Kind of like tv on the radio?

The first thing that got me thinking more about online collections (besides searchable databases connected to museums) was a website from the BBC called A History of the World in 100 Objects.  While I was browsing posts from The Attic I came across a link to this site, which I would have never found otherwise, seeing as I unfortunately don’t have daily exposure to the BBC (however, I do watch a decent amount of CBC living in Detroit, especially when it’s hockey season or Olympic season).  I basically just wanted to share this because I thought it was beautiful. There is a culturally diverse variety of objects, which is much appreciated, and each day a different object is featured to help first-time visitors become familiar with the site. Visitors are also invited to submit their own meaningful objects and stories to the site; those personal stories are available to the public to view, and some of the objects are featured in mini-stories on a partnership radio program.

It’s true that there is nothing like being in the presence of a real object, but the high res images on this site are impressive. For example, every vein on the Arabian Bronze Hand (#45) is visible, and you can really understand what the interpretive paragraph is saying just by looking at the photo.  Speaking of interpretation, the BBC did a nice job consulting not only curators but other professionals who might have a different take on certain objects.  For example, both a curator and an orthopedic and hand surgeon wrote interpretation about the Arabian Bronze Hand; the surgeon was able to describe the structure of the hand as more of an anthropological study, rather than through an art history lens.

A little bit more on the meta/conceptual side of internet archives is this article about an encyclopedia of all the changes to the Wikipedia “Iraq War” entry. There are 12 volumes of changes, not just content. Some great archival qualities of the internet/Wikipedia-

• The internet can keep track of all changes better than most provenance records of the past (the history doesn’t go back too far for us to document, and all of this data is basically stored automatically)

• These tomes document not only “facts” (subjective depending on which writer or editor is making changes) but personal stories of people contributing information- that means a lot of metadata which, however, is probably not very well organized or interpreted.

I had never thought of recording all these changes, but obviously it’s important to know the source from where your information is coming, and it would be fascinating to see when changes were made based on events in real time. Another question I had was

• What does it mean that these are published on paper? Does it make them more accessible? Does it make the changes more “credible” or “official”?

A mixture of the last two sites is The Search for the Obvious. I’m part of an institution where “innovation” is almost a sacred word. I like that this site allows users to find objects that have changed their world, and maybe learn a little more about them. I didn’t know when Purell was invented, although I would disagree about its “life changing” qualities. I think I would like the site even more with some additions:

1. instead of/in addition to the “Life without this” explanation, there was also a “Life before this” section that made the historical context of the innovation more perceptible.
2. a section not only to talk about the benefits of the innovation, but also the downsides, i.e. pollution, war, other resulting problems, etc.

I can dig it.