Monthly Archives: April 2012

Introducing our new Director of Historypin Australia

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As Historypin grows and takes on different lives in different communities all over the world, we’ve been looking to get good people to lead the project in some of those places.

After putting down roots in San Francisco with Jon Voss, we are now very pleased to be able to launch Historypin Australia in the form of Dr. Sarah Barns, our fantastic new team member and territory Director.

Sarah has a very strong, relevant background in the digital, creative and arts sectors and has been part of a small group of pioneers exploring geo-web and location publishing in Australia.

Specifically, Sarah has spent the past five years experimenting with how the documentary histories of urban sites might be unearthed using location-based services, using a range of media including sound and radio archives, film, photography and maps.

This work has included the production of the ABC’s Sydney Sidetracks in 2008 and co-production of the wonderful Unguarded Moments for the City of Sydney’s Art & About Festival in 2011.

The arrival of Dr Barns (FYI very useful in a geo-spatial heritage emergency, not useful if you’re ill on a plane), comes in the wake of some really exciting developments down under.

These have seen over 25 libraries, archives and museums come on board since Historypin’s launch in July last year, including Museum Victoria sharing the largest collection of images to date via their new Historypin Channel and a close collaboration with the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, with whom we recently announced plans to launch the first national Historypinning campaign in 2013, with a year of events and activities planned across the country.

For more on the national campaign and Sarah’s progress in Australia, keep an eye on the blog and you can get in touch at sarah.barns@wearewhatwedo.org.

Pipes, prams and poles

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Fave Piece of Content

Maasive Pipe

Massive pipe being transported through Fraserburgh, August 1977, Scotland, Shared by KristinaFR

Kristina shares her memories of a rather large pipe being transported through Fraserburg to the destination of St Fergus gas terminal. The photo works marvelous on Street View. I’m loving the children’s 70s fashion – the boy with the stripey long sleeve top and cords by the bicycle is definitely the highlight of the photo for me. I love that those crazy kids are following the pipe down the road. Epic.

Fave Story of the Week

The New Coldharbour Estate, London, 1948, Shared by a.t.nicebloke

A.T.Nicebloke (amazing choice of username) has shared a few lush photos this week on Historypin, it was a hard choice to only choose one from his collection This photo of The New Coldharbour Estate won me over. This little nipper is A.T.Nicebloke aged several months old in his silver cross pram. He’s in the garden of 25 Bromhendge. As you can see, the construction of the Coldharbour Estate was still in progress. My fave part of this story is the wooden chair (in the right hand corner of the photo) which was issued to people who had lost their possessions due to the bomb damage during World War II. Nicebloke still has the chair today, amazing. I would reccomend haivng a look at some of his other pins, especially the photo of him in August 1968, wearing a rather stylish denim waistcoat  and flares – I do enjoy the double denim look, a rather guilty pleasure.

Pinner of the Week

Working on Telegraph Wires, Yatpool, 1915-1925, Shared by Museum Victoria

#PINNEROFTHEWEEK is awarded to Museum Victoria for their masses of pins this week. They now have the total of, drum roll please - 8,299 pins! The guys at Museum Victoria have been sleeping, and have achieved this impressive total by using our amazing Bulk Uploader. This allows you to upload many many pieces of content at once – genius idea. They have also created a rather snazzy Channel which includes their logo and a lush banner. I’m not sure where to begin with my fave content from them… So here it goes, the photo above, Working on Telegraph Wires showing 6 men with hats doing some manual labour with style. The men on the top of the pole are doing a very good balancing act. Another fave is Steam-powered sawmill cutting timber for locomotiv – loving the industrial feel of this photo. Check out Museum Victoria’s vast collection on their Channel here.

Innovation requires Improvisation

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I had the great privilege to travel to New Zealand at the end of last year to attend the National Digital Forum in Wellington, which was an amazing international gathering of innovators in the technology and cultural heritage space.  I also took part in LODLAM-NZ, hosted and organized by DigitalNZ.

All of the videos from the presentations have been online for awhile now, and all of them are well worth taking a look–I’m serious.  Eleanor Whitworth wrote up a fantastic summary of the conference as well.

I was invited to give a 7 minute ignite talk about Historypin and Linked Open Data in libraries, archives, and museums.  Unfortunately, I had A/V difficulties that turned my talk into a comedy of errors.  Of course my Kiwi hosts were generous with my alloted time and also spooned out plenty of good natured teasing.  The video is basically an outtake (I’d do it over if I could! Especially the important National Archives photo-fade marking the beginning of the forced detainment of Japanese Americans during WWII, which is when my video flipped on), but I thought it was worth sharing if for no other reason than to illustrate that part of innovating is failing.  Sometimes we come up short, and sometimes things fall apart in front of an international audience of our colleagues.  But in my mind at least, innovation also requires improvisation, humility, and a good sense of humor.

The missing slides that I had to work through with interpretive dance are in the Slideshare below the video.

Slides for: Radically Open Cultural Heritage Data on the Web

Winthrop Rockefeller Centennial

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This year is the centennial of the birth of Winthrop Rockefeller, Governor of Arkansas 1967-1971 and institutions across Arkansas are collaborating to host a series of arts conferences, art exhibits, and digital exhibits to celebrate the Governor’s contributions to Arkansas.

As part of the anniversary celebrations, the Centre for Arkansas History and Culture at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock have been using Historypin to map their photographic and audio collections.

There is some fantastic stuff in their collection, including Rockefeller’s service in the Pacific during World War Two, a recording of his oath when he was sworn in as Governor in 1967 and a recording of his Inaugural speech in 1969.

And there is material from 1968 capturing the memorial service for Martin Luther King - Winthrop Rockefeller was the only American Governor known to hold a public memorial service for Martin Luther King. Click the image below to see the photo on the map and listen to the speech he gave on the steps of Arkansas State Capitol.

To see more material and the Tours and Collections they have curated, visit UALR’s Channel.

And check out their website where you can find out lots more about who is involved, what other centennial events are planned (including a virtual Rockefeller exhibit due to open on May 1st) and explore their collection on their Historypin Embed.

All new Historypin Community pages!

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Are you a pinner? A teacher? Someone looking to run a Historypin project in your local area?

Have a look at our brand new Historypin Community pages where you can find the  latest news such as who’s been chosen as Pinner of the Week and what Historypin Challenges you can get involved with.

We’ve also got how to guides and a heap of other materials to give you some ideas and tips on how to use Historypin.

If you’re a teacher, check out our schools section which includes:

If you’re interested in running a project with your community, check out our Local Projects section which has lots of useful materials: