Digitization Grant for NC Historic Architecture

Media contact: Todd Kosmerick , University Archivist, tel. (919) 513-3673

The North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries has been awarded a grant of $75,000 to create ?The Built Heritage of North Carolina: Historic Architecture in the Old North State,? an online resource for the study of North Carolina's architectural history. The Libraries will partner with Preservation North Carolina (PNC) to digitize 3,850 measured drawings and photographs. These will be made available through an image database and a web site that will include timelines, historical essays, and other resources.

Through the image database, the project will provide access to documentation on hundreds of buildings and structures constructed in North Carolina from the 1700s to the early 1900s. Buildings represented will include well-known examples of historic architecture, such as Baldhead Lighthouse, the Bellamy Mansion in Wilmington, and Blandwood in Greensboro. Several buildings in Beaufort, Bethabara, Hillsborough, and Old Salem, as well as Mecklenburg and Wake Counties, will be covered. There will also be lesser known but still historically significant structures, such as the Jordan House in Bertie County (one of the earliest brick buildings in the state) and the Allison-Deaver House in Transylvania County (one of the oldest frame dwellings west of the Blue Ridge).

The NCSU Libraries has strong architecture and design collections to draw upon for ?Built Heritage.? The drawings to be scanned were created from the 1950s to the 1970s as part of a historic architecture documentation project by NC State's well-respected College of Design. These drawings are currently preserved by the Libraries' Special Collections Research Center, along with the papers of prominent Design faculty from that era, such as Henry Kamphoefner, George Matsumoto, Matthew Nowicki, and G. Milton Small.

PNC is a private, non-profit statewide organization whose mission is to protect and promote buildings, sites, and landscapes important to the diverse heritage of North Carolina. PNC holds thousands of photographs of historic structures. The ?Built Heritage? project will scan color slides created by Tim Buchman, premiere photographer of North Carolina architecture, for such PNC publications as Catherine Bishir's North Carolina Architecture (1990, 2005).

?Built Heritage? will provide scholars easy access to resources needed for the study of North Carolina's architecture and history. This online resource will help teachers and students to use local landmarks to make history come alive. The general public will find the image database and web site a place to go for the casual study of the built environment of the state.
?Built Heritage? will be made possible through a Library Services and Technology Act grant administered by the State Library of North Carolina's NC ECHO program. Similar funding has allowed the NCSU Libraries to develop expertise in creating online history resources, such as its ?Green 'N' Growing? website .