Life and history in Monmouth is the subject of a new Wikipedia project that will allow people to use a smartphone to scan barcodes to get information about places of interest sent to their mobile.
The project, dubbed ‘Monmouthpedia’ is the first that Wikipedia (the online encyclopaedia) has based on a town.
Special barcodes, known as QR codes, are being used to allow the user access information from Wikipedia. The initiative came about after local man John Cummings attended a Wikipedia event and heard about a project using the QR codes technology in Derby Museum. He said:
“I said ‘that’s a good idea, you could do it for a whole town’ and they said ‘no, YOU could do it for a whole town!”
Mr Cummings has since worked with Roger Bamkin, of Wikimedia UK to bring the innovative idea to the town of Monmouth.
Monmouthshire County Council is supporting the Monmouthpedia appeal for people to contribute articles, reference material and photographs on interesting places, people, objects and buildings of Monmouth.
Monmouth’s Shire Hall will this month appoint its own Wikipedian in residence and a number of training sessions to help people to publish their own contributions will be held at the historic building. Visitors to the hall can use the QRpedia codes to provide a guided tour of the Shire hall for visitors, a number of town trails will start from there & council officers are looking at how ‘augmented reality’ will give visitors to ‘see’ the Shire Hall in a new light.
Kellie Beirne, Chief Officer for Regeneration and Culture at Monmouthshire County Council:
“Roger Bamkin and John Cummings have done a fantastic job – our thanks go to Roger of Wikimedia UK for his work and to John for bringing it here to Monmouth.
“Monmouth is a perfect place to do this – it’s got culture, history and people who love the place giving their time. I’m sure people in Monmouth and all over the world will help out with the project and give visitors and residents in Monmouth an even richer experience using smartphone technology.
“Here at the council we’re really pushing to get the best out of the digital world, so we are supporting Monmouthpedia as much as we can. More generally, we’ve got a ‘digital deal’ strategy that will ensure we get the best for the people and businesses of Monmouthshire, we’ve won awards for social media and digital innovation and we’re excited about delivering more innovative services that are more relevant and useful to people’s lives.”
Information on getting involved can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/MonmouthpediA
