Purpose
Partners for Sacred Places will make its Information Clearinghouse database, many of its
unique documents, and other resources available to the preservation community through
the Internet, thus greatly expanding the number of users served and the amount of data
available to them.
Background
Partners for Sacred Places was founded in 1989 as the nation’s only non-profit, non
sectarian organization devoted to helping Americans preserve and care for sacred places of
cultural and historic value. One of Partners’ core services is offering information and
assistance to preservation organizations and congregations through a free Information
Clearinghouse and other outreach programs.
The Information Clearinghouse is comprised of over 7,000 resources on the care and
active use of older and historic religious properties culled from a wide variety of sources
nationally. Much of the collection features resources which are unavailable elsewhere. The
efficient dissemination of these Clearinghouse materials to the greatest number of people
is paramount in our efforts to preserve this country’s historic religious sites the
Clearinghouse information is only useful once in the hands of those individuals,
organizations, and congregations actively working to save sacred places. Currently, the
number of people who can be helped is limited by the amount of staff time available, and
the caller cannot browse freely among the Clearinghouse references. The Internet
represents an incredible opportunity for an organization such as Partners to reach its
constituents: already, hundreds of preservation groups are on-line, as are many thousands
of congregations with older and historic properties.
Project Description
This project was comprised of two central components. The first was the creation of an
Internet readable version of Partners for Sacred Places’ Information Clearinghouse
database. The Clearinghouse database was integrated into a CGI/ Java based interface that
allows it to be accessed over the Internet, using the File Maker Pro® 4.1 web server
software package and CDML markup language on the server side. The database was then
integrated into Partners’ web service.
Secondly, 190 technical resources on the care and preservation of religious properties were
collected, organized, formatted, and linked through Partners’ Web site and integrated into
the web-readable version of the database A meta-structure was designed for organizing
and retrieving the technical articles through Partners’ web site. As well, an administrative
tool using CDML and Java technologies was created to allow Partners’ staff to update the
web site with new articles and to refresh the on-line version of the database. Finally, the
database and scanned articles were integrated into Partners’ existing web site.