The argument of the final project: Monuments and Memorials: University of the Pacific argues that the University of the Pacific’s hidden histories matter and that they can connect current and past students to the campus. Particular spaces are already well-known; many host monuments and memorials. But these monuments and memorials often tell the stories of… Continue reading Evaluating Digital History Projects

The Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS) was built to empower oral history users to more effectively and efficiently discover information within oral history interviews.  The digital public history creator can link a video or audio file to the OHMS server and then enter searchable data. Searchable data includes metadata, the transcript, and the index.  Indexing… Continue reading Oral History in the Digital Age

My project aims to help alumni and community members connect to the Stockton University of the Pacific campus by telling place-based stories about the university’s monuments and memorials. This week, I conducted an oral history interview with Victor Ornelas (1970), former regent of the University of the Pacific. When Ornelas was a student at UOP,… Continue reading Public Digital History Project: Progress Report 2

Digital technologies open new possibilities for public historians to connect to their audiences. Many rely on mobile devices since ninety percent of adults in the U.S. use such devices. Location-based technologies that are location aware, such as LED/infrared triangulation, radio frequency, Bluetooth Low Energy and Beacons, Node Systems, and WiFi Slam, are being used by… Continue reading New Possibilities in Digital Public History

In February, I visited the Museum of the San Ramon Valley in Danville, California.  I returned again last week to talk to Beverly Lane about possible digital history projects for students and learned more about the digital application that the museum used for the temporary exhibit: “Stir Crazy Quilts: Quilting During the Pandemic,” which runs… Continue reading Digital Applications in a Local History Museum

My project aims to help alumni and community members connect to the Stockton University of the Pacific campus by telling place-based stories about the university’s monuments and memorials. I have started with Burns Tower, a central icon on campus. Visitors stop there first to collect information about campus, and community members recognize it as an… Continue reading Public Digital History Project: Progress Report 1

In planning my project on monuments and memorials at University of the Pacific, I have been examining some digital projects that do storytelling in a new or unique way.  This blog reviews two sites that creatively balance overview and immersion to effectively tell stories about the past.  This matters, Richard Rabinowitz writes, because “overviews create… Continue reading Exhibit Balance: Overview and Immersion

In 2009, the alumni magazine editors at the University of the Pacific called for memories of what it was like to have R. P. M., a 1970 American drama by Stanley Kramer, filmed on campus.  While many wrote in with comments about the production, Victor Ornelas, who was then a regent but had been, as… Continue reading Memorials and Monuments – Project Proposal

For my digital public history project on monuments and memorials at the University of the Pacific, I interviewed a half dozen alumni and created two personas based on the demographic and ethnographic features of Pacific alums that came through in those interviews. These are intended to reflect my audience in a simple and personal way.… Continue reading Personas

In the last several decades, public historians have theorized the importance of sharing authority with community members to develop exhibits that represent or serve them. Public historian John Kuo Wei Tchen describes creating a “dialogic museum” at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in the 1990s as a process that developed less from theory… Continue reading Audience and Content in Public History Projects