Iowa History Day - Innovation and Change

Two weeks ago, I stopped by the Iowa State Historical Society to see if they needed any volunteers for anything. I received an email asking me to come in last Thursday to help out. I showed up and found myself in the midst of History Day! Before I introduced myself, they started steering me towards concessions and running, but once I mentioned that I have a history background, they recruited me to judge! I was fairly unfamiliar with History Day, having only really hard about it from my Cooperstown roommate Mandy, who had worked extensively with the branch in Minnesota.

I had the chance to work with two other judges looking over websites. Not only do I know only a bit about websites themselves, but I wasn't quite sure what the rules of judging were. I caught on quick though, and ended up having a wonderful time. The projects ranged from those who cited Wikipedia as a primary source to an ambitious 8th grader who had conducted email interviews of the grandson of her innovation's inventor, as well as with a professor from MIT. I was quite impressed by the latter, and worked to find a positive way to correct the former.

All in all though, it was a great experience. They asked me to come back later this month to judge for the next round. I hope at the very least I get the chance to look at some of the non-website entries, as most of them had been taken down by the time I was done for the day. The best part, I think, was seeing kids so excited about history. They were passionate about their subjects, and every one I talked with gave me information above and beyond what they had put on their websites. All in all a wonderful experience, and one I hope to repeat again!

Musing on Museums

One of the things they teach in "museum school" is about the importance of social media. From Twitter to Facebook, museums and the professionals who run them are becoming more and more attracted to the wide variety of tools available online. Ideas are being shared between museums around the world at an ever quickening rate, and the amount of information available is astounding.

This blog is my effort to wade through some of the information I can get my hands on, and to show you why I think it may be important. Some posts will be about places I have visited, things that I have seen, or about ideas that I have read. I would love to use this as a place to dialogue about changes that are happening, and what we can do to make them positive. Happy reading!