This week, I have spent a lot of time finalizing and refining the survey I’ve been
discussing for the past two weeks. While putting together the finishing touches I also made sure to consult some national public history surveys to form my questions. Of course, one of these was Rosenzweig and Thelen’s groundbreaking study from The Presence of the Past, but I also made sure to review a more recent study from the American Historical Association and Fairleigh Dickinson University. My survey is tailored to local history and specifically to Greenwood Cemetery, however, I feel that having a good understanding of the public’s opinion on the topics asked will provide a solid baseline for the development of the tour. It would be wonderful to be able to identify something that can be addressed by the tour and be able to quantify that with data. I have also been thinking that it might be useful to have a follow-up survey that could be sent to the tour attendees at the end of their tours that could be used to see if our tour was successful at its educational aims.
As I will be using Clio to create the digital tour, I will need to have the complete entries ready to go before uploading the information to Clio. Each Clio entry that I create will contain the following components: (1) a precise GPS location, (2) a five to six sentence overview to provide essential context, (3) a four to six paragraph backstory that tells a compelling story about the tour stop, (4) the sources used in writing the narrative in Chicago Style citation, (5) images, and (5) links to further the public’s knowledge.
Currently, there are eight general locations that the tour will stop on with multiple topics contained within each of those stops. My current tally of topics that will be included is at thirty! I have not yet decided whether it would be best to have an entry for each of the eight general stop with multiple topics contained within one entry or if each individual topic will have its own entry. Obviously, the former will be easier to produce in a quicker time frame and would allow for more time to focus on additional theme tours, however, I do worry that using this method would take away from the type of information presented or in some cases, even possibly muddle topics together. It is my hope that as I begin to craft the entries that the solution to this quandary will become clear. Hopefully, I will be ready to begin the actual authoring of the entries soon, so I will report back on what my supervisor and I decide. Stay tuned!
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