A critical first step in the conservation of cultural heritage is to identify and understand the places we want to protect. Inventories and surveys are essential tools in this effort, and their use in managing national, regional, and local heritage is mandated in heritage-related legislation across the globe. Despite the widespread understanding of the importance of inventories and surveys, however, practical, up-to-date guidance on how they should be created, implemented, and maintained has been substantially lacking—until now. This publication draws from the Getty Conservation Institute’s ongoing work with heritage inventories and on the Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources’ experience with SurveyLA. It provides technical advice, guidance, and lessons learned for employing inventories and surveys as tools for heritage conservation and management.

• Foreword, Timothy P. Whalen, Getty Conservation Institute
• Foreword, Ken Bernstein, Los Angeles City Planning Office of Historic Resources
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Importance of Inventories and Surveys to Heritage Management, David Myers and Janet Hansen
  • Sidebar: How to Use This Book
• Part I. Heritage Inventories
  • 1. Key Inventory Qualities for Effective Heritage Management, David Myers
  • 2. Infrastructure, Resources, and Activities to Support Inventory Effectiveness, David Myers
    • Sidebar: Overview of Thematic Frameworks, Thematic Studies, and Historic Contexts
    • Sidebar: Controlled Vocabularies
  • 3. Considerations for Building Inventories for Effective Heritage Management, David Myers
    • Sidebar: Resources
  • 4. The Arches Open-Source Platform: Purpose-Built Software for Heritage Inventories and Surveys, Annabel Lee Enriquez and David Myers
    • Sidebar: Arches in Use
• Part II. Heritage Surveys
  • 5. SurveyLA and HistoricPlacesLA: A Synopsis, Janet Hansen
  • 6. Establishing the Need for a Survey, Janet Hansen
  • 7. Creating a Survey Plan, Janet Hansen
    • Sidebar: Historic Preservation Practice in the United States
  • 8. Developing Survey Tools and Methods, Janet Hansen and Sara Delgadillo
  • 9. Completing a Pilot Survey Program, Janet Hansen
  • 10. Conducting Field Surveys, Katie Horak and Janet Hansen -Sidebar: Peer Review in Heritage Surveys, Lauren Weiss Bricker
  • 11. Publishing Survey Results, Janet Hansen and Sara Delgadillo
• Part III. Using Information
  • 12. Using Inventory and Survey Information for Heritage Management, David Myers and Janet Hansen
• Part IV. Case Studies
  • 13. Archaeology and Local Heritage Inventories in England: The View from Lincoln, Alastair MacIntosh
  • 14. Surveying and Inventorying Intangible Cultural Heritage in a Multicultural Society: The Singapore Case Study, Nicholas Yeo
• Conclusion: Considerations, Challenges and Remedies, and Recommendations, David Myers and Janet Hansen
• Glossary
• References
• Contributors

David Myers is a senior project specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute. He manages the GCI’s Inventories for Heritage Management project, and is a member of the GCI’s Arches project team, having worked on building the Arches open-source community and on the implementation of the Arches Heritage Data Management Platform with the City of Los Angeles and with national and local government authorities in England. He also managed the GCI’s Heritage Values, Stakeholders, and Consensus Building project. Other past contributions include work on the GCI’s Los Angeles Historic Resource Survey project, on a project to develop and implement the Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Antiquities (MEGA) – Jordan, and on GCI projects in Egypt, in Southern Africa, in Myanmar, and for Iraq. He also previously served as a legislative assistant to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Janet Hansen has more than thirty years of experience in the field of heritage preservation, with particular expertise in developing and implementing heritage surveys to inform preservation policy and practice in local government environments. As the deputy manager of the Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources, she managed the precedent-setting SurveyLA project from inception to completion. Janet has served as an advisor to other municipalities planning heritage surveys, has lectured on the topic at conferences and universities throughout the United States and in Canada, and has published numerous papers and articles on various aspects of SurveyLA.

Lauren Weiss Bricker recently retired as a professor of architecture at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where she co-coordinated the historic preservation program and was director of the ENV Archives–Special Collections. She served as a chair of the National Council for Preservation Education and chair of California’s State Historical Resources Commission. Lauren was the Clarkson Chair in Urban Planning for 2019, University at Buffalo. She writes on American architecture and historic preservation and has curated several architectural exhibitions. She is the author of the Mediterranean House in America (2008) and is currently completing the book Designing the Modern American House.

Sara Delgadillo is an associate city planner for Los Angeles City Planning’s Office of Historic Resources. As staff for the City’s municipal historic preservation programs, she supports the development and administration of HistoricPlacesLA, Los Angeles’s historic resource inventory system, a customization of the Arches open-source data management platform, and ancillary projects that feature historic places reflective of the ethnic and cultural diversity of Los Angeles. Sara is a founding member of Latinos in Heritage Conservation, a national organization building a movement that affirms Latinx heritage through education, conservation, and leadership development.

Katie Horak is an architectural historian and principal at Architectural Resources Group (ARG), a nationally acclaimed heritage architecture and planning firm. A recognized expert in historic resource documentation, treatment, and management, Katie was the project lead for all of ARG’s work on SurveyLA, from the pilot phase to project completion. Before joining ARG in 2008, Katie conducted heritage surveys throughout the city of New York while on staff at the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Katie is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Southern California, where she teaches graduate-level heritage conservation courses in the School of Architecture.

Alastair MacIntosh is the city archaeologist for Lincoln, England. His role is to advise the city’s council on the impacts of new buildings and to maintain its Arches-powered heritage inventory, Arcade. Alastair started his career working as a field archaeologist on projects throughout the English Midlands, before taking on a four-year government-funded project to analyze the historic landscapes of Lincolnshire. Alastair subsequently cofounded a small heritage consultancy and went on to undertake further research projects into the management of historic church buildings, the reuse of historic farm complexes, and the ways in which local communities use heritage information to manage their local environment. As Lincoln’s city archaeologist, Alastair has worked to develop ways of enabling sustainable economic development in archaeologically sensitive areas, especially by means of more appropriate construction methods.

Nicholas Yeo is currently the senior manager of the Heritage Policy and Research department of the National Heritage Board, Singapore. He is involved in developing programs, content, and campaigns to raise awareness of Singapore’s intangible cultural heritage, alongside initiatives to support the sustainability of heritage businesses. Nicholas has more than twelve years of experience in the cultural heritage sector and has worked in various fields, including marketing and communications and digital engagement. He also enjoys documenting both the built heritage and food heritage of Singapore through photos.

Annabel Lee Enriquez is a project specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), where she has specialized in cultural heritage data, documentation, and technology projects since 2013. In particular, she works to enable effective conservation and research through the Arches project, an open-source semantic software platform for cultural heritage data management, focusing her efforts on data modeling and strategy, knowledge organization, and project implementation for heritage inventories and science. Prior to her work at the GCI, her research interests revolved around geospatial survey techniques and 3D documentation of monuments and sites. Annabel received a BS in urban and regional studies from Cornell University, and an MS in geographic information science and technology and a graduate certificate in heritage conservation from the University of Southern California.