Project Concept
From ENHLDWiki
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Abstract
A Website (eNHLD.org or like name) owned and managed by a non-profit.
The Website is a sophisticated database front for all National Historic Landmark District information along with all information for contributing structures, basic tourist info, and other histories and factoids.
Particulars
Interface
The interface is based on a Google Maps and is “ajax-y”. The city scale zoom has a pin for every interesting structure or map relevant factoid. The state and national scale zooms have icons for every NHLD in the country as well as any sufficiently similar program in other countries. Hovering over a pin brings up some basic information and a thumbnail image. Clicking on the pin takes the user to an in depth description for the particular contributing structure.
Content Population
We do the data entry for The Butte – Anaconda National Historic Landmark District as well as set up all the other United States NHLDs. We further populate the other NHLDs with a small sampling of contributing elements (perhaps 3 or 5)
Content (e.g., histories, images, plaque text, tourist information, factoids, locations) is provided by the Website community through either an open submission like Wikipedia or through a curated submission.
Content Delivery
Google Earth
We provide on the Website all the data as a .kml file. KML is The file format used by Google Earth. (if you haven’t checked out Google Earth I highly recommend it. It blows Google Maps out of the water). A KML layer in Google Earth works much like the Savanna Project but is far easier to use, is far easier to setup, is already built, and is already accepted by large community.
Regarding the Google Earth ideas, it would be wonderful if on the local Butte level we could do something like the National Geographic information boxes related to sites in Africa (the "featured content" layer has to be enabled), complete with pictures, hyperlinks, etc etc....
To see the result of clicking a National Geographic link in Google Earth, see this screenshot on the CPR website (external link).
Kiosks
In terms of bringing things to the public, I'd suggest we include in the grant app. money for touch-screen kiosks -- not cutting-edge technology, but could still be a very effective way of making everything else we do accessible.
The kiosk could be either stand-alone or, better, internet-connected, and the host institution would provide the broadband connection as part of their collaboration.
It would also make for a neat way to tie our collaborators I would see easily such a kiosk in the following places: Archives, Library of Butte High, Butte Public Library, Mai Wah, Montana Tech Library, Mining Museum, Airport, maybe also MT Historical Soc. in Helena.
When I last checked (2004 when I was at the Mining Museum) you could get an input-ready kiosk for $3000 (a lot cheaper, well under $1000 if you did it yourself, but for this grant, why do it ourselves?). If (as I suspect) we could get wide flat-screen touch-screen monitors, how cool would that be?
3D Models
We use SketchUp to build 3D models of the buildings for integration into Google Earth. Models are uploaded into Google’s 3D Warehouse and are then included into Google Earth along with the 3D Building models layer.
Getting Included in Google Earth
We create a backend output mechanism to reformat all of our entries into Wikipedia format. We then populate Wikipedia with entries for all of the NHLDs and contributing structures. Google then crawls Wikipedia and picks up our entries and includes them automatically into Google Earth by default.
Google Earth may also include our KML as part of their [[Google Earth standard download package |standard download package] so that our entries are included as a separate layer with its own icons. Much like the [Antweb.org Antweb.org] information is included by default.
Fiscal
The Website covers its costs and perhaps generates income through selling of low cost complementary advertising such as the historic tourism industry. Should an excess of revenue develop it can used to form grants for preservation organizations around the nations such as Butte CPR.
Pros
- We use Wikipedia, Google Earth, and the Google Maps API. This cuts back on extensive programming, provides a superior product, gets our data (read: agenda) in front of the eyes of a massive existing community, requires little to no future support to maintain, and is very cutting edge. -Max
- Going beyond Butte to include all NHLDs makes our project seem more important and compelling to a grant approval committee, makes our data more likely to be included by default by Google Earth, ensures Butte is included in what could be “THE” searchable historic place website. and looks far more impressive on our collective resumes. -Max
- Forming the site under a separate non-profit helps it keep its mission separate from Butte CPR. That’s not to suggest that all the members wouldn’t necessarily be Butte CPR members. Further there is no reason why the eNHLD.org board can’t give special treatment to ButteCPR in terms of advertising or other considerations. Further there is no particular reason why eNHLD.org can't share, and be a platform for, Butte CPR’s agenda (just on a larger and less directly involved scale). -Max
- Having a user centric contribution model prevents us from needing to do the heavy lifting on all the data entry for non-butte NHLDs. It also makes it easy for low skilled data entry folks do most of the work; work that is then billed at a higher rate to the non-profit (read: “getting paid by making jobs”). -Max
- Reposting the data from the Website onto Wikipedia and positing the building models to 3D Warehouse ensures our inclusion into Google Earths by default. Posts to Wikipedia specifically get us access to millions of additional eyes. -Max
Cons
- While the automatically included Wikipedia articles can be fashioned to drive traffic back to the Website, its not as good as having inclusion of the data as a Google Earth standard layer. -Max
- Google Earth, while easy to use (certainly far easier than the Virtual Savannah), may still be beyond the sophistication of average user. Though it might be that the target audience for a virtual tour will be sufficiently sophisticated. -Max
- Google Earth might be too distracting. There are thousands of possible data sets that one could view through Google Earth. It is very easy to get sidetracked by something else that catches one’s eye. Though I submit that’s true of the web in general. -Max
- Doing all NHLDs will be more work. I feel that an NHLD site is inevitable. I suspect that doing it ourselves will make our grant application more completive, help drive more traffic to Butte, and ensure Butte is well represented in the inevitable NHLD website. -Max
- Doing all NHLDs may not be big enough. We might need to go bigger and include any historic monument, site or place. -Max
- Wikipedia-style -- I'm pretty active in geology articles on Wikipedia, and I really support the concept and the project, but the potential for vandalism is so great (I bet three-quarters of my edits are vandalism reverts), I'd really be reluctant to open our project to the total public. If it could be a wikipedia-style system, but only accessible to "approved" researchers/historians, whatever, that would be great. For example, as and when it becomes a nationwide thing, the local historical society, archive, or CPR-equivalent would designate who could update the entries for that area. -Dick
- Separate non-proift, e.g., your eNHLD.org -- a great idea, but not likely to be implementable (at least not with IRS approval) in time for major grant applications this year, especially not for the NEH deadlines of this spring. I guess I feel that for now, CPR could host this and with proper partners (Archives, museum, Tech, etc) would look fine to the granting orgs. (incidentally, Ellen Crain loves the concept and will be very supportive).-Dick
