TodayAHEC improves Web site to attract civilian users
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Find out what’s happening at the Army Heritage and Education Center by looking at its new Web site at www.usahec.org.
Visitors can check out virtual museum online exhibits or find out what’s on display at Ridgway Hall. A schedule of military history lectures and readings can be found as well as information on living history events.
“We want to use it to get our message out, to advertise our events, to inform the public of our holdings,” says Robert Mages, a research historian and archivist at the Military History Institute. “All of these efforts are ongoing to appeal to an online audience.”
Updates to the site will continue as content becomes available.
“We hope to add some streaming video. We’re digitizing some of our moving pictures, things from the Spanish American War, World War I and World War II,” Mages says.
The Military History Institute at AHEC contains more than 14 million items, including personal papers, photographs, documents and military books.
“We have things in here that are unique, you won’t find anywhere else in the world,” Mages says. “That’s why people come here. We’re well known to the world of scholars. We’re less well known to the general public. We want to change that.”
Visitors to the Web site can find information on the current operations collection project, which is gathering artifacts from soldiers who are serving or have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“It’s a way for us to be relevant to the war fighters,” Mages says.
AHEC is conducting a major survey to acquire historical information and source material from all periods of American military history. Veterans are invited to join in the effort by recording their recollections in an online survey. In addition, veterans can find out how to donate their historical records of military conflicts.
The number of visitors to the Army Heritage facilities have doubled in the past year, says Capt. Ginger Shaw, operations officer. Right now the AHEC staff assists more than 3,000 visitors to Ridgway Hall every month and fields more than 2,000 inquiries by e-mail or phone.
