One of the topics in class this week that I thought was interesting and wanted to reflect on is how to get people engaged and working with primary materials. In class, we saw an example of primary documents shared with educators with response questions for students to answer. Margery pointed out how using these objects like this doesn’t give the context of the world around the material in that period. I’ve spent much of my time thinking of different ways to make history more exciting and attention-grabbing. As Margery said in class, it seems most students’ least favorite subjects are math and history.
One of my thoughts on how to make history more entertaining would be to move toward the public/popular history route, but make it free and accessible. Archives can be intimidating and it’s easy to just rely on online sources instead of going to the repository. I’ve been work-shopping an idea in my mind about making videos using primary documents. These can be short videos showcasing the material and giving the historical context and importance of the object. These videos can serve as educational and also as a promotion of the materials you have and why someone should visit your site. I got this idea from trying to use popular history like movies or online videos as a way to bring attention to primary documents. I know museums such as the Mutter have had a successful YouTube page, and I spent a lot of time watching their videos. Making this kind of content could also help attract the eyes of younger audiences. I would hope that it may teach people what archivists are, what they do, and why they’re important. Little moments like these can change someone’s life. Who knows, maybe it may even inspire someone to become an archivist.