The Future of the Past

Orlando Remembered Exhibit at the Downtown Orlando Information Center

Orlando Remembered's First Exhibit

Rutland's Building Exhibit

Orlando Remembered Exhibit at Howard Middle School

Howard Middle School Exhibit

Orlando Remembered Exhibit at the Orange County Courthouse

Orange County Courthouse Exhibit

These digital exhibits, hosted by the University of Central Florida's RICHES Mosaic Interface, provide the perfect compliment to the physical exhibits. RICHES' offers additional space for contextual analysis of the landmarks and provides a platform for storing archival material that can be used by future students or scholars.

The creation of the online exhibits provides graduate and undergraduate students alike, the opportunity to put what they learn in the classroom into action in the real world. The process teaches methods of interpretation, community collaboration, and digital archiving practices. Over the coming years the university's history department will continue to add more digital exhibits to the interface. In the end, this collaborative effort among citizens, students and institutions helps achieve the long term goals of Orlando Remembered: "What landmarks cannot be preserved should be remembered." (Orlando Remembered Charter)

References

David Staley, Computer Visualization and History: How New Technology Will Transform Our Understanding of the Past, (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe Inc., 2014).