The Colorado Digitization Program Announces Availability of Colorado's Main Streets: Virtual Walking Tours of Historic Colorado Communities
DENVER, CO, October 22, 2003 — Colorado's Main Streets, a website (http://www.cdpheritage.org/mainstreets/) that brings together a series of virtual walking tours created by the historical societies or history museums from 5 Colorado communities, Denver, Littleton, Loveland, Sterling, and Westminster is now available. Working in collaboration with the Colorado Digitization Program (CDP) the Historic Denver Inc.’s Molly Brown House, Littleton Historic Museum, Loveland Museum and Gallery, Overland Trails Museum (Sterling, Colorado) and the Westminster Historical Society converted their walking tours into online walking tours expanding and enhancing these tours and making them accessible via the web. “Through the web, we can make these tours available 24 hours a day, 365 days a week to individuals from all 4 corners of the state, we can overcome accessibility issues, which can be a critical issue in many historic buildings and sites” commented Liz Bishoff, CDP Executive Director.
Kris Christensen, formerly of Historic Denver, Inc. observed, “We designed the initiative to expand availability of information on historic preservation activities to Coloradoans, increasing their knowledge of the historic preservation and its importance to the community. The web sites promote the local community and their historic preservation initiatives, buildings and sites with the goal of encouraging future in-person visits. The sites also serve populations that may not be able to visit one of the communities either because of disability or distance.” Lastly the site includes lesson plans for K-12 students, offering learning opportunities for students and teachers. “We’ve already see an increase in use of our site by the children studying Westminster local history and historic architecture,” noted Kay Michaelson, of the Westminster Historical Society. “We’re reaching more people than we ever thought we could.”
In addition to the virtual walking tours the images of the buildings are accessible through the Colorado Digitization Program’s database Heritage Colorado: Digital Treasure’s of the West. Heritage Colorado provides access to more than 150,000 digital images from more than 70 cultural heritage institutions in Colorado. You can find Heritage Colorado at http://www.cdpheritage.org.
Colorado Digitization Program, established in 1998, provides the people of Colorado online access to cultural, historical, and scientific resources through the collaborative efforts of museums, archives, libraries and historical societies. Through CDP’s working groups, best practices, collaborative resources and grants cultural heritage institutions are able to unlock the potential of their collections and maximize their investment in technology. For further information contact the CDP or 303-871-4558 or 303-871-2006.
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Richard Urban
Operations Coordinator
Colorado Digitization Program
http://www.cdpheritage.org
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(303) 871-4558
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