The WebWise Conference is a free annual conference organized by the Institute of Museum and Library Services that “brings together representatives of museums, libraries, archives, systems science, education, and other fields to explore the many opportunities made possible by digital technologies.” WebWise 2012 is here in Baltimore and is focused on the important theme of “Tradition and Innovation,” — investigating how libraries and museums have used digital technologies to help scholars, students, educators, and the general public understand history and the humanities.This year, WebWise is joined by WiseCamp an “unconference” modeled (like Bmore Historic) after THATCamp and scheduled for the day before the WebWise2012 Conference. Organizers are seeking participants from local and regional cultural heritage institutions so please register today!

WiseCamp

Wednesday, February 29, 2012, 9:00 am – 4:30 pm (Maryland Ballroom AEB, 5th Floor)

Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel
202 East Pratt Street
Baltimore, MD 21202
Phone: 410-547-1200

You may register for WiseCamp when you register for WebWise 2012. Organizers anticipate a waiting list, so if you register and find you can’t attend, please let them know ASAP.

Siobhan C. Hagan, session co-facilitator

I must confess that I did not prepare too in depth for Bmore Historic. Justification:  I did not want to have a plan for how things would go in order to “go with the flow”. However I did make lists of challenges that I have faced in trying to preserve and care for audiovisual collections in various Baltimore institutions.  This list was long. In order to make myself feel better, I naturally wanted to figure out how to solve these problems and face these challenges. Luckily or unluckily, the list that answered me was much shorter. At the top of that list: “collaboration”. So when we were planning the sessions in the morning of Bmore Historic and I noticed: a) someone had proposed a session about “collaboration” as a general means of getting things done at historic institutions;  and, b) it seemed that many people were not interested in audiovisual preservation as a whole one hour and fifteen minute session. So I suggested that we mix the two!

Mostly we talked about past collaborative experiences that were both successful and not so successful. Although each instance has its own specifics, patterns could be found that I believe can help in spreading new ideas of how and who to collaborate with while generating relationships with other institutions that are open to collaboration. While all our organizations are very different, we need to find the commonalities: Maryland history seems to be the biggest one. From there we need to make sure that each side in the relationship is giving and each side in the relationship is taking as well. Lastly, it is notable to mention that we discussed the unique opportunity to collaborate not just with institutions, but with the community and region and public: with the users. This multi-faceted aspect seems to be the icing on top for a successful collaborative project.

Michael Scott, session co-facilitator

I definitely agree with Siobhan about the core issues regarding collaboration that came out during our B’more Historic session. The one that most interested me, particularly as someone who works at the public library, was seeing the community as a partner and direct participant in collaborations. Although we are used to soliciting community input for traditional projects, like oral histories, it seemed like many of us were seeking ways to work with local individuals and groups through new, less conventional means. One person at the meeting spoke about her experience participating in a collaborative project that asked Baltimore residents to choose a location in the city, which was then assigned to someone else at random. Participants were then asked to photograph the location to which they were assigned, a place with which they were often unfamiliar, then write about the experience.  I thought this was a unique way to engage residents in sharing their perspectives on place and community, and that it was a project that cut across numerous disciplines/subject areas (art, local history, urban identity, etc.).

A related subject that we discussed was the challenge in making archive, museum, and library history collections more relevant to the local community. In addition to offering programming and exhibits based on history curriculum, events, and anniversaries (the War of 1812 anniversary and the Civil War sesquicentennial as current examples), many of us seemed to be exploring additional strategies for increasing visibility, access, and use of local history collections. Collaboration is certainly a key part of this effort, although it seemed like forming partnerships could present challenges at times, as well.

Since this was my first time attending an unconference, I enjoyed seeing how the conversation during our session developed and evolved. At one point, there was an interesting discussion of issues related to digitization, copyright, Creative Commons licensing, and the use of images. Overall, I liked the more open, informal format, and thought it facilitated the sharing of ideas and experiences. I do wish there had been more time to discuss issues related to audiovisual preservation, since it’s such an important topic in the history community and I agree with Siobhan that collaboration in this area is vital.

From 1983 to 1997, a thriving Center for Urban Archaeology (CUA) conducted publicly-oriented and publicly-funded research on Baltimore’s buried cultural resources. A lack of funding and official interest has meant that public archaeology in the city has languished, despite the fact that similar programs have since expanded dramatically in other cities (including Annapolis, Frederick, and Alexandria).  Recently, developers built a hotel on the site of Baltimore’s only archaeological park, essentially undoing some of the CUA’s most important public work.  Some smaller projects, conducted without city support, have persisted despite the indifferent climate.  These include the work of Esther Read in Fells Point and a recent partnership between Baltimore Heritage and the Maryland Historical Trust at Lafayette Square.  Despite this, no mechanisms exist to manage, protect, research, and promote archaeological resources in the city on public lands or private ones.

Archaeological sites have immense public value. Most obviously, they provide a tangible connection to the past. People who come into contact with the archaeological past often become more conscious of and more involved in preservation efforts of all kinds.  Archaeological resources preserve information about past lifeways, environments, and landscapes.  They also provide a transcript of the past with the potential to reveal much about poor and working people who did not (or could not) write about themselves.  The process of archaeological inquiry and its results (artifacts, photographs and records, and interpretive products) form, among other things, the raw material for exhibits and displays that capture public attention and imagination.  Archaeology invites interested participants to observe, touch, compare, and draw conclusions about the past from its material remains.

Given the absence of public archaeology in Baltimore, and its value for preservation and scholarship of the past, I wish to pose a few questions for discussion:

• Can a sustained program of publicly funded archaeological research and resource protection return to the city?
• What resources currently exist to make this happen?
• How can we use these resources to build public and political constituencies that support archaeology in the city?

As staff to the Montgomery County Historic Preservation Commission (HPC), I am regularly asked by historic property owners if they can replace their historic windows. My answer to this question is usually a matter of fact NO! Some typical responses I receive back from owner are, “I’m doing this to save money and make my house more energy efficient, your answer just doesn’t make sense, the window salesperson told me my windows are old and that new replacement windows would lower my utility bills.”

There are many ways one could respond to this – does your house have storm windows, have your windows been properly weather stripped and caulked – while these are all good answers and worth exploring to make a house more energy efficient, I believe one of the best answers is to respond by asking –  “Have you had an energy audit performed?”

Energy audits are a proven and cost effective way for determining household energy expenditure, appliance performance, indoor air quality problems and fixes, and ways to reduce daily and long term energy consumption. 

In 2010, Montgomery County was one of four Maryland communities selected by the Maryland Historical Trust (SHPO), to administer an energy efficiency study for 10 designated historic residential properties in the county. Through a competitive application and selection process 10 designated historic residential properties were chosen to receive an energy audit conducted according to industry accepted practices by a consultant qualified by the Maryland Home Performance ENERGYSTAR program. One of the many things we learned from the study is historic residential properties DO NOT always lose as much energy as people think from their windows. While this is fairly common knowledge among most in the historic preservation profession, the study also provided a comprehensive analysis of how different building components performed under similar climatic conditions when using the same testing methodology. The results of the audits not only told us that windows were not the primary cause of a house’s energy loss, but showed us how the most common energy problems can be fixed quickly and inexpensively by a homeowner without any specialized training or equipment.

This session will be an opportunity to discuss the importance of energy audits to the field of historic preservation. What are their advantages? How they can help us make the case for preserving original building materials versus their replacement. The session will also provide a forum to discuss how we can use information gleaned from energy audit studies to bring a message to local elected officials about the correlation between historic preservation and its importance in maintaining and building a sustainable community.

I’m interested in talking about why we preserve what we preserve.  What does what we preserve say about our field, how we are perceived, and how we expand our community to involve new, different and perhaps younger constituents?  How does what we preserve – and how we preserve it – influence whether or not we are successful now and into the future, and related, how do we measure success?

We’ve evolved — mostly, right? — from that art historical approach of preservation’s early days.  So what is our approach now, and why do we do what we do?  Don Rypkema tells us preservation makes good economic sense.  Priya Chhaya blogged recently about the “materiality of preservation“.  From the National Trust, we get “This Place Matters“.  Barbara Campagna, Carl Elefante and a growing number of others tout preservation for sustainability reasons.  Mary Means, Randy Mason, and Elaine Carmichael recently discussed the need to “reposition the preservation message, and the messenger”, suggesting we ought to rethink ourselves, even change the language we use to discuss what we do and are.

Authenticity, history, integrity, community, economic development, sense of place, the environment … the list goes on and on.  Does this point to the diversity of our mission, the fragmentation of our message, or something else entirely?

2300 block Hunter Street, Old Goucher/Barclay

Five months ago, I started a project with a friend and classmate from the Urban Planning program at the University of Maryland. We call it Small Streets, and our mission is to support the preservation and proliferation of alley streets and lanes in order to improve the quality of life and sustainability of our cities and towns. Naturally we have an eye toward Baltimore, which boasts of the finest small streets in the United States.

We’ve got our communications infrastructure up and running, which includes a website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter feed. While we’re doing a pretty good job with getting the word out, we’d like to know how to best expand the project from here.

• Baltimore City is working on rewriting its zoning code. Should we participate in the public process to enact more small streets-friendly policies?
• There are many small streets in the city in disrepair. Should we work on bringing attention to them?
• The historic names of small streets in Fells Point (and likely other places in the city) have long lost their more playful original names like Strawberry Alley. Should we start a campaign to revive the old names?
• Even though many small streets in Baltimore are healthy and peaceful places to life, public perception of small streets in the City is still not as positive as it should be. Should we continue to focus on communications?
• Is there some other initiative that would benefit small streets in Baltimore? What sort of campaign might you help support?