The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s What’s Out There Database Receives Critical Funding from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training

Media Contact: Nord Wennerstrom | T: 202.255.7076 | E: nord@tclf.org

The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s What’s Out There Database Receives Critical Funding from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training

 Washington, DC (May 1, 2012) – The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) today announced the receipt of a $16,000 grant from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT - a unit of the National Park Service), to be used to develop a more user-friendly interface for the foundation’s What’s Out There (WOT) database of America’s historic designed landscapes. WOT, launched in 2009, is a free, online, searchable, profusely illustrated database that currently features more than 1,300 sites and 500 designers, and is popular with landscape aficionados, heritage travelers, gardeners and many others.

The NCPTT grant will be used to create enhancements to WOT for mobile devices, enabling greater capacity for interactive, user-driven content; building a mobile version of WOT with a more image-based search capability; integrating GPS-driven functionality into WOT which would indicate the historic landscapes that are near the user; and integrating WOT with TCLF’s Oral Histories series. 

“NCPTT’s grant is critical to further developments in What’s Out There, allowing for greater use by hand held devices,” said Charles A. Birnbaum, TCLF founder and president. “WOT has a broad and growing constituency and this grant will enable greater flexibility in its use.”

About The Cultural Landscape Foundation

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) provides people with the tools to see, understand and value landscape architecture and its practitioners, in the way many people have learned to do with buildings and their designers. Through its Web site, lectures, outreach and publishing, TCLF broadens the support and understanding for cultural landscapes nationwide to help safeguard our priceless heritage for future generations. TCLF makes a special effort to heighten the awareness of those who impact cultural landscapes, assist groups and organizations working to increase the appreciation and recognition of cultural landscapes, and develop educational tools for young people to better connect them to their cultural landscape environs.

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