As this Summer moves on, and the “back to school” sales begin to hit Ohio stores – it seems a good time to look ahead for the next couple of months of preservation-related events in Ohio from August 5 to the end of the September.

Various Saturdays and Sundays through October – 2009 Walking Tours – Columbus – Columbus Landmarks Foundation continues their outstanding look at commercial and residential neighborhoods

August 5 – Walking Tour of the South Fountain Historic District – Springfield – Presented by the Springfield Preservation Alliance, this tour will showcase one of the city’s most affluent late 19th century neighborhoods.

August 6 to August 8 – Lincoln Highway BUYWAY – Statewide – As many as 750 individual yard and garage sales across the original Lincoln Highway in West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana.

August 8 – Preservation Ohio Summer Board Meeting -- Yellow Springs

August 8 – Walking Tour of Snyder Park – Springfield – Presented by the Springfield Preservation Alliance, this event will discuss the history of Springfield’s premier place for “recreation and reform.”

September 5 – Tour of Peterloon Estate -- Cincinnati/Indian Hill – Rare tour of an outstanding early 20th century Georgian Revival mansion, including John Singer Sergeant and Charles Dana Gibson artwork – presented by the Cincinnati Preservation Association.

September 9 – Show Me the Money – Portsmouth – Quarterly Ohio Main Street Program session, this one focusing on funding sources for civic and building improvements.

September 15 - “Financial Incentives for Historic Properties” -- Columbus -- Co-sponsored by Preservation Ohio and the Columbus Landmarks Foundation. Continuing education credits applied, pending or approved for architects, real estate agents and attorneys.

And coming up:

October 16-18 – The Friends of Freedom Society, Inc. 13th Annual Summit – Hudson – This year’s theme is: “Freedom: The Ultimate Price: The 150th Anniversary of the Death of John Brown.”

October 13-17 – National Preservation Conference – Nashville, Tennessee

Photo: House, South Fountain Historic District, Springfield - Cindy Funk/Creative Commons License

2009 has seen an amazing explosion in the area of social media. The phenomenon that is Twitter, for instance, has recently had an impact in everything from national politics to international relations. Far from a static tool, social media is constantly evolving, changing and adapting to meet new opportunities and new technologies - particularly in the area of the mobile web (cell phones, etc.).

In many ways, America’s non-profit organizations are leading the charge into the creative use of social media. Here is a recent conference presentation on the use of social media in the non-profit world. Note, however, that as these statistics are already 7 months old, that today’s numbers have risen exponentially.


Preservation and revitalization are, perhaps not surprisingly, lagging behind this trend. Pacesetting organizations such as the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training are attempting to identify and promote the use of social media by preservation organizations through their excellent Voices from the Past website and Preservation Today web casts, however many local, statewide and even national preservation and revitalization organizations seem to be stuck in Web 2.0 - if they have any online presence at all.

Preservation Ohio has been at the forefront of this change since MyHometownOhio, the country’s first self-authored blog on statewide preservation, was launched in July of 2006. We currently have the most followed organizational page on Twitter of any statewide or national preservation organization, and have companion sites on Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube. This Summer we launched the country’s first self-contained social networking site for statewide preservation, The Ohio Preservation Network, and have forayed into the realm of live blogging for the recent announcement of the 2009 List of Ohio’s Most Endangered Historic Sites.

One thing about social media - the scene can change in just a few months. That’s why we are always looking a year down the road - to identify the social networking and media opportunities of the future that will better enable us to perform our mission.