Living History: Holy Walk

Last week I attended the Bruce Mines "Holy Walk."  The idea behind the event is to tell a non-denominational version of the Christian Christmas story in an interactive way.   Participants are taken on a walk from Nazareth to Jerusalem and experience the sights and sounds of the era during the walk.

The Holy Walk has been going on for almost 20 years and is put together by local volunteers.  Over 150 volunteers take part in the three day performance of the event and work to make the Walk a unique experience. This year's event drew over 2,000 people and raised over $10,000. 

The Walk experience was like being in the middle of a living interactive history.  There were live animals, character actors, and period structures.  Following the Walk I began to consider the potential of using a Walk to depict other historical journeys and events.  Perhaps using a Walk to explore the settlement of early pioneers, the journey of Lewis and Clark, or wartime events.

Have you ever participated in a similar Walk?  

Photo Credit: Tom Keenan, Sault Star

December Reading

As the month of December approaches so does long hours spent driving to visit family.  Luckily, more often than not I am passenger on these trips and I tend to use the time to get some reading done. Books on my current reading list include:

Unsettling the Settler Within by Paulette Regan.  This book has been on my reading list since April when Laura Moadokoro discussed the work in "History in Turbulent" times in an ActiveHistory.ca post. 









Collections and Objections: Aboriginal Material Culture in Southern Ontario by Michelle Hamilton.

Manufacturing National Park Nature by J. Keri Cronin.  This works looks at the contrived nature of Canada's national parks.

Making Oral History Relevant: The Legacy Project

The Legacy Project began in 2004 with Karl Pillemer Professor at Cornell University.  Pillemer began by collecting 'practical' advice from elderly people in America by having them answer "What are the most important lessons you have learned over the course of your life?"  This initiative resulted in over 1500 people over 70 years old describing their personal life lessons and experiences.

The main portion of Legacy Project site is a 'browse by life lesson type' section.  This portion of the site includes textual transcripts of elders descriptions of important lessons.  The Legacy Project also has a YouTube channel where video versions of the talks with some the elders interviewed can be watched.  I wish the site included more video or audio content, reading the transcripts is interesting but doesn't provide the same dimension as video.

What initially drew me to this project was no where in it does Karl Pillemer discuss the fact that he is essentially undertaking an oral history project.  Pillmer focused more on the present day applications of the knowledge provided by the interviewed persons.  The appeal from a historical stand point of these  modern day applications of oral history is that they have the potential to almost 'trick' the general public into take a glimpse into the past.

What Middletown Read

The What Middle Town Read Project is a searchable database based on the records of the Muncie (Indiana) Public Library from November 5, 1891 to December 3, 1902.  The database includes records of all the books that were checked out during this time period.

The data used for this project was compiled based on ledgers found by Professor Frank Felsenstein of Ball State University.  These ledgers are essentially circulation records and contain lists all of its patrons, books, and circulation transactions from 1891to 1902.

Users can search the circulation records by patron name, book title, book, author, subjects, and transaction date.  Under the patron field is is also possible to search by patron birthplace, sex, race, material status, and occupation.  Results also include supplemental patron data from the city directory and census information.

This is a great resource and work has already been done to use this data set to look at larger social trends. 
The article "This Book is 199 Years Overdue: The wondrous database that reveals what Americans checked out of the library a century ago" by John Poltz examines some of the historical implications of the Middle Town Read data.

I'm curious if any other libraries have made their old circulation records available and searchable online.

Looking Back: 201 Posts Later

Credit: kusito

I started the Historical Reminiscents blog in September 2008.  The blog was initially started as part of a Digital History course I was taking during my MA in Public History at UWO.  Since then I've graduated, and held a number of positions including: historical researcher, collections assistant, a digitization facilitator, and archives technician.  Yesterday also marked my 200th post on this blog.

In the spirit of reminiscing, here are some of the most read and some of my favourite posts from the past:

2008
-A post on Web Activism and the multiplicity of options (and consequences) in a digital world.

2009
-A readings inspired post on, How to Forge Public History from the Land
-The Intersection of Art and Technology which looks at the work of Dr Maurizio Seracin

2010 
-Looking at the independent digital composure of music in Emily Howell: A Digital Composer 
-The importance of Historical Societies and Community Heritage

2011
-Heritage Preservation and Adaptive Reuse: Evergreen Brick Works
- As part of the Natural Heritage blog post series, a post on Point Pelee
-Oral History and the Act of Listening

Using Archives: A Guide to Effective Research

The Society of American Archivists (SAA) recently released, Using Archives: A Guide to Effective Research by Laura Schmidt.  The guide focuses on how researchers utilize archives and outlines the best way to approach archival research.

In addition to provide useful information for researchers the guide includes a number of guidelines and policies that most archival institutions have to develop at one time or another.  For example, the chapter on Typical Usage Guidelines in Archival Repositories outlines a list of common reading room rules and restrictions.  This chapter is a great place to start if your institution is looking to develop a policy on what patrons are allows to bring into a reading room. 

The Guide's chapter outline is as follows:

• What Are Archives and How Do They Differ from Libraries?
• Types of Archives
• Finding and Evaluating Archives
• Requesting Materials Remotely
• Planning to Visit an Archives
• Typical Usage Guidelines in Archival Repositories
• Notes on Copyright, Restrictions, and Unprocessed Collections
• Visiting an Archives
• A Final Word/Additional Resources
• Appendix: Sample Annotated Finding Aid