The confluence of public history and technology has enabled the average person to explore historical topics without ever leaving their home. Over the past two decades, the growth of websites dedicated to public history, including museums, historical sites, archives and libraries has been countered with a decline in actual in-person visits. The idea of the museum as a place is something that I have questioned before. Does a visit to the physical museum trump a visit to a virtual one? Or is it the other way around? I see benefits in both types of visits, especially if done well.
When Smith asked if serious history could be done on the web back in 1998, the web looked much different than it does today. Besides benefitting from cleaner and more sophisticated web design, today’s historical websites offer more interactivity than previously available, as evidenced by the evolution of the Great Chicago Fire website produced by the Chicago History Museum and Northwestern University. Although it maintains its core features of images, texts, and essays, the site today is visually different and more user-friendly than the original version.
The ability to create an exhibit online, such as the Great Chicago Fire, allows historians to bypass the traditional route of relying on a physical space. While this makes accessing more original documents and images that one probably wouldn’t encounter in a traditional museum exhibit, the experience of visiting a museum in person is lost. Although virtual tours are common, as described in Anne Lindsay’s #VirtualTourist article, there is something about the museum experience that cannot be replaced fully online. But does this matter?
In a way, the online museum is much more “public” than traditional public history institutions. By increasing access to those who cannot visit in person, allowing educators to bring museums into the classroom, allowing users to help organize the National Library of Australia online, and putting a city’s history into the palm of one’s hand through a mobile application, the democratization of history can easily been seen. I think serious history can be done on the web, it just looks different than what traditionally has been done in the past. By combining the physical museum experience with the digital one, there is a greater potential of creating more dynamic and interactive examples of public history. In another twenty years public history on the web will probably be even more seamless, especially as we become more accustomed to accessing everything, including history, online.