[MassHistPres] Princeton, MA

[Lee Wright]

[Sending this to the list in the event that others encounter this same issue.  LW]

Joyce--

Congrats to you and your colleagues on the initiative.  

Suggestions and observations . . .

Privacy: Does the information include the name of the current owner?  Isn't that same information available through public records?

Do this experiment: Enter some of the addresses in these two widely-used sites: http://www.zillow.com/ and http://www.trulia.com/.  These were built using publicly-available information.  My guess is that the blood will drain from the faces of some if they see what's online today.  This should make your initiative seem tame by comparison.

After that exercise is over, examine the records for an individual property and determine if anything you're proposing is more of a concern than what's already online and adjust accordingly.

We've put our entire historical property survey online (http://historicmarlborough.org/Property_Survey.html) and had no complaints.  It's one of the most widely-viewed parts of our site, and to increase awareness, we also uploaded the information to the free document sharing and streaming site Scribd, where they have been viewed literally thousands of times since we uploaded them in mid-2008.

Robberies: Are the current interiors of the houses shown or are lists of possessions included?  Does your information include the hours the owners are away from the house, or indicate that someone who is infirm or very elderly is alone for long stretches?  If any of those things are included, and I can't imagine that they are, simply omit those from the online posting.

Again--and I realize here that this is only only a subset of the town--if people are concerned about their household possessions being stollen, they should think twice before checking in on Foursquare, posting vacation pictures to Facebook while they are on vacation, sharing their travel itinerary through Tripit, Tweeting out an update while far from home . . . or many of the other ways that many people regularly share information about themselves and their activities.

Posting: As someone who believes that the most successful preservations efforts are those that have broad support in the community, making information about your community's rich architectural heritage widely available is an important initiative, and of course since your HC is publicly-funded, the public has every reason to expect that this information is available in a convenient form.  Today that means published online.

There is the challenge of putting the information up in a way that is easy to implement and maintain, that is inexpensive, and that is most useful.  I'll send a couple of notes on that to you.

Best--

Lee Wright  |  Marlborough



On Mar 26, 2011, at 8:26 AM, Joyce Anderson wrote:

> The Princeton Historical Commission has in its possession a collection of index cards with each card listing the former owners of the houses.  This has been known historically  as ‘The Princeton House File’. The collection of approximately 300 index cards were compiled by two former members who were assessors for the Town of Princeton in the 1950’s. Most of the cards have been kept up to date with the current owners names on them. One member of our commission has transcribed the cards into a word document while another member has inserted current (2006) photographs of the houses, as well as historic photographs to correspond with the information. We would like to put this information on the PHC webpage for the town, however there has been concern from others in town that this should not be allowed because of the potential  for robberies and the invasion of privacy.  I would like to know if anyone on our mailing list has any comments or suggestions.
> Thank you in advance.
> Joyce Anderson
> Princeton Historical Commission
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Lee Wright  |  lee at leewright.net  |  469-233-7712




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