Hello fellow classmates!
I am very excited to work with all of you this semester as we tackle this Digital History world together. My name is Lina Mann and I am in the first year of the Public History M.A. Program. I am from a small town called Phoenix, about half an hour outside of Baltimore, Maryland. In May of 2016 I graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a major in History and minors in Museum Studies, Anthropology, and Environmental Studies. Last year I held two very different positions with the National Park Service. In September of 2016, I moved to Sitka, Alaska to work as a museum technician intern with Sitka National Historical Park. In this position, I catalogued totem poles and helped arrange their park records collection. This allowed me to gain experience with some of the federal collections management systems including the Interior Collections Management System (ICMS). Then in March of 2017, I began a position at Arches National Park as part of their seasonal interpretive ranger staff. I worked gave public programming about the park, answered visitor questions, hiked all summer, and had a blast! Currently, I am a research fellow at the White House Historical Association (and no I do not work for the White House…I just work next door talking about its history).
At American University, I have immersed myself in the world of Public History. When I grow up I hope to become a museum director or go back to work for the National Park Service and so I always like to dip my toes into the many facets of the museum world. I am particularly interested in how the public engages with the topic of environmental history and the idea that the past is intricately connected with one’s sense of place.
In this course, I would like to learn more about useful programs and projects that make online interaction with history possible. Based on the fact that it took six emails with our very patient Professor to even get myself on this blog, I have a lot to learn about this digital world. As a person that is more comfortable with mountains, deserts, and the absence of technology, moving to the big city and being more active online has been challenging for me thus far. I hope that this course will make that a little bit easier. When I worked for the Park Service many of my colleagues were beginning distance learning projects where they conducted online interactive programming for students across the world. This idea of global communication about history is fascinating to me, and I hope I can explore this further in this course.