Application Architects Announces Pro Bono Grant to Make Architectural Images More Accessible

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN, FEBRUARY 9, 2005 — An effort to make one of the nation’s largest architectural image collections more widely available via the Web is underway thanks to a new partnership between Application Architects, LLC, an international custom software application builder, and the University of Maryland, College Park.

Through an in-kind grant, Application Architects will design a FileMaker Pro 7-based custom database for the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, home of the Visual Resources Collection with over 340,000 images of architectural sites around the world.

“Simply put,” said Chris Kubica, Application Architects President, “the educational benefits of this work are too exciting to pass up. This is a chance to use digital images to teach people about the world in which we all live, and we are thrilled about making these images accessible to more people.”

The new FileMaker Pro 7-based custom application will allow students, faculty, and researchers to access many of the images in the University’s Elizabeth D. Alley Visual Resources Collection via the Web.

“We have this extraordinary collection of images—an under-used treasure, really—that may now be unlocked by this generous technological gift,” says Christine Hinojosa, a curator in the Visual Resources Collection at Maryland’s School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. “This collection of architectural images is nearly unparalleled, but those images aren’t able to reach a very wide audience when they are stored in drawers. With the right tools, technology and education are a powerful team, and this project makes the point dramatically.”

The Elizabeth D. Alley Visual Resources Collection contains over 340,000 images of worldwide cities, sites, and buildings from prehistoric and ancient times to the present. The Collection, known for its depth and quality of images, supports the School’s programs in architecture, urban planning, and historic preservation. One of the distinctive aspects of the Collection is the large number of images photographed by faculty members during travels around the world. Currently, images in the Collection are used to educate University of Maryland students about the physical world in which they live. The goal is to make these images more accessible and available via the Internet for broader use in an educational setting. The project is expected to be up and running by May  2005.

Kubica’s firm values its pro-bono work on the project at $50,000 dollars, part of an annual grant donation to those working in the non-profit sector.

“The University of Maryland team presented us with an opportunity to craft a software solution that could palpably improve the way students and teachers approach their work,” Kubica says. “For us, it’s the perfect collaboration.”

Application Architects is one of the leading FileMaker Pro-based custom software builders in the country and has helped companies such as Rush Medical Center, Abbott Labs and Eli Lilly and Company build custom software that drives mission critical business processes since 1997. In addition to developing sophisticated enterprise-sized applications that clients smile while using, Application Architects consultants have: written the best-selling FileMaker book, The Book of FileMaker 6, authored articles for Macworld, FileMaker Advisor and ISO FileMaker magazines and spoken at the annual international FileMaker Developer Conference. The firm has a FileMaker 8 Certified Developer, certified Project Management Professional (PMP) on staff, and is a proud FileMaker Business Alliance (FBA) member.

About the Application Architects Assist™ Program

On May 26, 2004, Application Architects announced an annual pledge of $50,000-worth of free custom software development consulting to not-for-profit corporations, public schools and any not-for-profit organization committed to the betterment of the country and the world. Click here to read the full release.

Contacts:
Public Relations
Application Architects, LLC
888-896-4608
E-Mail: pr@applicationarch.com
http://www.applicationarch.com

Christine C. Hinojosa
Visual Resources Collection
School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation
University of Maryland
301-405-6321
E-Mail: hinojosa@umd.edu

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