What is public history?

Public history emphasises a collaborative and accessible approach to history. It can be difficult to define as it includes a variety of aspects and public-facing outputs. These outputs can include anything from museums and archives to podcasts and historical fiction novels. The National Council on Public History summarises, “public history describes the many and diverse ways in which history is put to work in the world.” 

The public history theories of shared authority, usable pasts, and community co-curation further explain the diverse and collaborative nature of public history. Shared authority highlights the importance of collaboration with community members and narratives of a collective experience. Similarly, the idea of usable pasts focuses on a human-centered approach to history, specifically how the past is used in current everyday life, thus impacting the present and future. Community co-curation emphasises collaboration and including the public within curation in the heritage sector.

There are many different ways that heritage institutions and groups can implement these theories to increase community input and engagement with their historical collections. Digital spaces are frequently used for this kind of exchange and collaboration. Digitisation can be a useful tool in these efforts, in part by aiding in digital accessibility.  

What is digital accessibility and how can it benefit your collection?

Digital accessibility is the process of making material available digitally. This has many benefits such as allowing a wider audience to access materials as they do not have to be physically on location to view the collections. Additionally, making collections available online helps with searchability, and simplifies research. Beyond making material more available to the public, digitisation also benefits the collections and the keepers of these collections. Establishing a wider audience can expand the reach of the collection owner, meaning the expansion of the ‘recognisability’ or ‘brand’. 

Creating digital copies of collections is beneficial to ensure their future use as it can aid in the preservation of the physical documents. Wear and tear of the physical material is reduced since they will not need to be interacted with as often, and digital copies provide a backup of the material in case they are not able to be accessed due to loss.

While a key output of the digitisation process is making material digitally accessible, this does not mean that users have to be computer experts to benefit from digitisation of collections. There are many ways that digitised material can be used and made accessible, such as through printed educational material or social media. For more details on the digitisation process and how digitised material can be used see ‘What is digitisation: a brief introduction’.

More heritage groups are actively engaging with the theories of public history and are involving communities in projects which utilise their histories and collections. Digital accessibility, especially in a digitally interconnected world, is an increasingly versatile tool for these efforts. The possibilities are diverse, and digitisation can help organisations make more of an impact in these spaces.