Can you help this heritage project? Preserving Nicholson’s Past by Renovating and Restoring 1849 Railroad Station into a Community Center

Station around the turn of the 20th Century

The town of Nicholson, Pennsylvania is like many rural towns across America, hit hard by the migration of residents to cities and urban areas. At one time, small dairy farms surrounded this borough. Now, there are only a few farms left. While the permanent population hit an all-time high in 1940 at a little over [...]

What I’m about, through my daughter’s eyes

3596852111_f14b8dfee0

I visited Memory Lawn Cemetery in my hometown of Natchitoches, La., with my daughter this past week. And it brought hope to my world. I’ll admit, 2010 was a challenging year. It began with the unexpected passing of my father and seemed to roll downhill ever since. Not just for my family, but many others [...]

The Archaeological Box’s Matt Thompson on developing membership websites and refining the use of social media as a support mechanism

LOGO-BA(PNG)

Founded in 2009, The Archaeological Box is a media-rich website that incorporates features like Google Maps and podcasts in two languages. It also incorporates a store and professional accounts. In this interview with Matt Thompson, the site’s founder, we’re going to explore the concepts of content management systems, including Drupal, and what goes into supporting [...]

A conversation with John Leeke, the “original heritage video blogger” (audio podcast)

leeketeaser

John Leeke was videoblogging for nearly a decade before YouTube was even invented. And he was taking about heritage preservation. His “campfire chats” have created a community throughout the world and inspired countless folks to take up the preservation trades. In this interview, he talks about getting started in video blogging, the modern tools he [...]

Introducing HeritageBlogger.com: featuring blogs, photostreams & video feeds, sorted by field of interest

heritageblogger

I’m excited to finally share a project I’ve been working on for a while. It’s called “Heritage Blogger” and it features dozens of websites from a variety of heritage preservation disciplines. Think of it as your modern daily newspaper for heritage news only. What you’ll find there The news you care about, told by people [...]

Meet the Blogger: Lynne Thomas of “Confessions of a Curator”

confessions

Lynne Thomas is the Head of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University, a teaching and research collection with a special emphasis on American popular culture materials from the 19th and 20th centuries. At Confessions of a Curator, she blogs about collections and the social web. She is the co-author with Beth M. Whittaker of Special Collections 2.0, which examines Web 2.0 tech for cultural heritage collections, from Libraries Unlimited.

Audio Podcast: Kaitlin O’Shea on collaboration, platforms, and the role of historic preservation in the blogosphere

business

In this edition of the Voices of the Past audio podcast, we’ll meet Kaitlin O’Shea. Kaitlin is the creator of the Preservation in Pink blog and newsletter. She will explain how the iconic pink flamingo, and a group of bloggy friends, have helped her find her voice to take the conversation about historic preservation to a wider audience.

Voices of the Past Video Netcast: Genealogy Gems’ Lisa Louise Cooke on establishing roots in the social web

cooke screenshot

In this edition of the Voices of the Past Netcast, we’ll meet Lisa Louise Cooke. Lisa created and maintains Genealogy Gems–one of the world’s most popular genealogy websites. She’ll tell us about the learning curve involved in using online media, and how she uses the web to create a deeper connection to her audience.

Podcast: Michael Phillips on creating Sense of Place with video “iGuidez”

P1030017

For three years now, Michael Phillips has had a dream that he hopes will someday spread to the rest of the world: to create “sense of place” with video. It seems the tech world has helped set the stage for that dream, incorporating video functionality into everything from mobile phones and music players. With his website and blog, iGuidez, Phillips provides a template for capturing and sharing special sites for netizens everywhere to enjoy. In this interview, Michael Phillips talks about how he developed iGuidez, and the challenges of running a heritage website.

The 1st Law of Hometown Dynamics: You ALWAYS go home again

hometown tweet

By Jeff Guin

So many people fight to be something or somewhere else that what they know. That includes me. We chafe against everything we are and ever knew. We only want whatever the opposite might be. Somehow the struggle seems even more heated for those of us raised “down home” where ideals are passed-down, deepfried and embedded in concrete.