#WOW! – A Central Collection Point for Skydiving’s History!
We now have access to an online databank exploring the use of parachutes from the earliest attempts to slow man’s descent from high places.
##Encyclopedia of All Things Skydiving
More than 600 separate articles have been uploaded to The Encyclopedia of All Things Skydiving, and more are added every week. The website is a searchable research tool that will serve future generations of skydivers and aviation enthusiasts who have an historical interest in parachutes.
The site has been viewed by more than 27,000+ people from 50 countries. A membership function and collaborative “wiki” software enables visitors to comment, add new articles, correct inaccuracies and otherwise participate in building a valuable and accessible archive of sport parachuting’s collective history.
##Content
The site’s content includes technical articles, anecdotes, pictures, reminisces and biographies of the sport’s notables, past and present. Articles are collected, organized and posted under the supervision of Madden (Pat) Works, longtime skydiving author, and Mary Todd, website administrator. Pat encourages everyone with an interest in skydiving — parachute equipment designers, enthusiasts of the sport’s many disciplines, aerial photographers, jump pilots, etc — to add informed content in their areas of specialty (to be reviewed and approved before posting).
##eMuseum
The Encyclopedia of All Things Skydiving is a personal project initiated by Pat Works (USPA D-1813), who, as a pro bono advisor to the Skydiving Museum’s Board of Trustees, has written on a broad range of topics that tell the history of our sport. The databank currently resides on a website belonging to Pat Works, but is expected to move to the Skydiving Museum’s website where it will join the “eMuseum” function. eMuseum listings represent what could be displayed when the Skydiving Museum achieves funding sufficient to open the doors at a physical location.
##Wiki Website Terms of Use
Website content authored by Works adheres to the standards of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 international license governing the sharing of open data. Articles can be freely copied, altered and shared as long as the user credits the original source and also distributes it under Creative Commons license conditions. Creative Commons standards apply to many online “blogs”, scholarly research and online information sources; examples include Wikipedia and ProPublica.
Check it out! The Encyclopedia of All Things Skydiving
