This semester, students in Assistant Professor Lindsay Mattock’s Archives and Media course are working on a database project that engages with the notion of architectural heritage changing over time.

The project began in the summer of 2017, when the Office of Outreach and Engagement reached out to Professor Mattock with a proposal for a community outreach project with Mason City, Iowa as part of the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities.

Mason City is a community with a strong architectural heritage. A publication from 1977, Mason City, Iowa: An Architectural Heritage, features this rich history. However, this historic architecture book was last revised over twenty years ago. This year, Mason City had a desire to update the text once again, but realized that there were some limitations to only having the information in the form of a print book.