Minnesota Local History

The St. Paul Pioneer Press for Friday November 12, 2010, printed an Associated Press article by Michael Felberbaum, "Familiar phone books dying in digital age." As Internet penetration edges up in all parts of the state (see Electronic Access for Rural Minnesota), people rely on resources that are both more easily searched and perceived to be more up-to-date because people can often edit their own contact information.

Further, as the article notes, only about 11 percent of Americans rely solely on a landline, and cell numbers are not listed in phone books. Other estimates show that fully 25 percent of Americans only use cell phones. Thus a quarter of Americans would not be found using traditional phone books. It makes sense that phone books may disappear. Already New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania approved Verizon's request to stop printing residential listings in those states. Virginia is considering it. How long will it be before providers stop printing phone books in Minnesota?

While some may worry about this change and only see the loss of a resource, as some are fond of saying, "History is all about change. If changes ever stops, historical organizations will be out of business." Local historical organizations are always adapting, and this news story represents another call to arms.

Disappearance of phone books, though, poses a problem for local historical organizations. Phone books grew out of older "city directories" that enabled people to locate services and other people. Both have genealogical and research value to local historical organizations, and both existed together for a quite a while in some places. In some places city directories were dropped, but in some places they continue to be created. However, there does not appear to be a widely available tool to reach out and touch someone that has grown up alongside of phone books, as phone books did with city directories. Thus the problem is one of adaptation. Local historical organizations cannot migrate to a new resource with the loss of an older one.

In the past decade use of research libraries at local historical organizations has increased. With the convulsions seen among media formerly only in print formats, and phone books may be added to the list, access to these basic research tools calls into question whether the growth seen in the last decade will continue. Local organizations have put a lot of resources into developing strong research libraries to serve their growing clientele. In order to continue to encourage use, of course, adding resources is necessary. So how will local history research libraries compensate for the loss of phone books?

What might replace these mechanisms that allow us to connect certainly is hard to see. Perhaps to replace phone books as a research tool, local historical organizations will have to rely on the generosity of the constituents they serve who would be willing to download the contacts in their cell phones periodically or when upgrading. This begs many questions about privacy, of course, not to mention capturing people who don't know their descendants might look for them in the future. Or, perhaps historical organizations will have to begin to mine connections of members linked to them on social media forums. Or, perhaps local historical organizations will need to develop resources beyond directories that their members and others might willingly populate. There may be a number of alternative resources in addition that local history research libraries could name.

Local historical organizations have amazing resources for certain periods of time, but in order to connect these resources to future generations, it seems as though additional records need to be generated or found to represent those living in the first decades of the 21st century. How are local historical organizations embracing this change in the loss of phone books? What other resources are you beginning to collect?

Lake County Historical Society launched their first website in 2000 with a grant from Iron Range Resources. When I started working at the Society in 2009 it was evident that since the website’s launch there was little or no maintenance done or resources dedicated for this purpose.

We currently have two independent yet connected websites. We have the Lake County Historical Society site  and our business website for the Lighthouse Bed & Breakfast.

The new sites were needed for a variety of reasons:

a)      To regain control over our domain names. We had been sold by Internet service providers so many times we couldn’t find out who the administrators were for our domains.

b)      To bring the society into the 21st century, the old site was filled with obsolete features, erroneous information, and the content itself was ten years old.

c)      To re-brand the organization itself and to create the image that we are a modern and active organization. This is done by having a site with administrative privileges so we can edit page content without the aid of our designers.

d)      This may be unique to our organization, but we needed to create two mirrored websites that allow for an easy flow back and forth between the B&B website and Historical Society site. It is very important to me to make sure that people looking at the Lighthouse B&B website understand the mission of the Lake County Historical Society and that we are preservationists, not operating a north shore tourist trap.

The Lake County Historical Society was very fortunate in the redesign of the websites. The Lighthouse B&B website was a donation from Creative Arc (a St Paul based company) CEO Paul Larson. Paul and his wife have been repeat guests at the B&B and as business was slow at the time, Paul offered his team to design a new site for us to keep his designers fresh. We accepted his offer and asked him to include the Society’s site as well because I knew before I met him I had to bring these two entities back together.

I invited Julie, the lead designer and her husband up to the B&B to spend the night so they could experience the B&B and gave them a tour of our museums and talked about how important it was for the historical aspect of the B&B to be present in the website.

We received a grant from the Two Harbors Area Visitors Bureau for the development of the LCHS site as it serves to bring tourists to our area and visitors to our local hotels.

 The B&B website was created entirely by Creative Arc from content in the old website and additional images taken by Julie and her husband during their stay.

For the LCHS site Creative Arc provided me with what they call a Basecamp website. On this Basecamp there was a wireframe of our site that I could log into and edit text content and photos. I have roughly over 100 hours into scanning, editing, researching content, writing, and uploading for the site.

We began by using the existing sites as platforms for the new ones. We knew what we wanted out of each site and the deficiencies of the previous sites.

For the B&B it was obvious, encourage people to reserve a room and come stay with us, and explain how their money would benefit the public through historic preservation.

The LCHS site needed to do demonstrate to people that we are active, and that we provide services to our members and patrons, and that by being a member of the Society their history is preserved and the community benefits.

I had a lot of experience with my own websites from when I was an aspiring musician so the only thing I had to learn was how to use the editing engine (Expression) provided by Creative Arc. I am still, and I believe always will be learning new things about administering websites as technology changes.

The B&B website is performing admirably for us generating new business. I am having a hard time calibrating the impact of the new LCHS website. I was hoping that it would drive people to become members but I fear the “Charges for research and reproduction” section might be scaring people away. If nothing else the new website at least demonstrates that we are cognitive of the need to maintain a fresh and modern web presence. It does not save time as I have to do much of the editing myself. It has come down to editing the calendar on a quarterly basis and our projects list annually.          

We have moved our entire web hosting to Creative Arc and pay them the annual fees for both sites. In addition if I need to make a change in the site that the ExpressionEngine can’t perform I pay an hourly fee to Creative Arc for each task. This seldom happens, so our website redesign has been cost effective.

Mel Sando
Administrator
Lake County Historical Society

Last week the new traveling exhibits program announced the itineraries of the first two traveling exhibits from the Minnesota Historical Society.

The Minnesota Legislature in its 2009 legislation appropriating money from the Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund supported a new exhibit at the Minnesota History Center, along with a traveling version. While the content for the new exhibit, which will complement the Northern Lights curriculum, is being developed, the first exhibits to debut will be welcome additions to many local history partners for many years to come.

The new exhibit, titled "Our Minnesota," is about the regions of the state: prairie, north woods, and cities. In discussing the state's geography the groundwork is nearly universally laid with maps. Minnesota on the Map will prepare visitors to local history partners to view "Our Minnesota" and its traveling editions in the near future.

In preparing to launch the new traveling exhibits program, the Society conducted a survey of potential host sites across the state, as well as interested individuals. The overwhelming demand? Minnesota Homefront, which is the traveling edition of the popular Minnesota's Greatest Generation exhibit at the Minnesota History Center. 'Homefront' shows how the regions of the state experienced the 1930s-1950s.

Recipients were chosen through a competitive process. Each proposal demonstrated strong measurable outcomes and thorough discussions of need and rationale for hosting. Congratulations to all the hosts!

Minnesota on the Map:
Debut for the Minnesota Legislature at the History Center, Nov. 20-Jan. 16
Municipal Building Commission, Minneapolis, Jan. 29- March 20
Nobes County Historical Society, Worthington, April 2-May 22
Winona County Historical Society, Winona, May 28-July 24
Minnesota Discovery Center, Chisholm, August 6-September 25

Minnesota Homefront:
Debut for Minnesota Legislature at the State Capitol, Nov. 15-Nov. 29
Carver County Historical Society, Waconia, Jan. 28-March 6
Dodge County Historical Society, Mantorville, March 19-May 8
Virginia Area Historical Society, Virginia, May 21-July 10
Wabasha Heritage Preservation Commission, Wabasha, July 23-Sept. 11

In their book, "Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives," Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler examine a number of behaviors exhibited by networks. Local historical organizations in Minnesota, and really across the country, are an example of a network. Those who volunteer and work in the field tend to know and associate with one another - just look at all of the local historical organizations on social media sites like Facebook to see just how connected local history museums are.

Many well-meaning museum professionals have expressed concern over the capacity of smaller museums to address emerging standards. That sentiment is perhaps unfounded in general, if it is valid for isolated cases. The reason is the network of small local history museums.

Networks of people are fairly organic, the authors show. The way individuals are connected are varied, with some being more central and others being more peripheral. There are pros and cons to every position as things work their way across the network. The way things move is often through mimicry, and local historical organizations as much as individuals are hardwired to mimic what others do. This can easily be seen in new organizations that take a look at what's going on with their neighbors, which often leads to adopting strategies wholesale. Historical organizations are often exhorted not to "reinvent the wheel." That may or may not be for the best.

Those located more centrally in a network often run across things more quickly than those that are located more on the periphery. This is why isolated examples of lack of capability may occur, or why some adopt bar-raising tools more readily. However, as the authors show, adopting positive traits is higher probability than adopting negative behavior.

For those concerned about capacity to address standards, one only need to look at the quick adoption of PastPerfect Museum Software. In the past ten years in Minnesota, the number of users has gone from about 3 to about 100 of the roughly 500 local historical organizations. The software is raising the capacity of local historical organizations to manage documentary collections in order to preserve and make accessible local history.

Another bar-raising tool that may be at the point of PastPerfect a decade ago is the new Standards and Excellence Program for History Organizations (StEPs) from the American Association for State and Local History. Launched last year and already six organizations in Minnesota are using it, more are considering it, and possibly because six other organizations piloted the StEPs program in 2007-2008. Historical organizations mimic one another when it comes to adopting positive behaviors that lead to professional practices.

Critics who worry about local capacity, though, may point out that local historical organizations mimic counterproductive behavior, too. That's true, and we all can probably remember something we picked up along the way that turned out not to be such a good idea after all. Negative experiences help us learn, too.

Other than the Minnesota Historical Society, to which organizations do you turn when you need advice about history work? Why? What is it about their work that impresses you?