Public History Websites
There are a number of important Public History sites which explore the various national projects. Reading these different sites is starting point for exploring and reflecting on the different approaches to the relationship between History and the public; History and citizenship; History and education
See for example:
On 13 - 14 February 2006 the IHR held a conference called 'History and the Public'. The conference brought together a number of people from universities, archives, museums, publishers and the media to discuss how the public study and consume history. If you visit the link you will find links to the key papers in MP3 format. Key issues addressed were: Historical thinking and the enhancement of public debate; Whose heritage?; Art history and the public at the National Gallery; An Australian perspective on public history. A roundtable discussion (again available online) gave some overviews of the general issues.
On 12 - 13 February 2007 the IHR held a conference called 'Why History Matters' to discuss the question of why History is a crucial element in UK education and national life in the early twenty-first century. Delegates were drawn from an unprecedented range of professional backgrounds, including primary, secondary, further and higher education, school governors, HMIs, representatives of museums, the QCA, the media, the connexions and guidance services, examining boards, English Heritage, the Council for British Archaeology and Historic Royal Palaces.
The Public History Resource Center
seeks to curate the field of public history, particularly as it is exercised on the Web, by providing a structure of information which contextualizes and supports the field. www.publichistory.org provides descriptive and analytical annotations of resources in the field, as well as original essays. The site contains: a working definition of public history; a short essay detailing one aspect of public history's history; descriptions of degree programs in public history and related fields; an exploration of various careers in the field; current job listings; criteria for evaluating public history Web sites; select reviews of public history Web sites; and more. The site's contributors have a diverse range of experiences in both the study and the practice of public history. PHRC is collaborative in nature. We welcome comments and contributions from those interested in the development of the field: editors@publichistory.org.
For more than 25 years, NCPH has worked to advance the field of public history. Today the organization promotes professionalism among history practitioners and encourages their engagement with the public. Learn more at "About the Council." We are a membership association of consultants, museum professionals, government historians, professors & students, archivists, teachers, cultural resource managers, curators, film & media producers, historical interpreters, policy advisors, and many others. Members confer at the annual meeting each spring and share their expertise in our journal, The Public Historian, the newsletter, Public History News, and on the email listserv, H-Public.
This conference developed the debates on ‘the use of history for public purposes and the involvement of the public in the study and consumption of history’ that began with the highly successful Institute of Historical Research Conference in February 2006. (See www.history.ac.uk/public and History Today (July 2006), pp. 70-1). It covered a very wide range of subjects in 18 different panels including: Heritage and communities; Using the past; Buildings and public history; Ireland and public history; History on television; Public history and Gettysburg; Archaeology and extremism; Museums, archives and the past; The People’s voice: history-making in Canada, Australia and Singapore.
Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past
IPUP York is a new institute at the University of York founded to promote academic partnership projects across museums, galleries, heritage and the media. Drawing together researchers, practitioners and audiences, it aims to establish and embed new findings and methodologies relating to the matrix of knowledge, education and culture that informs individual, community and ‘public’ understandings and engagements with the past. It bridges academia, the heritage sector and the public to generate new understandings of how identities are constructed and how narratives of the past function in our society. The focus of research goes beyond contemporary and national boundaries, analyzing the uses of the past in earlier and comparative societies.
