Episode 8: Using Digital Archiving to Create a Virtual Library of a Historic District

In this week’s episode I interview Brook Tesler of Tesler Preservation Consulting. Brook talks about creating an online virtual library of a historic collection of over 40,000 images of the French Quarter in New Orleans. The project also includes a website created using GIS mapping that contains images, vital building information and a glossary of terms. The episode contains information on how Brook scanned the 40,000 slides using a high end digital camera attached to a slide carousel and hand entered any details written on the slides. She then used GIS mapping to create an accurate, scale image of all the buildings in the French Quarter and loaded that into a website. In the virtual library you can click on specific buildings and see all the related images and relevant architectural information. The entire project was the brain child of the Vieux Carre Commission Foundation in conjunction with the City of New Orleans.

The website is available here

To read more about the project check out the Advocate article

Brook used Slidesnap to scan the slides and ArcGIS to help build the map of the French Quarter

To learn more about the building that collapsed in the French Quarter check out another Advocate article