Many Topics and Reflections

Hello and thank you for tuning in again. It has been another rather busy week here as we begin to approach the month of November, of which some topics have made themselves present in class, plus I have an update about the ongoing progress of the exhibit at Banting House National Historical Site.

One of the first topics we covered were the difference and the benefits and disadvantages of digital archival material and the addition of digital archives. Digital materials are great additions to archives for a couple important reasons. The first is that they are often rather small in size, making them often easy to store. The second is the amount of storage they can hold which is truly massive when compared to physical material. Their lifespan however, is very short when compared to physical material. They have a common lifespan of around 5 years whether because of the item falling apart, becoming outdated, or simply becoming corrupted. This for example, a floppy disc. By this point, one would need a floppy drive specifically for it which would also take up space. Even CD-ROM's are starting to become outdated as fewer computers include a CD Drive. The digitization of archives also has positive and negative attributes to it. They become very accessible for people for one as they would not need to travel to the archive to see the material, which becomes more important for those who cannot travel to the archive for whatever reason. However, it is subjective but the online material does not quite give the same impact as the physical material and seeing it in person. Adding all of this material to an online database is also a massive undertaking for archival staff and takes up a lot of their time. Finally, not everything can be added to the online database, whether this is because of its incapability of being photographed, its fragility, the restrictions surrounding it, or any other of the several reasons, many materials from the archive will be missing from the online database. We were also given some information about the coming internships this summer which I am looking forward to. We have only been shown two so far, but I enjoyed my time hearing from those working in the industry and the opportunities they are offering. Unfortunately I will not see the options until at least January and February, but I am eagerly waiting and I look forwards to working with more within the Public History field.

We also spoke about the power behind some spaces and emotions they can cause. Seeing a site online just does not provoke the same sort of feeling as standing at and seeing the location. I have seen it happen a lot here at Banting House National Historical Site in Banting's bedroom where he wrote the original hypothesis that would lead to the creation of insulin. Many tend to be rather emotionally moved and as most of us have been touched by diabetes in one way or another, the room in which an idea was discovered that would lead onto the creation of insulin to help those with diabetes just feels very powerful to stand in. This is of course not the only case as those who visit battlefields may experience extreme dread, or those who visit a holy site may experience an entirely different feeling. It is an interesting concept, but one I feel it important to maintain in public history.

Finally, at Banting House National Historic Site I have finished cataloging the various tattoos and I am now creating the display designs for them. We are starting to near the final steps of the creation of this exhibit!

Until next time though, thank you for reading and I hope you come back next time!