Part of the process of developing our expeditions and research we have reached out to a number of different local/regional historical societies to find people with expertise and gauge curation interests. While we haven't found the ship yet we are ensuring we have a process and place that will move from discovery, documentation, permit obtainment, and curation into a museum. Having a regional historical institution take interest in the project helps us to obtain some of the resources we need.
While we all have some experience in diving, and I have experience in research, this hasn't been specifically applied to shipwreck hunting. Part of the goal beyond raising awareness of local adventure tourism I am also creating "edu-u-tainment" videos to help students understand how basic research applies across fields. An additional benefit is highlighting the areas economic opportunities based on its historical past. Yes its a partial attempt to influence the local tourism industry and investment climate by raising awareness through examples.
Part of the goal of sending out the video and an interest letter was to do the following:
Expertise: Two of the respondents offered some level of expertise. One historical society declined but another said they are interested in the project.
Resources: While financial resources and grants would be great we were looking for intellectual resources that come from research institutions. We obtained access to a specialized database which will be helpful.
Curation: If we find artifacts we will need a place to put them. Knowing we have an interested party in seeing any video of discovered we have and an initial willingness for taking ownership of artifacts is helpful.
MI Permits: If we find the ship and need to obtain permits for artifact extraction we want to ensure that we can provide them with documentation but also an organization that will take ownership of the artifacts.
Thinking back over the strategy I will say that it worked well as 2 of 3 organizations responded with something beneficial. We might be able to use our initial video and yes the next one should be better, to raise additional awareness. For example, I was provided with a tip that one of the local tribes might be interested in the project. So I will reach out and see what happens. If you have anything to contribute let me know. muradabel@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment