Project Description

This effort to explore the history of Lima's Old North End is an attempt to apply new methods and techniques in instructional technology to the research and writing of local history. Specifically, this project emerged from a larger Title III grant that Bluffton College received from the Federal Government in 1999 to improve the use of instructional technology across campus. One of the efforts that the college's directors of technology initiated was the Technology Learning Circles program. In effect, this program awarded a number of different BC professors smaller grants which, together with smaller student research teams they assembled, would make it possible for these teams to engage in different research projects that utilized the exciting new instructional technology that the Title III grant brought to campus.

In light of the possibilities of this Title III grant, in the fall of 2000, a team of three students and one Bluffton history professor - Norma Flores, Israel Gibson, Sam Park and Dr. Perry Bush -- came together to apply this instructional technology to the field of history. We have two aims. First, we wanted to map out the history of one of Lima's classic and oldest neighborhoods. Secondly, we aimed to place the results of our research in an engaging and accessible form on the worldwide web. This web-site is the result of our efforts over the 2001-2001 academic year. We hope you enjoy this small tour into very local history, as we try to adapt the traditional tools of social historical research into the new approaches and venues of the information age.