public history in the digital age - claudine chionh

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Public history in the digital age Claudine Chionh University of Melbourne linux.conf.au, January 2009

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AUTHOR: CLAUDINE CHIONH Public history is a field that seeks to return the study and interpretation of history to the wider community. While 'professional' historians with academic training may be involved, public history is largely focused on and driven by 'amateurs' – genealogists, local history societies and others who collect and collate sources and interpret and present them for a general audience. The increased use of the internet in recent years has created new opportunities for opening up sources and archives to the world, and for collaboration and public presentation of historical research. In this presentation I will describe two projects that aim to collect and publish historical sources on the web and to work with local and family historians to maintain these as dynamic historical resources.

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Page 1: Public history in the digital age - Claudine Chionh

Public history in the digital age

Claudine Chionh

University of Melbourne

linux.conf.au, January 2009

Page 2: Public history in the digital age - Claudine Chionh

This talk

◮ Founders and Survivors: Transportation to Van Diemen’s Land

◮ Goulburn Valley local history

Page 3: Public history in the digital age - Claudine Chionh

‘Professional’ and ‘amateur’ historians

Page 4: Public history in the digital age - Claudine Chionh

Founders and Survivors

http://www.foundersandsurvivors.org/

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Archival sources

Page 6: Public history in the digital age - Claudine Chionh

Extending the archive

Page 7: Public history in the digital age - Claudine Chionh

Goulburn Valley local history

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WikiNorthia

Collaborative history of Melbourne’s northern suburbs

http://www.wikinorthia.net.au/

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Why MediaWiki?

◮ Success of Wikipedia

◮ API

◮ Extensibility

Page 10: Public history in the digital age - Claudine Chionh

Culture

◮ No matter how simple something looks, someone will find it

difficult

◮ Fear of new technology

◮ Lack of awareness of privacy and copyright issues

◮ Role of public libraries

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Gedcom

0 @I1@ INDI

1 NAME Bob /Cox/

1 SEX M

1 FAMS @F1@

Convert to SQL or XML?

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Ownership

◮ Who owns collections?

◮ Who owns historical interpretations?

◮ Who reads the fine print anyway?

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Contact

[email protected]

Photo credits

◮ Goulburn River

http://www.flickr.com/photos/outbj/241042582/