Reflecting across the previous modules as I near the completion of my project, this course has offered many examples of the current themes and issues of public history as well as many of the resources utilized by public historians. Thinking also of the various digital tools we used in the previous semester, this program has demonstrated how wide-ranging the field is in scope, content, form, and function. An increasingly digital society requires digital tools, and public history is a prime example of how this transformation is taking place. The biggest factor in my opinion is the multimodal nature of DPH and the plethora of possibilities it brings for the dissemination of knowledge and understanding. Among the examples seen in the program are mediums like interactive exhibits and websites, showing that the field is not limited solely to text. Simpler examples like blogs and podcasts provide extremely effective ways for groups and individuals, including those without large budgets or resources, to engage with the public. The dichotomy of traditional means of communication and new electronic forms is the crux of DPH’s value – to use podcasts as an example, Jim McGrath explains that they provide “opportunities to call attention to particular language and developing perspectives, occasions to bring multiple objects and documents into conversation with one another, and space to reimagine research recorded in metadata and exhibit labels as new audio narratives.” Although my project does not utilize tools like these, my previous experience using Voyant and other tools has shown me what these different forms look like and how they can be used effectively for alternate ways of conveying information.
Of course, at the center of this transformation is the debate around the role of so-called artificial intelligence, which ranges from text and image generation to large language models and wherever else it is inserted. Coming from an undergraduate background in the Humanities, I am still more skeptical than not at the contributions that artificial intelligence is purported to provide. I understand and appreciate the points made in articles like Alex Houston’s regarding JSTOR’s experiments with AI, where its use is meant to underscore human involvement and highlight potential weaknesses in the archival process – in Houston’s and Emilie Hardman’s words, “rather than replacing archival labor, this was a moment where AI was extending it—enhancing what was possible.” On the other hand, accounts like those of Adina Langer’s of chatbots ‘hallucinating’ information for a variety of reasons, adding such technology to the growing fount of misinformation plaguing mass communication. Testing out ChatGPT for some assignments has not changed my outlook nor compelled me to utilize it in my project largely because it offers things I already know how to do, like research and editing, that I would prefer not to rely on an algorithm for.
This brings me to the course of my final project and how it interacts with the above examples. Despite many of the instances of multimodal mediums, I’ve chosen to build a concise text-based collection of authors and their works from my hometown, for the purpose of guiding users to online collections and archives for further information. Although it does not make use of the more elaborate tools seen in the course, it does represent the advantages of DPH by using digital tools to make obscure historical information available to the public as well as showing them where they can find more sources. The Organization of American Historians’ webpage on digital history reviews notes that “online exhibitions and essays should be judged by the quality of their interpretation,” or how effectively they present their chosen history. For my part, the limited scope means that I have tried to ensure that the information presented is clearly sourced, easy to read, and of course accurate. The degree of interpretation that I have undertaken is mostly limited to how the literature chronicled from this handful of authors reflects the broader course of Summerville history. With this in mind, my goal in the last stretch of the course is to keep improving the project’s database as much as possible – making sure that the search function works, that all the tags are appropriate, that the formatting for each entry is uniform, and making any small aesthetic change as I see fit. Thinking on long-term takeaways from this project, it certainly makes clear to me that the research and writing portions of projects like these are by far my strongest suites as opposed to the technological side of actually building a web presence. Knowing that most projects like these are done in teams, I will be well aware of what my own strengths are in comparison.
Sources:
https://ncph.org/history-at-work/podcasts-and-public-history/
https://ncph.org/history-at-work/generative-ai-and-historical-authority/