A “machine autopsy” in Ottawa

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allen ginsberg poem on iphoneThis spring, I’ve been teaching an urban anthropology class at Tufts University. In the class session before I left for the National Council on Public History conference, we talked about how digital technologies have become ever more interwoven with urban experience. The session before that was on sites of urban violence and memorialization. Although the course has a global focus, I frequently use Boston as a case study, since that’s where we are. We talked about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 and the Cocoanut Grove Fire of 1942 and—because Marathon Weekend was coming up—about how people interact digitally with urban spectacles, including sports, and how the layers of memory embedded in iconic places and sports events filter into our contemporary uses and understandings of them.

Then I went to Ottawa for the conference and, like many people there, ended up fixated on something between a disaster movie and a cops-and-robbers drama unfolding at a distance, mostly via my Facebook feed on my iPhone. Mobile phones were not only a way to keep up with the story of the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath, but part and parcel of the story itself, with spectators’ cell-phone photos and video circulating virally once the suspects in the bombing were pinpointed. Throughout the day when much of the city was on “lockdown,” I was receiving text alerts from Tufts telling me how to “shelter in place.” Everything we’d been covering in my class was playing out on my phone’s tiny screen almost simultaneously with the actual events in Boston.

So there was a lot to talk about when I went back to class the following Monday. And all of it made Vittorio Marchis’ dissection of a telephone at the conference particularly fascinating for me. Continue reading →

NCPH News and conference updates April 25, 2013 – Conference recap

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NEWS

NCPH CONFERENCE RECAP

  • Beginning to make a DIF. Digital media reverberated throughout the NCPH meeting in Ottawa and will play a bigger role next year. We announced a Digital Integration Fund (DIF) during the conference and are asking for your support.  Help us make a DIF!  The fund will support the creation of a lively central gathering-place for practitioners, scholars, and their many publics and expand the possibilities for peer review. http://bit.ly/Y4dBID
  • Refreshed. Reinvigorated. Connected. Challenged. These are some of the buzz words we are hearing from participants in the 2013 NCPH conference in Ottawa, “Knowing Your Public(s).” Thank you to every one of the 537 colleagues who attended the event and for cultivating a conference focused on meaningful conversations, interactivity, and collaboration.
  • Tweets and More from Ottawa. For a recap of the conference excitement, check out @mlundrig’s Storify archive of #NCPH2013 tweets at http://bit.ly/11JcABk
  • Check out the NCPH Flickr page for photos from the meeting.  Check back as we’ll continue to add more. We encourage you to share your own images from the conference on the NCPH Facebook page or by tweeting using the #NCPH2013 hashtag.
  • For conference coverage by Joel Ralph of Canada’s History click here.
  • Most Importantly… We also want to thank all the members of the Host and Program Committees, the speakers, and the many volunteers who made this conference possible. For more information, see http://ncph.org/cms/conferences/2013-annual-meeting/.
  • Fired Up about the Annual Meeting or the Field?  Suggest good people for next year’s NCPH election slate.

2013 Lightning Talks

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London Works exhibit photoThere actually was a thunderstorm with lightning on Thursday night in Ottawa–it’s been an unsettled spring here, as in much of the northeast.  The lightning on Friday, though, came in the form of a set of quick presentations at the NCPH conference on recent and emerging digital public history projects.  This year’s “Lightning Talk” projects included:

Lightning Talks and Digital Drop-In today

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Join us for two digital-public-history events today at the NCPH conference:

Lightning Talks (12:30-1:30 p.m.) – An informal brown-bag lunch session in the Frontenac Room where you can showcase your own digital project and hear what’s new and exciting in the digital humanities. At this brown-bag lunchtime session, presenters will each have two to three minutes to describe their projects. At least twentyspaces will be available on a first-come, first serve basis. Advance sign-up suggested but not required; you can sign up at the registration desk this morning.

Digital Drop-In (5-6:45 p.m.) – Stuck on a digital project?  Looking for some general advice on how to make your digital idea a reality?  At NCPH’s version of the “genius bar,” experienced digital public historians (see list below) will be available to help you with questions about project development and management; audio and visual media; specific platforms like WordPress and Omeka; mapping; social media; user-generated content; and more.  Drop in for quick, targeted advice on your way to the poster session or consultants’ reception.  Remember, there are no stupid questions!

Digital Drop-In Advisors:

  • Devon Elliott, Western University
  • Mary Larson, Oklahoma State University
  • Diana Lempel, Harvard University
  • Josh Macfadyen, Western University
  • Caroline Muglia, U.S. Library of Congress
  • Jon Berndt Olsen, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
  • Joel Ralph, Canada’s History
  • Ron Rudin, Concordia University
  • Will Tchakarides, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee
  • Mark Tebeau, Cleveland State University

3D printers and tweeting lobsters: NCPH 2013 is underway

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The public history twitterverse is an ever-livelier place, to the point that the relative absence of public historians (as at this year’s Organization of American Historians conference, held jointly with the National Council on Public History last spring but separately this year) correlates to a sharp decline in social media traffic, as David Austin Walsh reported last week.

For those not following the Twitter feed for #ncph2013, here’s a quick selection of tweeted thoughts from the first day, which featured a number of workshops and working groups and the third THATCamp NCPH.  Even from afar, it’s pretty easy to tell that Devon Elliott’s 3D printer was the star of the day! Continue reading →

Conference P(review) #4: Canadian War Museum

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Editor’s note: In preparation for the upcoming NCPH conference in Ottawa, The Public Historian has commissioned a series of Ottawa site reviews, as it does annually for sites in our conference city.  These “(p)reviews,” as we’re dubbing them, will inaugurate what we hope will be a growing partnership between The Public Historian and the Public History Commons.  Further online post-conference reviews will follow later this spring;  we invite readers to comment on these posts as they appear.

Canadian War Museum, 1 Vimy Pl, Ottawa. Tim Cook, Acting Director of Research; Andrew Burtch Curator of “Eleven Women Facing War” and “Khandahar: the Fighting Season;” Peter MacLeod, Curator, Pre-Confederation Canada. Open weekdays between 9 A.M. and 5 P.M., and Thursdays until 8 P.M. Free admission after 4 P.M.

Just a short walk from the Delta Hotel in Ottawa, the Canadian War Museum offers conference attendees an opportunity to see award-winning architecture and experience two photographic exhibits (one open until April 21), in addition to the museum’s expansive exhibits on war and conflict from a Canadian perspective. Visitors can easily spend four or more hours touring the galleries. Below are a few of the highlights that may be of interest to NCPH members.

The Canadian War Museum stands out on the barren land of LeBretton Flats, once covered with a thriving working-class neighborhood, felled by “urban renewal.” Now, nearly forty years later, mixed-used development is beginning to fill in the space. (Photo courtesy of Jo McCutcheon.)

The Canadian War Museum stands out on the barren land of LeBretton Flats, once covered with a thriving working-class neighborhood, felled by “urban renewal.” Now, nearly forty years later, mixed-used development is beginning to fill in the space. (Photo courtesy of Jo McCutcheon.)

The Canadian War museum moved from its earlier home in the former Archives building to a new purpose-built facility in 2005.[1] The new museum building is a stunning piece of art designed to push visitors to consider the grim reality and devastating consequences of war. Architect Raymond Moriyama is himself a casualty of conflict; at the age of twelve his family was interned in the interior mountains of British Columbia for several years, along with other Japanese-Canadians living on the country’s west coast. He told Maclean’s magazine in 2005 that his design for the war museum began with a sketch of the tree house he built as a boy in that internment camp. The tree house was both a refuge and a place of contemplation and regeneration during a time of conflict, and Moriyama wanted to bring these elements to the design of the War Museum.[2] The building’s low profile resembles a hideout or bunker, while the tall fin rising at the east end is reminiscent of the prow of a ship (the small windows on it spell out “Lest We Forget” in Morse code). Most of the building’s windows are on the east side, facing the sunrise – a symbol of hope – in keeping with Moriyama’s theme of regeneration. Inside, the low ceiling in the entrance hall, combined with the slanted and stark concrete walls, create a slightly claustrophobic and disorienting feeling. This is a building designed to make visitors slightly uncomfortable even before they get to the exhibit galleries. Continue reading →

Conference (P)review #3: Vodou at the Canadian Museum of Civilization

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Editor’s note: In preparation for the upcoming NCPH conference in Ottawa, The Public Historian has commissioned a series of Ottawa site reviews, as it does annually for sites in our conference city.  These “(p)reviews,” as we’re dubbing them, will inaugurate what we hope will be a growing partnership between The Public Historian and the Public History Commons.  Further online post-conference reviews will follow later this spring;  we invite readers to comment on these posts as they appear.

Vodou.  Dr. Mauro Peressini, Ravel Beaucoir-Dominique, and Didier Dominque; Curators.  The Canadian Museum of Civilization.  November 15, 2012 –February 23, 2014

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Rèn Kongo (Queen of the Congo)
Concrete
This representation of Rèn Kongo is rich in symbols. The lwa bears the word “Guinée” (Guinea) on her right breast, a reference to a mythical ancestral Africa. Her left breast has been cut off, like that of an Amazon. Rèn Kongo is portrayed as a female warrior holding a machete, evoking the female cavalry and infantry units of the Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin). The children at her feet represent the human race, over which she reigns.
© MCC/ CMC, Frank Wimart

On the bank of the Ottawa River directly across from the Parliament of Canada sits the Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC)—soon to become the Canadian Museum of History.  Representing the nation’s social, cultural, and community history, it is Canada’s largest and most popular cultural institution.[1] While many of the permanent galleries and exhibitions are undergoing renovation, the collaborative Vodou exhibit will be the one permanent feature open to the public for the coming year.  Produced in collaboration with Haitian and Montreal diaspora communities, the Musée d’ethnographie de Geneve, the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, and the Fondation pour la presentation, la valorisation, et la production d’oeuvres culturelles haïtiennes (FPVPOCH), this exhibit makes use of Marianne Lehmann’s extensive private collection of Vodou artifacts to re-interpret Haitian Vodou history, beliefs, and culture to a contemporary Canadian audience.[2] Continue reading →

Conference (P)review #2: The Diefenbunker

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Editor’s note: In preparation for the upcoming NCPH conference in Ottawa, The Public Historian has commissioned a series of Ottawa site reviews, as it does annually for sites in our conference city.  These “(p)reviews,” as we’re dubbing them, will inaugurate what we hope will be a growing partnership between The Public Historian and the Public History Commons.  Further online post-conference reviews will follow later this spring;  we invite readers to comment on these posts as they appear.

The Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum. HENRIETTE RIEGEL, Executive Director.

There is an aura of kitsch about the Diefenbunker, from the cutesy pun of its name, to the ubiquitous sea foam green shade of its unmistakably 1960s décor. As your tour guide will tell you, the brief warning period ushered in by the advent of ground-based nuclear missiles meant that the bunker was somewhat obsolete by the time construction finished, lending a contrasting absurdity to the awe of its labyrinthine massiveness. Nevertheless, the space evokes some of the most deeply-felt realities of the Cold War, and the sheer terror of nuclear conflict. Located at the edge of Carp, a reasonable drive from downtown Ottawa—although probably not reasonable enough to outpace the aforementioned missiles—Canada’s Cold War Museum opened to the public in 1998. Initially a solely volunteer operation, the site now has full-time staff members and follows a mandate to “increase throughout Canada and the world, interest in and a critical understanding of the Cold War.”[1]  Continue reading →

NCPH News and conference updates April 10, 2013 – New feature of the public history journal of record

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NEWS

  • New Online Feature of the Public History Journal of Record.  These “(p)reviews,” as we’re dubbing them, will inaugurate what we hope will be a growing partnership between The Public Historian and the Public History Commons.
  • New Opposition to Old Sports Mascots.  Jim Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, points out how “Otherizing other people by naming teams ‘for’ them does not help…nor does ‘honoring’ American Indians as mascots help us remember American Indian history as it was.”
  • Anger Over Plan to Sell Site of Wounded Knee Massacre.  New York Times story.

NCPH CONFERENCE UPDATES

  • Last-minute NCPH Conference Rides and Roommates. Attending the NCPH conference in Ottawa next week and still in search of a ride-share or roommate? Visit the Public History Commons News section to post a request.
  • Winners of the 2013 NCPH Youtube Video Contest Have Been Chosen!  Join us at Saturday morning’s Awards Breakfast and Business meeting to find out who they are!  A limited number of tickets will be available onsite for the breakfast if you haven’t made your purchase yet.
  • Wikipedia and Women’s History Site: A Mini-Editathon  Join the National Collaborative of Women’s History Sites during the NCPH in Ottawa (Friday, 1:30-3pm, Seigniory Room) to explore the possibility of a Wikipedia edit-athon on women’s history sites.  Drop in and learn what editing involves, suggest edits, and otherwise connect to what we hope will be a larger effort to improve women’s history on Wikipedia.
  • A Roaming We Will Go.  If you’re traveling from outside Canada, don’t forget to check with your cell/smartphone carrier about temporarily upgrading your plan to cover your roaming charges.
  • Ottawa’s Coolest Indie Food Guide. Do yourself a flavour and check out these delicious photos and fun restaurant suggestions.

JOBS

Searching for or posting a public history job or internship on the NCPH website is free!

You can support digital public history initiatives at NCPH with a donation.