{"id":5475,"date":"2015-07-20T09:20:52","date_gmt":"2015-07-19T23:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.wordpress.com\/?p=5475"},"modified":"2022-08-04T00:23:56","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T00:23:56","slug":"ozhist-historian-captivates-intnl-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/2015\/07\/20\/ozhist-historian-captivates-intnl-audience\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Historian Captivates International Audience"},"content":{"rendered":"

The work of Australian historians, librarians and archivists is highly valued internationally. In my last post<\/a> I highlighted the work of Australian historians Julia Torpey and Peter Read which featured in a plenary panel at the recent Global Digital Humanities Conference. But they were not the only Australian historians who featured.<\/p>\n

\"Sherratt<\/a>
Tim Sherratt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the last day of the conference we were treated to an insightful keynote address by Tim Sherratt, Associate Professor of Digital Heritage, Manager of Trove Australia and inventor of many innovative digital tools<\/a>. Tim Sherratt is an historian who is blazing a trail for thoughtful and innovative use of\u00a0technology in the\u00a0research and presentation of history.<\/p>\n

Sherratt captivated his audience from around the world with his talk, \u2018Unremembering the forgotten\u2019. Delving back into twentieth century Australian history, Sherratt questioned the nature of our access to government archives. He argued that\u00a0\u00a0\u201caccess is a process of control rather than liberation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sherratt\u00a0is working to reveal the lives of people who are not remembered in our histories. In his keynote address he argued that the\u00a0lives of these ‘forgotten’ people\u00a0are often recorded in archival documents\u00a0but these people have been ‘unremembered’. They are hidden from our view because of the way the catalogue search has been structured. Tim Sherratt demonstrated that when we take charge of our search for information by building our own digital tools we can retrieve the stories of the forgotten, but likewise the digital tools we use every day when searching websites can shut out the memories of the forgotten.<\/p>\n

\"Conference<\/a>It would be tempting to summarise this keynote, but there is no need. In an act of generosity so typical of him, Sherratt has made his entire speech and slides freely available via his blog<\/a>. Make sure you read it.<\/p>\n

Tim Sherratt is highly respected world-wide for his work in digital humanities. He is one of many digital humanists who openly share their insights\u00a0and their work online through blogs Twitter, GitHub, THATCamps<\/a> and other services. They exhibit what I believe is the ethos of the twenty-first century. Collaboration rather than negative competition is how we help ourselves and help others achieve more. I have learned a great deal as a result of\u00a0the generosity of Tim Sherratt and other digital humanists.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the comments about Sherratt’s paper. The tweets refer to Sherratt by his Twitter handle, @wragge:<\/p>\n

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'You were all applauding for so long we don't have much time for questions' -chair Richard Neville re @wragge<\/a> #dh2015<\/a>. Great talk! Inspiring<\/p>\n

— Victoria Van Hyning (@VanHyningV) July 3, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n