This portfolio inventory documents a decade of communications, design, journalism, and digital experimentation at the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training. Working with limited dedicated communications staffing, I produced publications, marketing collateral, web content, training media, and early social-media channels while connecting preservation specialists with broader audiences. The collection is more than a scrapbook of finished products: it illustrates how an integrated communications function could translate technical research into public-facing knowledge and test new ways of reaching professional and community audiences.
- Newsletters (email and print)
- Marketing materials (postcards, flyers, etc.)
- Product catalogs for research
- Planning and executing a website redesign with the resident developer
- Creating the National Park Service’s first social media channels
- Creating the first social media strategy for a heritage research institution
- Development of the first preservation-themed podcast
- Livestreamed trainings
- Training videos
- Organizing community events
Embedded below are collateral coming out of that time, including my scrapbook of products from then. Tools used included Adobe Creative Suite, Final Cut and WordPress. It was a creative and fruitful time, getting in on the ground floor of the social media movement of the mid-2000s.
Project Catalog Card
View the decade-long communications practice & trajectory
| Body of work | NCPTT communications, publishing, digital media, and public engagement |
|---|---|
| Institution | National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, National Park Service |
| Period | 2001–2011 |
| Role | One-person marketing, media relations, design, and emerging-digital communications function. |
| Practice | Newsletters, catalogs, web redesign, social channels, podcasting, livestreamed training, video, events, and campaign materials. |
| What happened | The role gradually moved from producing communications products toward building channels through which preservation knowledge could circulate. |
| What survives | Scrapbooks, publications, current NPS migrations, and the separately documented Preservation Technology Podcast. |
| Trajectory | Marketing and media relations → emerging media experimentation → communications as knowledge infrastructure. |
| Status | Recovered portfolio/body-of-work record. |
Supporting Documents & Sources
View surviving collateral & related current resources
- The two embedded Scribd collections above preserve representative collateral and portfolio material from the period.
- Current NCPTT online resources.
- Preservation Technology Podcast on the current NPS site.
- Preservation Technology Podcast: Interviewing the Field as It Changed — retrospective on the podcast as field-mapping practice.
Archive Note / Provenance
View what changed & the larger pattern this body of work reveals
NCPTT remains active, and much of the digital material produced during this period migrated into the current NPS environment rather than disappearing with the old ncptt.nps.gov infrastructure.
The significant shift in this body of work was from communications as promotion toward communications as infrastructure for distributing technical knowledge, connecting practitioners, and making research reusable beyond the organization. That transition became one of the strongest recurring patterns in my later work.
Critical Questions + Add to the Record
- How do we make knowledge more accessible without losing its meaning?
- What happens when useful tools become systems we depend on?
- What should technology strengthen in us—and what should it never replace?
Application here: this decade shows communications expanding into a system for knowledge circulation. The individual products mattered, but the larger change was learning to connect research, practitioners, media, and institutional purpose across multiple channels.
Did you work with NCPTT during this period, use these communications products, or preserve additional materials from them? Add firsthand context or surviving artifacts.
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