Location
Breakout room 1
Start Date
10-8-2018 3:30 PM
End Date
10-8-2018 4:15 PM
Description
Historic buildings shaped, witnessed, bear evidence of, and can serve as
accessible gateways to the history of a community. They also can
contribute the development of a community’s identity. The case for the
value of aging structures and the task of arguing for their preservation
may fall upon the shoulders of underfunded and under resourced local
historical societies. Public history students and local historical
societies benefit from collaborative service-learning experiences where
students help the historical society document local history and build
their work place skills. Students also gain an awareness of the
importance of the work historical societies do and the needs of the
communities that they serve. This presentation will discuss the learning
experiences of students in an undergraduate public history class who
worked with a local historical society to document and share the stories
of historic structures that are located the town’s historic main street.
It will describe the evolution of this collaborative activity, describe
project stages, assignment topics, means of coordination between
academic librarian, public history professor, students, and historical
society, the benefits for all involved, the outcomes of the project, and
next steps that are envisioned. It will invite discussion of similar
experiences or suggestions of how the collaboration, which is expected
to be repeated, might be improved.
Short bio of the presenter(s)
Theresa McDevitt is a librarian at Indiana University of Pennsylvania who serves as the subject bibliographer for the History Department. She has taught a one-credit library class with a community service element and has collaborated with a public history professor on a number of public history research projects which have benefited the community.
Building History: Public History Students make Community History More Accessible through Building History Projects
Breakout room 1
Historic buildings shaped, witnessed, bear evidence of, and can serve as
accessible gateways to the history of a community. They also can
contribute the development of a community’s identity. The case for the
value of aging structures and the task of arguing for their preservation
may fall upon the shoulders of underfunded and under resourced local
historical societies. Public history students and local historical
societies benefit from collaborative service-learning experiences where
students help the historical society document local history and build
their work place skills. Students also gain an awareness of the
importance of the work historical societies do and the needs of the
communities that they serve. This presentation will discuss the learning
experiences of students in an undergraduate public history class who
worked with a local historical society to document and share the stories
of historic structures that are located the town’s historic main street.
It will describe the evolution of this collaborative activity, describe
project stages, assignment topics, means of coordination between
academic librarian, public history professor, students, and historical
society, the benefits for all involved, the outcomes of the project, and
next steps that are envisioned. It will invite discussion of similar
experiences or suggestions of how the collaboration, which is expected
to be repeated, might be improved.