January 13th Slidedeck

<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> Note: [Bullock's Museum, 22 Picadilly, 1809](https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/12458834445) --- <section style="text-align: left;"> <br><br> <h3> <i>HIST4806A Museums + Digital History</i> </h3> <H4>shawngraham.github.io/dhmuse</h4> </div> January 13; collecting & collectors - informatics and organizing data Please be aware that I will be showing pictures of human remains. follow along: http://j.mp/4806-jan13 --- ## Today's Plan 1. some reflection 2. quick devlog refresher (tech stuff) 3. collecting & collectors 4. one last thing to add to your devlog as you get started 5. museum visits 6. seminar topics --- + a moment's reflection: what is a museum to you, in the light of the assigned readings / discussion so far; what is it that you really want to _know_ about how museums organize around collections? + what are the sources & kinds of information that museums handle? + take a few moments; explain in 90 seconds to your neighbour + what intrigues you about your neighbour's thoughts? Note: re second bullet, i'm also thinking about social media and so on, to contrast also with the kinds of information i'm able to glean about people re bonetrade and their socmed posts. do museums twitter mine i wonder --- ### devlogs: + this will become the kernel for your first devlog post + you will also indicate in this first devlog which museum you think you'd like to work with, and why + frame some of your response with deliberate reference to things you've encountered in the reading + email the link to me when you're done. + speaking of readings, you can see all annotations by everyone in the class from everywhere on the web [here](https://hypothes.is/groups/AQerk76W/4806a-museums-dh) --- + quick refresher about how to get stuff up on your devlog, _and what to do when(if) it goes wrong_ ---  Note: Some thoughts on collecting - If you were going to start a museum today, how would you obtain materials Arthur Surridge Hunt, “Excavations at Oxyrhynchus (ca 1903)(image via and courtesy Wikipedia) --- What is lost when we don't have context? [a quick stratigraphy exercise](/r4Qsv_PASS-APTFpsb6iQg) --- ## Hobby Lobby "One of America’s most famously Christian businesses is amassing a vast collection of biblical antiquities—but some may have been looted from the Middle East." [link](http://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-feds-investigate-hobby-lobby-boss-for-illicit-artifacts) [Donna Yates on Hobby Lobby case](https://www.anonymousswisscollector.com/2017/07/some-thoughts-on-the-hobby-lobby-antiquities-case.html) [City of Irisagrig](https://www.npr.org/2018/06/28/623537440/hobby-lobbys-illegal-antiquities-shed-light-on-a-lost-looted-ancient-city-in-ira) Note: diagram of players, how stuff moves from the field to the museum, plausible deniability etc. also - whole thing turns on metadata and record keeping - not just for movement and ownership, but also for the integral meaning of the materials thus looted. --- ## Dirk Orbink & the Oxyrhynchus Papyri ![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b5/Grenfell-hunt-1896.jpg/600px-Grenfell-hunt-1896.jpg =300x) The fragment from the [Gospel of Mark can be viewed here](https://www.ees.ac.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=45d9d9f7-8df4-4e8f-9eb5-9af2b048ef60) Note: Bernard Grenfell, Arthur Hunt. only 5000 of over 500 000 fragments have been published many different facets to unpack in this story, but one that strikes me is that it is the metadata ---  Note: How have our National Museums obtained their materials? [buzzfeed story](https://www.buzzfeed.com/seancraig/a-history-of-turbulence) . --- + [ICOM standards](https://icom.museum/en/activities/standards-guidelines/standards/) + Unesco and other conventions --- # Everyone Their Own Collector This next bit involves me showing you a conference presentation I've done in the past. It will contain human remains (up to slide #9) [slides](https://bonetrade.github.io/papers/fields-02-19/#/9) and our paper, [the insta-dead](https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue45/5/index.html) --- take-aways: - metadata is more than just record keeping. Without good and accurate metadata, the objects themselves lose meaning - accurate and truthful metadata helps guard against unethical collecting - the bonetrade shows people trying to make their own museums, their own cabinets of curiosities; metadata not a concern for them except where it allows them to tell a story of their own heroic collecting; it is a popculture vision of archaeological knowledge acquisition --- One last thing to add to your devlog to prepare for your museum visit - consider the readings under 1.3 and 1.4 - what information can you find on the museums' websites that speak to these topics? - do they have any indications about how they manage their data, or how they make it available? - how easy is it to download their data to your computer? Is there any guidance? - what kinds of information do they make available? --- + Museum of History: January 20th (Fort Frontenac archaeological records) + Museum of Nature (Aylmer): January 27th (archaeofaunal records) + Canada Science and Technology Museum: Feb 3rd (survey markers & associated records) _if there are any changes I will email all of you in advance so READ YOUR CULEARN EMAILS_ Preferred collections to work with? You will probably have to make multiple trips. --- ## Seminar topics: - topic numbers on board. - we'll build up the schedule. Quite possible that we might double up names for a given topic.