Social media has become a household word, signifying our culture’s leap into the digital lifestyle. This certainly wasn’t the case three years ago when the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training first began experimenting with sites like YouTube, Flickr and Facebook.

At the time, the heritage preservation community was initially a little distrustful of these technologies. That began to change earlier this year, once folks realized that social media at its most effective is rooted in bringing together people of like interests and values to better one another and the societies in which they live, regardless of their location in the world. It’s as if this was created for our cause!

This post offers a little insight into what NCPTT is doing in social media and how our efforts might benefit you as well.

A good plan can determine whether a cultural collection survives a disaster or fades into memory. And while nature can be unpredictable, the online disaster-planning portal “dPlan” offers a streamlined, reliable way for institutions to protect their cultural collections. Created through funding by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, dPlan is a free, online tool that allows cultural institutions to complete a customizable disaster plan for their organizations. NEDCC, a nonprofit regional center for the preservation and conservation of paper-based materials, and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC), developed the tool.

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) is creating a new, interactive way of preserving historic landscapes. Slated for launch in October, the PTTGrant-funded “What’s Out There” project will raise awareness about the wide range and diversity of historic landscape design through a collaborative Wikipedia-style website. The site will enable users to directly contribute information, resulting in a comprehensive catalog of significant landscape designs.

Ultimately, the What’s Out There project seeks not only to make design landscapes more visible on a national scale, but also wants to encourage original scholarship aid in future NR and NHL nominations, encourage state and local landscape inventories, generate cultural landscape reports and inspire design professionals.

NCPTT recently partnered with Northwestern State University of Louisiana (NSU) to develop a media outlet dedicated to advancing heritage preservation using the World Wide Web.