SEPTEMBER 17, 1998-vol30n4: Electronic Highways

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 4 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1998

Placemaking: Urban Redevelopment on the Web

Waterfronts, Main Street malls, revitalized neighborhoods, vibrant urban greenspace.

View an array of successful city projects through text and impressive graphics with the click of a mouse!

The new Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence Web site celebrates functioning urban-development projects throughout North America that integrate economic, environmental and social perspectives-the process of "placemaking." Since 1987, there have been approximately 700 entries composed of text and graphical materials that have been submitted for consideration for the Rudy Bruner Award.

A partnership among the School of Architecture and Planning, the Bruner Foundation and the University Libraries is engaged in a project to digitize the Bruner Award entries and to create a publicly accessible Web site. Text for entries includes a profile, abstract, "perspectives" and often articles. Graphics integrated in Web-site entries include architectural plans and drawings, photographs, brochures and maps.

You now may view the growing Web site, which is funded by the New York State Library through the Western New York Libraries Resources Council, at http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/bruner.

The Bruner Award Web site, with 1995 and 1997 entries in digitized format, already includes projects such as Campus Circle, a neighborhood revitalization initiative in Milwaukee near Marquette University (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/bruner/1995/campus_circle/ccindex.html); Harlem Meer, a recreation landscape within Central Park (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/bruner/1995/harlem_meer/hmindex.html); Casa Loma, housing for low-income, single-head-of-household families in Los Angeles (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/bruner/1995a/casa_loma/maindex.html); Crane's Roost Altamonte, central business district revitalization in Altamonte Springs, Fla. (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/bruner/1995a/cranes_roost/maindex.html), and much more. The 1997 winning entry, Times Square Supportive Housing, will be online soon.

In addition to the Web site, the UB Libraries Catalog (http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/bison/) provides full cataloging, extensive subject access and lengthy abstracts of Bruner Award entries from 1987 to the present. All entries from 1987 to date are available on microfiche in the Architecture and Planning Library, as well as Lockwood Library.

To search the Bruner Award entries comprehensively on urban development topics of interest to you, we suggest searching the UB Libraries Catalog using the keyword search mode, for example:

k=bruner and waterfronts

k=bruner and housing and poor

k=bruner and parks and redevelopment

Watch this dynamic urban redevelopment site grow day by day.

For assistance in connecting to the World Wide Web via UB computer accounts, contact the ASCIT Help Desk at 645-3542.

-By Deborah Husted Koshinsky and Judith Adams-Volpe, University Libraries