The Value of Museums for Inquiry and Information Literacy

 Last week, I had the opportunity to visit the Shofuso House in Philadelphia. The house was a gift to the United States from Japan in the 1950s. As I listened to the docent speak, I was very conscious about the wide range of information I was receiving and questions that I had about it. I thought about the context of the gift, the considerations the architect made during the design process, the current status of the facility, and numerous other factors about the institution. A museum experience, such as this one, provides a perfect opportunity for us to consider our thinking process, to reflect on how we build knowledge, and to challenge our inquiry skills.

As I explore and teach information literacy, I find myself wondering how others take in information. One can choose to look at the pretty Japanese garden and just enjoy the beauty, for example, but that only scratches the surface -- How big do Koi get? How do they survive the winter? How do they keep that tree pruned? Is a big pruned tree like that called a "Bonsai" tree or is that just little trees? From where did all these visitors here today come? How many gardens in the United States were gifted to us by Japan? How about other nations? Do the United States ever gift gardens to other countries? How do these gardens help us cross cultural boundaries? What does a natural paradise such as this one mean to the citizens of this area?

Objects are underutilized in the classroom to encourage inquiry and I would like that to change. I have written before about the value of objects for education. I have encouraged my museum colleagues to partner with others to introduce their objects to teachers and students, but some of the burden needs to be placed with educators too. Cultural heritage institutions exist, in part, to help you with your mission to educate. Think about the following:

• What kinds of objects will make your students more curious? 
• What kinds of questions do you want your kids to ask? 
• What connections between curriculum and "real world" should your kids be making? 
• What information links should they be forming to better understand contexts and develop information literacy skills?  
• What museums are in your area that can help?

School librarians, consider how you can use objects and museums to enhance your information literacy curriculum. How can you use object as a launching point into larger contexts? How can you relate objects to the written word? How can objects enhance the critical thinking skills you teach as an information specialist?

Information literacy involves layers of knowing and inquiry. It is our challenge as educators and keepers of objects to consider these layers, and to get our students/patrons to consider them too.

Storytelling and the Power of the Object in Education

Torah Dedication

When Mom told me about her Synagogue's Torah dedication, I knew immediately that it was something I wanted to share. As a student of heritage and material culture, I am always on the lookout for objects that best exemplify the stories of humanity. This object is exemplary for its significance to the Jewish people and its importance to this culture cannot be overestimated.

I remember back to my childhood. Mom would tell me stories about my family history using the items in her jewelry box as launching points. We would light the menorah, play dreidel, and watch a new husband break a glass under his foot at a wedding.  The objects that told the stories of my heritage and of Judaism made a strong impression. 

But it is the Torah -- the book of Jewish laws --  that was revered. It symbolized the vitality of our community. I remember sitting in Synagogue at a young age and watching the removal of the Torah from the ark. There was a sense of tradition, celebration, solemnity, and togetherness in the room.  This object was held dear by everyone present. It embodied the reason for our connection. Every single person in the room felt that link implicitly when the door to the ark was opened and the blue cloth covered scroll was revealed.

Each Torah is created by hand for a community that commissions it. "Every letter in a Torah Scroll is vital, for if one letter is missing, the scroll is invalid." To be able to afford this special item, that is carefully constructed with faith and love, the community bands together to raise funds. When the object is completed, a celebration is held. (It is celebrations such as this that help bond communities and these objects that help legacies and traditions live on.) 

I was given the opportunity in a history class this month to talk about the history of Judaism as part of an introduction to religions of the world. I spoke about the people who molded the Jewish faith and carried on its traditions throughout history and how this faith fit alongside others. I talked about the Jewish culture in terms of its dances, foods, beliefs, and songs. I showed pictures of the Horah and breaking Challah bread. I talked about my childhood memories of "stealing" the afikomen and other rituals that bonded the young people in the household. I reflected on my neighborhood and how my Catholic neighbors shared their traditions with the Jews and vice-versa. I got to put up a Christmas tree with my Italian neighbors and partake in traditional Easter foods with my Russian Orthodox friends.

In class, I passed around the dedication pamphlet that I asked Mom to send me. The brilliant blue cloth pinned to the paper is soft. Students could touch it and conjure in their minds how it must have been for a young Ms. Mannon to watch her Dad kiss his Tallit (prayer shawl) and touch it to the object as it was carried around the room for the congregation. Within that little blue square is the spark to a story, a key to understanding, and the roots of our humanity. I saw its power to make my stories come to life in the eyes of my students and in their inquisitive questions.

Staplers, Students, and Springtime

Sitting on my couch with a bad cold after a productive week with a lot of thinking involved, I am honestly up for something a little on the light side. So I decided to share a Twitter post from my Tweep @Citizenwald on my high school library blog and I'm sharing it here too. It's spring, and winter lingers...I figure we all need something a little quirky.

 "Do you ever look at something and think, 'Now who first made one of those?' As a librarian and archivist, I love to contemplate how people come up with ideas and how they advance society. So, I got excited when I saw an article about staplers in the New York Times. (Yes, this is one of Ms. Mannon's quirks. I get excited about stuff like staplers.) But think about it...this little object helps keep us organized and we take it for granted every day. Before we had staplers, people used straight pins to clip things together. I know this from working for a long time in archives where I have seen many, many collections of old papers. After straight pins came paperclips, which took on many weird forms before someone, somewhere came up with the designs we find most recognizable today. Take a look at the NYT article, The Attachment That Still Makes Noise if you find these ideas intriguing. Think about what other every day objects have interesting stories about them. The simple tools that humans have come up with are really amazing! Maybe start your inquiry with those paperclips..."

I figured that this subject is a good way to get my students thinking outside the box and maybe even embarking on a little research. ;) Tomorrow, I'm talking to two classes about how to feel comfortable while doing an oral presentation. The life of a librarian / archivist is never intellectually dull.

Now, I just need to get rid of this nasty cold!

The People and Their "Stuff" - What is the Point of an Archivist's Work?

An archival document showing human ingenuity at its best

I tend to remind people over and over that my work as an archivist helps tell people's stories, but I realized last week that to make a point, I've neglected the "stuff" of archives a bit and I need to clarify.

An archivist cares for the materials that are created by people - materials that tell their stories certainly, but materials that can also stand on their own in many ways. Archivists are not oral historians, genealogists, or even historians. As archivists, I would argue that our main focus is the "stuff" and not the people themselves. We care for archives and personal papers so that stories can be gleaned from them. We ensure that enough original items are saved so they adequately tell complete stories. Yet, we are more directly tied to the "stuff" and, at least on a professional responsibility level, more interested in what humans create than in the humans themselves.

What brought me to the realization that I need to clarify this? After beginning a web site redesign last week,I asked some friends for advice about what kind of imagery to use to highlight my work. A couple of them said that I should include more photos about people because "It's the stories about real people that [archives] is all about." It jarred me and got me thinking because I don't think that really is what it is all about.

As someone who is interested in the collections of museums, archives and libraries, I consider my work fitting within the field of "material culture." In short, "material culture is the relationship between people and things." (For more definitions see the web page for the Center of Material Studies at the University of Delaware.)  The things people create tell us about them and about culture, but they also stand in brilliance on their own. I think that the easiest example to use to explain this is a painting. (This is not a perfect analogy because an archival document is usually not a piece of art, but I think perhaps this can help make the point.) We can admire a painting because we know about the artist and see how it fits in the context of his other work. Or, we can admire a painting because it reflects a particular subject and time. Or, we can admire a painting just because it is beautiful and excites the senses on its own.

A document, an old journal, a map, and all the other materials with which archivists work show the brilliance of humanity. Yes, it is important to collect materials that reflect the individuals in a society. BUT, the materials we collect also reflect a sort of human artistry that goes beyond the stories of real people. From the feel of paper to the the poetry of words strung together to the encapsulation of ideas on a web page, the "stuff" humans create reflect a brilliance that is somewhat separate from the humans themselves. While we want to tell the human story, we focus on the various media used to convey that story. And while my work as an independent archivist sometimes focuses more on stories about people than their stuff, it is because I have chosen to go outside of the box a little bit. Other archivists will sometimes consciously go outside of that box too because, as I've said all along, the work of archivists, librarians, curators and the audiences we serve can be closely intertwined. The ideas driving each of our fields can benefit us all in the promotion of history and cultural knowledge.

But when it comes right down to a definition, the Society of American Archivists describe an archivist in this way: "An individual responsible for appraising, acquiring, arranging, describing, preserving, and providing access to records of enduring value, according to the principles of provenance, original order, and collective control to protect the materials’ authenticity and context." Indeed, archives work IS about the stuff.

The Meaning of Culture

In my September 27th blog post, Archives and Community, I discussed what a community is and how cultural heritage institutions reflect communities. In that post, I mention the word "culture" without explanation. Here I wish to more fully explore the concept of culture and how it relates to individuals and memory institutions.

Anthropologist Raymond Henry Williams called culture “one of the 2 or 3 most complicated words in the English language." It involves overlapping disciplines and concepts related to both material items and shared traditions. As such, it is a reflection of societies, focusing on the designs of humankind, and the ways we order and relate to our world.

The Role of Archives

Archival repositories aim to document and preserve the combined experiences and shared stories that lead to the development of cultural heritage. This endeavor can be quite complicated. For one, culture develops over time based on gained group knowledge, beliefs and customs that communities develop together, and the creativity they let loose in the things they make. Archivists must try to track these changes in society to ensure they are creating a complete and accurate historical record that is reflective of community development. Additionally, culture is both tangible and intangible. An archivist must ensure that culture, in all its forms, is properly recorded for posterity. Furthermore, culture is a complicated web of communities and ideas. An archivist must work to understand connections and interactions to best reflect reality in their collections.

Definitions of Culture

Texas A&M provides some great definitions of "culture" that can help one shape their understanding of this broad-reaching term:

• Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.
• Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.
• Culture is the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmittedbehavior through social learning.
• A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.
• Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation.
• Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.

You and Your Cultures

One identifies with particular cultures associated with the various communities in which one takes part. Sometimes you can choose to adopt a culture, finding elements created by a community that suits your particular outlook on life. You can move to a particular place, associate with particular people, celebrate certain traditions, create or buy certain items to secure your connection to a specific culture. Other times a specific culture is just part of you because of your existence and relates to where you were born, to whom you were born, and during what era.

We can reject certain communities, but take the cultural identity of that community with us. For example, I was born in New York, but I have not lived in that state for twenty-two years. I still identify with the culture of my childhood that sometimes expresses itself through my speech (the words that I use and the way that I say them,) my actions, my memories and my sense of self. Sometimes it is easier to reject a community than to reject the culture of that community for when we form a cultural identity, parts of it stick with us for long periods of time or for a lifetime.

Communities, Connections, and Culture

A culture can be made up of individual communities or individual communities that overlap. Sometimes the culture of these smaller communities enhance our personal values. Sometimes they do not, but they still have some affect on us. For example, consider my rural / suburban chosen hometown in New Hampshire. My family and I participate in the school system, as local volunteers in various groups, in girl scouts, and we associate with our neighbors. My daughter and I have library cards. We frequent local shops and make use of town parks... All of these small communities in which we participate together make a larger community. I primarily value a few parts of my local culture. One element I particularly value is the "culture of education" my town usually tries to embrace. In fact, that is one of the main reasons my husband and I moved here -- to adopt that culture that will help us build values we already possessed and transfer them to our child. That does not mean that the educational system is what all members of my various local communities value. My neighbor may value sports culture over education for example, but their kids go to school with my kids so certain things are expected of all them. We are all influenced by each other and our local "culture" and various community cultures are influenced by the connections.

The Importance of "Culture" to Cultural Heritage Professionals

As cultural heritage professionals, it is useful to define the various communities we wish to document and our various audiences. I think it is also particularly valuable to try to understand the diversity of various community cultures and the ways they interrelate. We should consciously think about the meaning of culture when collecting objects (material culture) or creating documentation methods for things that are not as easily passed down such as dance, music and language (intangible culture.) This will enable us to provide better access to the information we've accumulated by allowing us to point out connections across collections to the public. Using the idea of preserving "culture" in all its forms will enhance what we do and how we portray ourselves to the world.

Reflecting Communities: Some Food for Thought

A cultural heritage professional - archivist, librarian, museologist - may view her work as centered around documenting communities. A community is a group of individuals tied together by a something they have in common. They may be bound by a geographic locale, an interest, a belief, a shared heritage...Whatever it is that
unites them, the evidence of their connection is embodied in the things they create that reflect their purpose as a community. For example, if one is bound by a religious community, a shared purpose is symbolized in such things as buildings devoted to prayer, bibles, and objects of devotion. If we are bound by a local government, our community is reflected in items such as local government records and municipal buildings.

Here is some food for thought:

What is a community?

What kinds of things do people create? – from buildings to clothing, to documents, to art, to parks, to programs

What communities do not create tangible items of material culture?

How do we hand down the memories or values of our community if we do not create tangible items devoted to our purpose?

What is role of cultural heritage professional in preserving community?

What does it mean to “preserve”community?

What does it mean to “document” community? Is this the same as preserving it?

How do cultural heritage professionals know what to collect to best reflect our community?

Photo of Wadleigh Memorial Library fourth of July parade. 2005. children posed on steps of Milford Town Hall, Milford, NH