Who will advocate for the next generation of heritage professionals? A cautionary tale for university preservation programs

Losing a historic structure is a sad thing. Losing generations of folks to expertly protect cultural heritage is much, much worse. This past week, Louisiana’s Board of Supervisors for higher education rubber-stamped a proposal from Northwestern State University of Louisiana to eliminate the university’s bachelor’s and master’s degrees in heritage resources just as these groundbreaking interdisciplinary programs were hitting their strides. The Master of Arts in Heritage Resources (MAHR) was on track triple its number of graduates in the next year.

The 3Cs of discussing heritage online: caring, context, curation

There are few yearnings that span the human race, across cultures, political beliefs and past history more than the compulsion to understand our identity. Part of that is understanding where we come from. This understanding grounds us and gives meaning to our accomplishments. But ironically, it’s also easily lost in our present mileu of [...]

Exploring Archaeology on the Social Web

With the increase in social networking and interactive web-based systems over the past few years, archaeology has in general been slow on the uptake, however, there were those there at the start and those that are catching on to the potential, with more appearing on a weekly basis. They range from the stunning, innovative and genuinely useful, which get filed under favourite to those that may have the best intentions but miss the point completely.

Learning the relevance in heritage values

I was convinced preservation and heritage values were for the elitists. They were things far beyond my grasp that required a doctorate to participate or even comprehend. Granted, those things might help with understanding some of the extensive terminology that is often tossed around the Park Service office where I currently intern, but they are not a necessity.

Finding your online voice to advocate for heritage resources

Heritage: It’s about context–the people, places and things that define you. From the grassroots standpoint, it’s about developing the openness to expand your personal view of what heritage is and to advocate for those resources that may not have a direct bearing on your own experience.
Social media is giving birth to the next evolution of [...]

Meet the Blogger: Electric Archaeology’s Shawn Graham on Simulating Ancient Social Networks

As a Registered Professional Archaeologist in North America a Member of the Institute for Archaeologists in the U.K., Shawn Graham knows the finer points of working in the field. But these days, he’s taking the world of archaeology — and ancient civilizations — into the digital realm with simulations called Agent-Based Models (ABMs). Shawn’s blog [...]

Best in Heritage: Social Participation; E-mail Saves Tree; Blogging Productivity

Welcome to a new feature here at Voices of the Past. We’re calling it “Best in Heritage” and it will showcase summaries of the outstanding current social media content in the heritage world. Okay, some of it’s just for fun.

Meet the Blogger: Carla Bruni of “The Green Preservationist”

Carla Bruni is an historic preservationist, architectural historian, soon-to-be energy rater, and neurotic volunteer, and in this Heritage Blogger profile, she discusses how she combines her passions to create a hospitable environment to discuss preservation-related ideas in her blog, The Green Preservationist. Carla hopes to bridge the gap between historic preservationists and green building advocates…one [...]

On a personal note … thank you

One of the most rewarding things about being a part of Voices of the Past is meeting all of the wonderful people who are using new media to inspire connections to heritage values throughout the world.  Recently, I was fortunate to visit with the wonderful Lisa Louise Cooke of the Genealogy Gems blog and podcast. [...]

How do you use the web to communicate heritage? Take the questionnaire!

Throughout the world, people are connecting about heritage preservation issues on an unprecedented level. One of the ways they are doing this is through “social media,” the term applied to online tools that inspire conversation and interaction. These tools are generally both easy to use and free.
The web address below will take you to ten [...]

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