Current Projects

As of early 1998, the Chicago Imagebase Project has been focused on four major areas- two of them related to building rich information on geographical sites, two of them related to improving access to the project's information. We are continuing our focus on the two very different Chicago "neighborhoods": the "Loop" and Lawndale. In both cases we are gathering visual, demographic and cultural information over the length of the city's history, seeking information on the contemporary built environment- not only from archival sources but from those who live in, work in and use its resources- and devising new ways to make that information accessible.

Our other two areas concern making our information as accessible and usable as possible. We are currently building new graphic interfaces using imagemaps while we continue to build a program using GIS (Geographical Information Systems) that will eventually allow far richer access to an even wider range of materials. And we are developing an indexing system that will enable users to quickly and easily search our files for the information they need, while introducing them to other materials they may not yet know they need.

Over the next months we plan as well to expand our focus to include other Chicago and suburban neighborhoods. Currently we are cooperating with other researchers working on Chicago's Near West Side, the Maxwell Street area, and Bridgeport.

We are currently sharing and testing our ideas informally in a "secret" subsite to which you are invited, if you will forgive us our informality: it is the Sandbox. There we archive minutes of some meetings, share new links, and test new projects or new areas where we are building materials.