Preserve America Summit Implementation Report
Promote innovation by creating a clearinghouse through the National Park Service National Center for Preservation Technology and Training to disseminate information on innovative technologies and encourage their use.
Date: March 11, 2008
Reporting Agency/Agencies:
National Park Service; National Center for Preservation Technology and Training
Contact(s):
Kirk A. Cordell, Executive Director, NCPTT, (318) 356-7444
Progress Since Last Report: NCPTT completed final review of the 2008 Preservation Technology and Training Grants program and recommended four innovative preservation projects to the Secretary of the Interior. One of these will result in a first of its kind conservation WIKI that will provide a model for enhancing the dissemination of information via NCPTT's clearinghouse. NCPTT also began building a prototype of a new web-based preservation clearinghouse to index preservation related web resources. The clearinghouse uses RSS (really simple syndication) and other technologies to pull news, video, images, documents and other information in real-time from several sites such as the Historic Preservation Learning Portal, Google, YouTube, and Flickr. One of the goals of the clearinghouse is to index, store, and tag this data to provide an easily searchable resource for preservation professionals. NCPTT continued identifying and contacting federal, nonprofit and other partners to develop the national clearinghouse strategy.
Next Actions: NCPTT will continue identifying and contacting partners, schedule a conference call with potential partners, and add technical reports to the Center's website. NCPTT will continue to produce technical preservation information for dissemination via NCPTT's website and other media. NCPTT will continue implementing social media applications to reach new audiences. Staff will begin training on use of blog and podcast tools.
Problems or Constraints: Lack of financial and staff resources to implement a fully integrated clearinghouse.