The William Brown House. Image courtesy of Historic London Town and Gardens.
How new-age museum curation, archiving, and presentation are preserving our local culture for future generations
The Covid 19 pandemic shut down everything, as we all know. For months, even years in some cases, we couldn’t attend museums and cultural institutions to see the pieces of art and history that inspire us and bring us closer to our communities. Museums, like the rest of us, had to adapt, and figure out ways to connect with people even though the connection could not be in person. Prior to 2020, different museums and institutions had been digitizing parts of their collections in large preservation efforts. The pandemic accelerated the movement, allowing staff and volunteers to devote their time to rapidly increasing the digitizing process and develop creative ways to share their collections with communities online. Virtual tours, interactive events, and online exhibits now offer us the chance to explore collections without leaving the living room.
Digitizing collections offers new opportunities for older collections and for the creation of new ones. “We see digitalization as collecting for the future, not necessarily just for the past,” says Caitlin Swaim, Curator of the Annapolis Maritime Museum. “We don’t just want to show rooms of stuff, but present it in such a way that is relevant to the community. We want it to be relevant in 100 years or more. We also want it to be dynamic, accessible but exciting, engaging, and inviting.” In 2014, the Annapolis Maritime Museum began to digitize their collection. Without an actual collections staff, they have trained volunteers how to properly handle the process with the help of the State Archives. The goal is to make sure that the information can outlive any brick-and-mortar institution.
The museum had a wonderful boost to their collection a few years ago when they received, through a will, the Mike Miron collection of oral histories and stories. “People love seeing the local names and hearing the voices from their own communities,” Swaim says. In 2018 the museum started their own project in oral histories to continue capturing these voices of the Chesapeake region. People have the chance to hear the history from those who actually lived it, offering more than just a simple visual snapshot in time. This allows community members to be more engaged with local information from the past and present, and become a part of the documented future. Some people seek digital archives for research purposes, and some are just interested in the topics. “It’s exciting to browse digital archives at the museum,” Swaim says. “You always stumble onto something you didn’t even know you wanted.”
H. Gamse & Bro., Lithographers, for the Tolchester Beach Involvement Company, “Bon Ton Annapolis and West River Family Excursions,” c. 1920. Gift of H. Graham Wood, Collection of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. Photograph by David W. Harp. | “Two Black men hunting railbirds on the Patuxent River.” Photographic prints, c. 1900. Collection of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.
“It’s always been a goal to digitize our collection and make it completely accessible,” says Jenifer Dolde, Curator and Folklife Center Manager for the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. The museum, located in St. Michaels, currently has more than 80,000 images online and continues to build its online presence, making everything available, even if every image isn’t perfect. “Especially during Covid, people were looking to online archives for research and browsing of collections, and now there is an expectation,” Dolde says. “Plus, digitizing helps us connect with maritime history locally and worldwide.”
“Digitizing museum collections is huge—it won’t be going anywhere,” suggests Gabriella Cantelmo, the Museum Collections Specialist at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. “The way the information is cataloged…we can make an exhibit out of our collections.” While museums and historical societies sometimes purchase artifacts, the majority of items are donated. “One of the great benefits of digital archiving is that people want to share these amazing artifacts or images they may have, but they want to keep the original. We can do a high-quality scan, which allows them to keep the original, plus have a reliable back up, and then the item can be shared with the community. In the alternative, if someone wants to donate because they don’t have reliable storage, we can take the original and give them a wonderful digital version. It’s a win-win for historical preservation,” Cantelmo explains.
Maker unknown. Skipjack whirligig, C. 1950–1970. Collection of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. Photograph by David W. Harp.
Two historic photographs of Annapolis sailing, courtesy of the Annapolis Maritime Museum (gifted to the museum by Chesapeake Bay Magazine).
While photos are the easiest items to scan and digitize, it still takes hundreds of hours of effort when the volume of photos is in the thousands. The difficulty of digitizing increases significantly for objects, which, in this region, could include anchors, folk art, large maritime objects, and even vessels. Anyone dealing with these artifacts must be trained in the proper way to handle and photograph them, so that they are not overhandled. “Technology has come a long way,” Cantelmo says. “We’ve been lucky to receive a grant for a large format scanner, which will allow us to digitize large fragile items such as ship plans and navigational charts, which would normally be too delicate to run through a machine. These are amazing artifacts for visitors to be able to view online. And since smaller historical organizations would not be able to afford such a scanner, we are looking to share access with them and other museums to increase the digital archiving efforts across the community.”
The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum will also be launching online access to oral histories in the next several months. “People don’t know they exist,” Dolde says. “This is a huge outreach and trust building task in the community. We want people to know that these histories are safe and treated with the proper care. It’s fantastic to hear stories directly from the crab pickers and watermen. With interviews, photos, transcripts, and more, online visitors will have a more comprehensive experience.” Many of the oral histories are currently on cassette tapes. “These tapes are deteriorating,” Cantelmo says. “If we don’t digitize them quickly, these oral histories will be lost. Time is ticking.”
Larger museums like the Smithsonian and Guggenheim have been digitizing archives for a while, but also increased their efforts during the pandemic. “Digitizing really started in the art museum world because some of the art itself was digital starting in the ’70s and ’80s, and museums had to figure out how to preserve it,” says Rachel Rabinowitz, the Visitor Services Coordinator and Collections Manager for Historic London Town and Gardens. Digital archiving has always been a passion of hers, inspiring her to earn a certificate in Digital Curation from Johns Hopkins University. “It’s such a prevalent way that people consume information now. People don’t write physical letters anymore or print photos in large quantities. They keep their photos on their phones, view things on social media, and share things in emails.” She points out that digital archiving is simply a version of writing the who, what, where, and when on the back of old photos. Those handwritten messages would smear or fade over time, along with the quality of the photo. Digital archiving allows the history and information attached to it to, conceivably, last forever.
The Annapolis Maritime Museum’s online research portal home page for searching digital collections. | The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum’s online research portal home page for searching digital collections.
While the push for virtual collections and programming has been occurring since technology first allowed for it, larger museums, like the Smithsonian, are able to increasingly grow their offerings due to larger staff and marketing budgets. Smaller organizations rely heavily on grant money and donations at a much smaller level to produce their collections and tend to help each other out, like the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum plans to do with their large-scale scanner. At London Town, staff scan photos from the past, color correct them, and make them clearer. Then they organize the digitized photos into searchable collections. “It can definitely turn into a rabbit hole,” Rabinowitz says. “If you are looking for something specific, you can always call the museum and we will help you find it.” London Town works with DigitalMaryland.org and the Enoch Pratt Library to develop its digital archives. The research opportunities seem almost endless by working with these larger organizations.
“Linda and Buck Hutson standing outside their studio in Bozman, Broad Creek Neck, MD”, photograph taken as part of CBMM Folklife documentation. Slides, color, 2002. Photograph by Shelly Drummond, Collection of Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. | “Small boy holds fishing pole while sitting on a piling on a dock.” Negatives. Photograph by Constance Stewart Larrabee, Collection of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
“There was initially a concern that digitizing archives and creating virtual tours online would be bad business for museums and historical societies,” Rabinowitz says. “Would people want to come in person if they could just see it all online? It turns out that digital images and videos get people more interested and really make them want to come in person. It does not keep them away. Quite the opposite. Especially now, after the pandemic. People browsed online sites and that piqued their interest to visit places in person. But online is not going away. Not everyone can get to certain museums or historical centers, for a variety of reasons. It is important to keep digitizing, preserving our community history, and making it accessible to as many people as possible.”
The field of digital archiving is gaining in popularity as museums continue to build their online and social media presence. At the same time, there is a trend of more people donating digital art and historical content. This is all good news for online activity. If you can’t make it to all the fantastic museums in our region, take a look online. You are sure to find a treasure trove of interesting things to see and learn.
