About the National Park Service Web Camera Database
The National Park Service Web Camera Database contains more than 100 unique web camera records, each with a link to the real-time web camera image, along with associated variables such as location, image type, and operational status. The purpose of the National Park Service Web Camera Database is to assist in research related to National Park Service interpretation and National Park Service history, including research regarding agency use of social media, and the concepts of the virtual visitor and the digital age in agency history and policy making.
Web cameras in the database range from Acadia National Park in Maine to Zion National Park in Utah. Web cameras depicting natural history, such as Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, and Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, are well represented in the database. Web cameras depicting the nation’s cultural history are also well represented in the database and include such scenes as Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota and the Statue of Liberty National Monument in New York. The first National Park Service web camera to go online, located at Glacier National Park in Montana, is still operational and is a part of this database. Yosemite National Park in California was also an early user of web camera technology and the park’s present-day collection of static and streaming web cameras can be explored in the database. Web cameras from park-partner organizations, park concessioners, and multi-agency research operations are included in this database as well. Altogether the database represents U.S. national park unit web cameras from border to border, coast to coast, Hawaii, and Alaska.
The National Park Service Web Camera Database is an on-going, long-term project that will expand as web cameras are added by the National Park Service and will be updated to reflect changes to existing National Park Service web cameras. The National Park Service Web Camera Database was a joint development effort between Westernlabs and Montana State University Library Digital Initiatives. Information and images for the baseline dataset were drawn from records collected between 2010 and 2014 by Kurt Angersbach of Westernlabs.
Additional information about National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service webcams, including webcam news, webcam changes, operational status changes, and a collection of historic and contemporary webcam images, can be found at https://mobile.twitter.com/theparktoday.
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