Table of Contents
Architecture, landscapes, monuments are witnesses to the centuries of history of a nation. It embodies the culture of the nation. Although citizens know the greatness of their nation, inevitably, some are still unaware of the remnants of history and culture. Ignorance could impede efforts to preserve an irreplaceable piece of history and culture, which often results in demolition. This would preclude the possibility for future generations to experience these invaluable pieces of history. Architecture is only one of a few art forms that falls victim to ignorance and time. Throughout history, many of these cultural treasures are lost. Often demolition was a result due to an increasing need for new shopping malls, parking lots, skyscrapers and new residential housing. Through out the centuries, cities both domestic and foreign, have all endure modernization and we often find significant buildings in tumbling debris. Unfortunately, in many cases, very few lamented the loss; it is not surprising considering history was an esoteric subject.
Knowledge is a powerful tool. It is all the information we know in our minds. The third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson once said to the fourth President James Madison, “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty”.6 President Jefferson was sagacious in positing the correlations of education and liberty. This is very much the same in regards for Historic Preservation. Education is essential to Historic Preservation. A community will only preserve what they deem important. How could they help preserve anything if they aren’t informed of it? When the community is aware of historical resources, it is beneficial to generate funding, acquire tools and technologies, research methods and procedures, and raise awareness.
Over the past two decades, the uses for the internet have ubiquitously boomed. It resulted in more information disseminated among all internet users. It has brought on one big issue in the field of historic preservation, which is the lack of an information infrastructure for the effective preservation planning, cultural resource management, heritage tourism, and community. Informatics for the purpose of sharing knowledge of history is imperative to preservation. Only by disseminating information to society regarding the importance and significance of a building, landscape, or monument, can preservation occur.
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The lack of informatics will impede any further efforts to preservation. Annually, the National Register of Historical Places deem more properties and monuments as historically significant. Preservation efforts across the nation continuously collect information on new and old historical properties. One of the first successes in preservation was the residence of the first President of The United States, George Washington, Mount Vernon. Its preservation begins with a group of women lead by Ann Pamela Cunningham, the pioneer of Historic Preservation. Consequentially, people’s understanding of the importance of preservation and Cunningham’s fervid passions for it pervaded through the generations.
Historic Preservation in the past is concerned with the restoring building to it’s former glory. Today, the concept of Historic Preservation has adapted into modern society and culture. This evolution of concept has been stated in a Charles Hall Pages & Associates Inc. publication in 1981, Architecture and Urban Planning, “as the range of buildings considered worthy of preservation has expanded and as new ideas has grown for the proper place of old buildings in modern societies, new uses have been sought for old buildings that would keep those old buildings as active functioning components of a modern society.”
The Impact of an Web-based Information Infrastructure
Quality of life
When embodiment of cultural history is honored and maintained, a sense of purpose and pride is given to the community. For example, during the mid twentieth century, the City of Alexandria, Virginia’s historical district was given such. It was done by stabilizing and renovating 98 percent of structures. The district is located on the west side of the Potomac River and had a great cultural heritage. Restoration during the second half of the twentieth century has had a positive impact on the city’s economy, social conditions, residents, crime rates, employment, and education.
Decreased crime rates
Records in the city of Alexandria’s historic district demonstrated a decreased crime rate of 70 percent and violent crimes decreased from 21.4 percent to 14.5 percent in 1965-1977. Similarly, in Seattle, Washington, crime rates also have decreased from 13.1 percent to 1.8 percent from 1960 to 1976.2
Increased employment rates
As a result of restoration and revitalization, new job positions were created (e.g. masons, plasterers, electricians, laborers, heavy equipment operators, historians, restaurant owners, officer workers, etc). With an increase in employment rates, and decrease in crimes rates, it provided for an overall increase in living conditions.
New job creation
In more recent times, an online historical information infrastructure would also create new jobs (credits. editors, security experts, information system, solutions managers, accounting analysts, etc). When a community is aware of the cultural resource, it would generate more donations, charities and social functions, and local and or federal government funding. All of which could fund legal measures, materials, and working crews in preservation projects.
Strengthened sense of pride and neighborhood
When a community’s historical sites are preserved and protected, members are instilled a psychological sense of community and pride. Moreover, “The residential preservation activity not only conserved and enhanced the colonial atmosphere of the historic district but attracted a higher degree of ownership, helped strengthen a sense of neighborhood and substantially upgraded the housing stock of the area.”
Social conditions
Preservation also has had a positive impact on social conditions. Today, the small scaled historical strand of Alexandria is a hotbed of coexisting arts, residential, retail, restaurant, office, wholesales and burgeoning activities.
Education
People’s personality and behavior is developed in youth. Children with a more comprehensive understanding of preservation are more likely to respect historical resources. Without education about history and preservation disrespect and ignorance will advance into adulthood. We have seen on the news over the past years, teens daring each other to stand on prehistoric rocks for a social media post, etching their name and their partner’s names into prehistoric stones, just so they could leave something of themselves behind, and many other destructive behaviors. With the help of a resourceful and comprehensive online-based informatics site, local school could better educate students on the city’s historic resources.
Economy
Preservation will also have a positive impact on tourism. Preservation and restoration if needed will consequentially increase tourism exponentially. The restoration and preservation in Alexandria’s historical district for example has had a beneficial impact on tourism activity and circles around to generate more funding for future preservation efforts. The results are demonstrated through a renewed visibility of historic buildings, new shops and an increase of residents moving into the area. It’s shops, restaurants, and history have been an allurement for tourist and residents alike. For example, the conversion of the Torpedo factory in 1974 to an arts and crafts center provided a most popular attraction.”
Increase in property taxes
While almost all effects of Historic Preservation has a positive impact on the community, one consequence of it seems dubious. As economist improves and housing prices increases taxes local taxes are inevitably affected. Property taxes nearing the historical district will increase exponentially. To balance the increase, more income must be generated by those properties, which may also increase income tax. If these changed disturb balance of payments and income, the property risks closure.
Essential Functions of a Historical Information Infrastructure
Many people among the community have interest in the historic resources of a city. An online web infrastructure should give users, including citizens, students and professionals access to comprehensive historical survey information. Moreover, the infrastructure should also be lucid, efficient and easy to use and navigate.
Newsletters homepage
In any field of endeavor, newsletters are essential for fostering connections between professionals, students, communities of new technology, case studies, contributions, volunteer opportunities, etc.
Queries and inquiries
We all have a natural proclivity to be curious. We ask questions when we are a awash with curiosity and the answers provide for a conveyance of the desire knowledge between people. Many aspiring students, accomplished professionals, and even dilettante who are interested in the field should have the platform to inquire. To be truly interactive, and enable users to communicate effectively, it is important to ask questions.
A popular website that provide this function is Quora.com. The website gets approximately 100 million visitors. Anyone can query or inquire regarding an array of subjects, which can be entreated to vetted apropos professional experts. Although Quora.com is advantageous because inquisitors could request apropos experts for answers, the inquiry could be irreverent, or just fatuous and can be answered with common sense. The amount of time experts and professionals pay to read and answer these questions is time misspent. A question such as, “if you had the opportunity, what historical figure would you invite to dinner?” The question is not realistic and provides for a pointless discussion.
In the case of a city-wide online information infrastructure, dedicated to historic preservation, all inquiries and queries, (though some may be naïve and simple), will be germane or related to the profession of historic preservation.
Search engine
The ability to search is essential to any information-based clearinghouse. Although many of these functions are already existing websites, none of these functions are present in the same website, working in concert for a more effective preservation planning, cultural resource management, heritage tourism, and community revitalization.
Links
History is a continuous record of facts of the past; everything from ordinary buildings in the distant fifth century to the significance of yesterday. It is an entangled web of information, that maybe inter-connectivity associated. One historical site is often related to many other historical sites and people, events, movements, styles, etc. To truly understand one, it is necessary to understand the other. The free web-based encyclopedia like Wikipedia.com for example is an information based educational website with links to relating websites in the main text.
Sharing open source file and documents on Historic Preservation is also useful in building a comprehensive informatics. The Prague Spring project for example, was “a collaboration between The University of Texas Austin, the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library — has been made live at http://scalar.usc.edu/works/prague-spring-archive. The project aims to make important primary documents on the Prague Spring openly accessible to a wide and inclusive audience, connecting the University of Texas at Austin with an international community of scholars and researchers.”5
Contact
The main purpose of a contacts page is used for user inquiries, opinions and suggestions. Only with continuous input from users of the website, it could be continuously perfected. This will proved a better user experience, which is why most websites currently provide contact information, including emails, mailing addresses, and phone numbers.
Case Studies
Gary Geisler, Michael Holleran. The Austin Historical Web Survey Tool. 2008-2011.
Corroboration between University of Texas at Austin and the City of Austin. This was a project between Associate Professor Michael Holleran and Assistant Professor Gary Geisler. It is a historical survey web tool created to improve the extensive city-wide survey of historical sites in Austin, Texas.
According to the plan, the web-based tool, upon completion, experts to “pool the efforts of citizen volunteers, preservation consultants, local history and preservation organizations, the historic preservation offices, and other city departments within a single interface. This would provide both convenient access to public information and an efficient means of collecting and amending high quality data.”
When completed, the application will be managed by the city of Austin, it will serve as the primary means for collecting and disseminating historical survey information of historical site throughout the city.
The National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program
In December of 2000, the U.S congress recognized the importance of preserving information and approved a plan to fund the Library of Congress to develop a National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program. “A $99.8 million congressional appropriation was made to establish the program. According to the Conference Report (H. Rept. 106-1033), the overall plan should set forth a strategy for the Library of Congress, in collaboration with other federal and non-federal entities, to identify a national network of libraries and other organizations with responsibilities for collecting digital materials that will provide access to and maintain those materials. In addition to developing this strategy, the plan shall set forth, in concert with the Copyright Office, the policies, protocols and strategies for the long-term preservation of such materials, including the technological infrastructure required at the Library of Congress.” The goal is to build a network of committed partners working through preservation architecture with defined roles and responsibilities.
Conclusion
Today, it is also about documentation using advanced technology and sometimes using contemporary concepts to put emphasis on its glorious history.
References
- Benson, V & Klein, R. (2008). Historic Preservation for Professionals. The Kent State University Press.
- Booz, A & Hamilton, inc. (1979). The contribution of Historic Preservation to Urban Revitalization. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
- Charles Hall Pages & Associates Inc. Architecture and Urban Planning. San Francisco, California. 1981.
- Geisler, G. (2008-2011). Austin Historical Survey Web Tool. (Retrieved from https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~geisler/ahs.html
- Goodall, I. (2017). The Prague Spring Project. Retrieved from https://blogs.lib.utexas.edu/texlibris/2017/01/20/prague-spring-website-launched/.
- Jefferson, T. From Thomas Jefferson to Uriah Forrest, with Enclosure, 31 December 1787. National Archives. Retrieved from https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-12-02-0490.
- Library of Congress. (2003). U.S. Congress Approves Library of Congress Plan for Preservation of Digital Materials. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-03-024/.
- Texas Historical Commission. Preservation issue. Retrieved from http://www.thc.texas.gov/preserve/projects-and-programs/texas-statewide-preservation-plan/preservation-issues.
