David Myers: An Open Source Platform for Heritage Inventories

The Arches Project: An Open Source Geospatial Platform for Heritage Inventories

PennDesign Historic Preservation presents David Myers, Senior Project Specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute. Heritage inventory and management systems are essential tools used by government authorities and heritage managers to guide decision making in an informed manner that protects heritage resources. However, the development of effective, enterprise-level heritage information systems is a costly and complex undertaking that poses significant challenges to heritage organizations. To address these challenges, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) and World Monuments Fund (WMF) have pooled resources to create for the international heritage field a modern, open source, geospatial web application known as Arches that is purpose-built to help inventory and manage all types of heritage places. This presentation will provide an overview of the Arches project, the functionality of the Arches platform, the ways that it has been implemented to date including by the City of Los Angeles as HistoricPlacesLA, and explain considerations for implementing Arches.

David Myers is a senior project specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute, where he has worked since 2001. He manages the GCI’s Recording and Documentation Unit, and is part of the Buildings and Sites department. He currently works on a project developing the Arches open source heritage inventory and management system, and on research on applying dispute resolution methods to heritage place management, and in the past worked on GCI projects in Jordan, Egypt, Southern Africa, for Iraq, and in Los Angeles. He holds an M.S. in historic preservation and an advanced certificate in architectural conservation and site management from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an M.A in geography from the University of Kansas. He previously served as a legislative assistant to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.