Resources for Research on your Site
In locating historic maps of the Boston area on which to locate your site, you might find the following book helpful:
Warner, Sam Bass. "A Brief History of Boston." In Mapping Boston. Edited by Norman Leventhal, Alex Krieger, David Cobb, and Amy Turner. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1987. ISBN: 0262611732.
The State of Massachusetts maintains a Web site with maps and information on most of the cities and towns in MA. To access it, go to Community Preservation Initiative Home Page and click the 'Choose a Community' link near the top of the page. Available Information includes buildout maps, aerial photographs, zoning maps, and photographs of the town, among other things.
Maps Over Time is another resource for historical map collections on Boston and Cambridge.
Massachusetts GIS (Geographic Information System) contains information on Massachusetts cities and towns.
The Library of Congress has an Online Map Collection that, again, may help provide some contextual maps on which to locate your site.
In addition, you probably should look up books pertaining to the history of your site. You are unlikely to find books that will contain as detailed historic information as what you're looking for. But reading such books might:
- Give you a historical overview, and help you figure out what dates you might want to look at, and
- Help you find some primary source historical maps that may not have been available to you through other means.
Web Design
The Web Style Guide is an online resource that covers almost all elements of Web design, with a particular focus on good and bad page layout.
You may want to pay special attention to the following areas of this guide:
In designing your site, remember that the Web as a medium has different properties than more traditional media like printed papers and publications. Your site should not simply present your paper online; take advantage of hyperlinks, images, and other aspects of the online world that can make your site unique and innovative.