Launching a Book Tour

If you've been following this blog over the last few years then you may remember my ongoing project of digitizing and archiving the aerial photographs of Brawley native Harry Casey.  The project  was not just about an archival collection for the Imperial Valley Desert Museum (IVDM), though obviously that was a huge part of it.  It was also about highlighting these unique images for everyone to see- not only researchers but visitors, teachers, and archaeology enthusiasts across the globe- in the form of a book.  When Harry donated his photographs to the museum, he asked me to edit his research manuscript and help him get it published.







I worked with Harry and Sunbelt Publications for several years to ensure the manuscript met their professional standards, was as accurate as possible, and get it published.  Finally, this spring, Harry's dream (and mine!) came true and Geoglyphs of the Desert Southwest: Earthen Art as Viewed from Above was officially released April 13, 2019!

with Harry Casey, photographer and co-author

I traveled back to California for a book launch tour and ended up presenting to six different groups in the San Diego/Imperial Valley region in the space of a week.  Harry came out the the IVDM for the official launch and signed books, but was very adamant that I would be the one doing any public speaking, as that has never been something he was comfortable with and his health makes it difficult now.  

Being back at the IVDM and sharing the excitement of this project in its final, published form, was amazing.  The support shown by the staff, my colleagues, and board members, museum members, visitors, and friends, was one of the first times I really felt that the book was really finish and ready to go out into the world.  Besides a wonderful launch at the IVDM I presented to the San Diego Natural History Museum's Family Day, the San Diego Rock Art Association, the San Diego Association of Geologists, and the Colorado Desert Archaeology Society at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.  Sunbelt Publications also set up an interview for me with KPBS Midday Edition radio host Maureen Cavanaugh.

With Maureen Cavanaugh doing an interview for KPBS Midday Edition

A week touring and promoting the book, helping spread the word about how amazing the deserts and people of Southern California are, was an incredible experience.  And more addicting than I expected: I'm already looking for my next research project to write about!

Interested in buying a copy of Geoglyphs of the Desert Southwest? It's available through Amazon.com, the San Diego Natural History Museum, the Imperial Valley Desert Museum, or contacting me through email, Twitter, or this blog. Copies bought through me will be signed and I can personalize them if you'd like.

Exhibit Expo-ration

Marcie, David, and me discovering a shadowbox in Phoenix, built by a company out of Germany, showing a video from Imperial Valley

One of the most impactful parts of my experience at AAM's convention this year came not from professional sessions (although I went to many very good presentations) but on the Expo Floor.

If you've never been to a museum conference before, it is probably similar to any other professional conference in that one large area is given over to vendors so professionals can wander their booths and discover new trends and topics.  We all secretly go there the first time to see if any vendors are giving away good swag, but there is a quiet hope- unexpressed, like a wish, so that it might come true- that we will see one new idea that we can bring back to our museum.  This year's conference did not send me home with one new idea.  No, it was more a case of- what can we do first because there are so many ideas!

Marcie explores a VR world

The big trend being pushed this year by vendors was clearly AR and VR.  Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality technology have been around for awhile, but are now becoming less expensive (comparatively) and are something that even smaller museums can begin to realistically experiment with.  Marcie and David tried out some of the VR, flying over New York City and walking on the moon.  Those experiences got us brainstorming on how to bring VR to our museum.  Would our visitors want to 'fly' over the Coyote Mountains or the Salton Sea?  Virtually walk Painted Gorge with the bighorn sheep?

Touchscreen graphic rail for exhibits- I want this!

It was exciting to see some technologies that we've been trying to incorporate and get to be very hands-on with them.  One of my personal favorites was a touchscreen tabletop computer that allows people to overlay maps, watch videos, and anything else you can think to upload onto it! The company now even has smaller touchscreens that would work as highly interactive rail panels in future exhibits.  One of the hardest things about building new exhibits is editing down text for a panel- imagine a setup that let people access as much or as little information as they wanted on a part of the exhibit they were looking at!

Walking on the moon- in Phoenix

People always tell you not to let yourself be limited- that if you can imagine it, it can happen.  The Expo Floor this year reminded me that if I can imagine it, someone can build it.  Never say 'can't'.  There is no 'can't'; there is only the limits of the human imagination. And even those boundaries are forever being pushed.  After all, 100 years ago, people said 'can't' to the idea of walking on the moon.

Virtual Reality: What you see vs what they experience

Presenting AAM 2018

(As is usual for me, it takes me a few days to decompress from going full blast at a conference and then I can start organizing my thoughts into blogs and ideas.  Not sure why, but it's how my brain seems to work- which is why this blog and the next few are coming to you a week after the conference!) 

Heritage Square, Phoenix AZ

May 6-9 was the annual American Alliance of Museums conference, held this year in Phoenix, Arizona.  I've been to many other conferences and presented at conferences over the years (I actually connected with the IVDM at my first Society of American Archivists conference just after grad school) but this was my first AAM convention.  I met some great people, attended some good sessions, got blown away every time I walked onto the Expo floor, and am now trying to piece it all together in 'real' life.





I was honored to be included on  a panel where I got to share my experience developing field trips from scratch alongside other small museums.

"Small Museums/Large Classrooms: Three Solutions for expanding field trips at your institution"

This session was moderated by Jennifer Hance, the Director of Education at Heritage Square in Phoenix.  She put out an email last year about the topic because she was looking for ideas on how to expand her field trip programs and wanted to see what other places had done.  Megan Murphy, Visitor Services and Interpretation Coordinator at Golden History Museum & Park, and Tiffani Egnor, Curator of Education at Chandler Museum, presented as well.  Unlike other conference presentations I've done, this one was more of a 'talk show' format instead of each person getting up and talking about their institution by themselves.  We didn't stand in front of a podium but took the mike and stood at the front of the stage to talk-granted, a little awkward when you're looking at notes to remind you of something you wanted to mention, but much more conducive to spontaneous thoughts and (I think) it encouraged the sense of connectedness we were trying to make with the audience. We probably had about 60 people attend out session and it was really encouraging the number of questions and feedback we got towards the end, and the number of people who stayed after the session to talk with us.  I loved getting to meet these incredible women, share ideas with them, and present with them!

Tiffani Egnor, Me, Jennifer Hance, & Megan Murphy- AAM Presenters!

I'm not going to repeat the entire session here, I don't think that's what people want from me at this blog. Though if you want the slides or more details, feel free to email me (ivdmuseum@gmail.com). Each of us presented on what I think were good ideas at our institutions, but the main messages we wanted to send were:

Hands-on, interactive- and in nature! 

• Don't be afraid to try new things.  Experiment.  If one idea doesn't work, get feedback from co-workers and teachers about how to turn it into something that does work. 
•  Don't talk at kids, talk to them.  Be interactive.  
• If you think it's boring, guaranteed the kids do to.  Don't be boring.  Learning is fun, and the more fun it is the more you learn and remember. 
• Start out with your grade learning objectives, but as you go along listen to what the kids are asking.  Be flexible.  As long as they are asking questions and being engaged, they are learning and you are succeeding in your field trip.

  

  Interactive is the key to a successful field trip!

  
  
  
  

Hiking to the Bottom of the Ocean

My view of the Coyote Mountains may be one of my all time favorites, and I love hiking in them, but this was the first time I've actually hiked up the mountains.

I knew going in this was a bit of a stretch for me- I tend to be one of those people who needs to slowly adjust to altitude, and I haven't been hiking much in the last year or so.  But I'd never done the famous hike to the bottom of the ocean before and the first day of Spring seemed like a good time to give it a try. I admit, by the time I got back down to the car my legs were pretty tired, but I wasn't nearly as wiped as I had expected to be- and the day after I was still capable of walking, so that seems like a win to me!

Unbeatable view of Imperial Valley

Trace fossils from when this was the bottom of the ocean

 When I'm out hiking, I always try to read up on some of the geology of the area I'll be in and while I almost never remember more than 1% of what I read before any given hike, even that little bit of information I manage to retain increases my appreciation for what I see along the way.   Hiking up the Coyote Mountains, for instance, you are going back 4-10 million years in time, and if you look (one of my excuses for always being slow) you can find amazing evidence remaining that 10 million years ago this entire part of California was a part of the ocean.  When kids come to the museum asking what dinosaurs we had here, we talk about whales, sharks, coral, and oysters.


The entire hike I marveled at the views: the rocks around me, the trace fossils of so many different shells, the fresh scat as evidence that bighorn sheep had recently passed this way- not to mention the breathtaking view of the valley when I turned and looked behind me.  It was a great reminder of why it is so important to get outside some days.  I was not only enjoying nature on a lovely first day of spring (and feeling sorry for my friends and family on the East Coast dealing with their fourth nor'easter in two weeks) but renewing my enthusiasm for the incredible history and geology of the area, and why I encourage visitors to the museum to go take a hike!

Next Step: Publishing

Getting the book on geoglyphs published will be my first publication available in bookstores, museums gift shops, and online- a lasting work that I hope will inspire a whole new generation of archaeologists, ethnographic research, and interest in the desert Southwest and the people who have lived there for thousands of years.  I'm working not only with Harry Casey, the photographer and author of the manuscript, but with Sunbelt Publications.

Sunbelt Publications produces "well-crafted, award-winning books" that "celebrate the relationship of the land and its people."  Their books help "to discover and conserve the natural, historical and cultural heritage of unique regions" and focus on California, the Southwest, and Baja California, Mexico.

What does that mean? It means I'm very lucky that they are interested in working with me to get this book published!

Now that the manuscript is ready, the photographs have been digitized, all that's left is to raise the money for publishing.  The entire process will cost $10,600.  I need to have the first half ($5,300) to Sunbelt by October 30.

So as a true 21st century, social media answer, I've started a GOFUNDME campaign! Any help you can give is amazing, whether that's donations or sharing the campaign with others who can help. Anyone who donates will be thanked in the book. 

Part of the famous 'Blythe Giants' complex 

Thank you all for your support as I work to make this dream a reality!

Project Completed! For now

Archiving, accessioning to PastPerfect, digitizing, & encapsulating photos and slides

It's hard to believe it's nearly the end of September already.  A month ago I began an intense digitization project at the Imperial Valley Desert Museum with the goal of scanning all photographs in the Harry Casey Collection that connected to geoglyphs.  In a collection of more than 8,000 individual images, I knew the bulk of them pertained to geoglyphs, but what did that mean? All 8,000? 7,000?





30 days, 230.5 hours, and 2 scanners later, the answer is 4,462.  That's the number of photographs scanned, although there were over 1,000 duplicate copies of individual images.

2 scanners worked hard on this project!

What's next? What was the point of becoming the Mad Scanner? I'll be working with photographer Harry Casey and Sunbelt Publications to put together Harry's manuscript with accompanying images for publication.  The museum will apply for grants to create an interactive digital exhibit based on the work.  After that? There are plenty more ideas waiting to be implemented- not to mention almost another 4,000 photographs of rock art, Nazca Lines, and desert plants waiting to be scanned and create exciting, interesting, and beautiful exhibits!

A special thanks to Dr. David Breeckner, Angelina Coble, and Marcie Rodriguez for all their help with this project!

Marcie examines a slide

Spot the Difference

Before coming back out to the desert I had assumed I would be working on the whole project by myself.  Very few volunteers want to drive out 30 miles or more to help deal with pictures for hours at a time.  And those who do, tend to spend summers away from the over 115 degrees that passes for normal weather in the Imperial Valley.  But I forgot: the very weather that keeps regular volunteers vacationing also means less traffic at the museum- making it slightly more likely that I could poach staff helpers for the project. They are getting something out of it too- practice with digitizing as well as added familiarity with PastPerfect and the collection.

A week into my large scale digitization project and I've got my co-workers (aka "volunteers") already pretty well trained.  Each geoglyph site gets all the pictures connected to that site laid out over several tables.  I've done a first run through on matching doubles of images but here it's a case of the more eyes (sometimes fresher than mine!) the better.  Once the images are sorted any slides are compared to the printed photos to see if there are any matches.  If so, they go together. If not, they stand alone.  My colleague Dr. David Breeckner compared it to the game "Spot the Difference" you see in the newspaper.  Two pictures are identical at first glance, but can you find the differences?

Dr. David Breeckner comparing images of a geoglyph site

Once the images are ready they are labelled with permanent Accession Numbers (AN) instead of the temporary ones they currently have.  Records are made for the PastPerfect database, images are scanned, then encapsulated, and placed in the newly labelled folders that will be their permanent home.

I know what you're thinking: if ever an archives project called for More Product Less Process, this sounds like the one!  Sadly, that's not entirely true.  The point of my particular month-long project is to digitize images for a book I'm editing for photographer Harry Casey.  One of the main points of interest for the book is not only the images, but the dates.  Casey photographed the same sites over a span of about 35 years and seeing the changes (both natural and man-made) to the sites over time is important (both for the book and for future researchers). As almost none of the printed images have dates on them, the slides (which almost all DO have dates) are essential.  Records with those dates, images and corresponding AN are a must.  So they might as well all happen at the same time.  Although I do admit that in the interest of time I'm not going into huge detail on the PastPerfect records- a future researcher can add notes to them past what I'm doing.

Marcie Rodriguez comparing slides and prints for the same image

We are becoming an increasingly well oiled machine, more efficient each day. As everyone sees what the process is, different volunteers take on different steps to make the process smoother instead of getting in each other's way.  So a big "Thank you!" to IVDM staff Marcie Rodriguez, Angelina Coble, and Dave Breeckner!