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Present: Fred Atherton, William Barry, Cyrus Beer, Nicole Benjamin-Ma, Tom Berentes, David Bliss, Susan Brauner, Gregory Colling, Marilyn Fenollosa, Jack Glassman, David M. Hart, Tom Keane, David Kelman, David King, Peggy Kutcher, Doug Manley, Henry Moss, Ivan Myjer, Christine Piontek, Deane Rykerson, Susan Schur, Kristen Simmons, Malcolm Smiley, Laurie Soave, Drew Sondles, Kelly Streeter, Olga Vaysman, Natalie Wampler, Sara Wermiel 1. New Appointments: The committee welcomed Tom Keane as the new Executive Director of the Boston Society of Architects. Henry and Sara introduced Greg Colling in his new role as a co-leader of the Historic Resources Committee, a position not contingent upon Matthew Bronski's return from his research year at the American Academy in Rome. 2. Joan Goody Memorial Note: Henry announced that Joan Goody had died earlier in the week. Malcolm Smiley recalled her leadership in education, advocacy for architectural values in both contemporary design and historic preservation. Robert Campbell wrote an obituary for the Boston Globe. 3. Recording Mount Auburn Cemetery -- Database Management for Preservation Fieldwork: Kelly Street of Vertical Access and Natalie Wampler of Mount Auburn Cemetery described a pilot study that adapts the Autocad façade database program TPAS to individual monuments on the cemetery grounds. TPAS is a software system developed by Vertical Access for connecting database information to graphically depicted locations of elements in building facades. The idea evolved from a conversation between Kent Diebolt, founder of Vertical Access, and Bill Barry, Director of Preservation at Mount Auburn Cemetery. Kelly and Natalie figured out how to apply the software to the 44,000 monuments set in the topographic reality of 175 acres and as a practical contribution to the cemetery's ongoing Monuments Survey. The cemetery relies on three information systems that apply to each burial lot and its monuments: a conservation database, the survey database, and a lot card. In addition there is a vast photo archive. Prior to this project, much time had been devoted to labeling photographs that reside inconveniently on CD's where retrieval is awkward and time-consuming. The new system allows for each monument to have its own information form within each lot, and all photographs that are taken as part of the survey are automatically renamed and hyperlinked to the drawing. Vertical Access started from the position that building facades are analogous to other block libraries in TPAS. Each project can have its own custom library of attributes. These attributes may include photographs, notes on fading inscriptions, plumbness, mortar condition, soiling, and whether the monument is covered by a perpetual care contract. Natalie uses the data to prioritize work of conservation crews. An ultimate objective is to have data from the various databases linked.
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