[LINK] Future of History on the Web

[Tom Worthington]

Michael McKernan will speak on "Doing History Differently" at the 
Australian National University, 4pm, 15 June 2011: 
<http://billboard.anu.edu.au/event_view.asp?id=77280>.


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     Michael McKernanPublic Lecture
     Doing History Differently

     A while ago I was telling my excellent and thorough editor at 
Allen&Unwin that I had been reading the letters of Manning Clark. 'Who 
is Manning Clark?' this University of Sydney graduate asked. Writing a 
history of the ACT Brumbies some years ago one of the sharpest of the 
players said to me in a friendly way, 'I have no idea what you are 
doing. What is history?'. Those of us who have worked in History all our 
lives cannot assume that what we do is understood, or valued.

     The resources for writing history have never been more universally 
available. Forget the reading rooms and libraries of the past, many of 
us can now do a great deal of our research online. Yet these resources 
are fundamentally wasted if potential consumers of history do not 
understand history's relevance and appeal. There is no point in 
hand-wringing about these things. We need to seek out solutions.

     Can commercial television help? This paper looks at a ten part 
Channel Nine series, currently screening in prime time, history pure and 
simple, to see what can be done.

     Michael McKernan has worked as an academic, museum historian, and 
has presented history on radio and television. He is a graduate of the 
ANU. ...
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Links to some of Michael McKernan's books in my blog: <http://blog.tomw.net.au/2011/06/future-of-history-on-web.html>



-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, The
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/
Visiting Scientist, CSIRO ICT Centre: http://bit.ly/csiro_ict_canberra