digital futures historic graves 2011

•Digital futures of cultural heritage education: final workshop

•Content ‘in the hands of the user’

Hi-tech, low-cost approaches to community heritage surveys –historic graveyards

John Tierney and Maurizio Toscano

Historic graveyards – user generated contentHistoric Graveyards are key connectors between heritage, local community development and tourism; linking past and present generations with place.

Content•In recording graveyards and memorials•In recording stories of place and people

Currently this approach has been developed by Eachtra in association with a number of Local Development partnerships.

Audio recorder

Zoom H2

GPS CameraSony HX5

Smartphones – The pencil of21st century

-High quality sound recorders-HD video recording-Direct to Youtube video-Geotagged photographs

•Geotagged multimedia surveys of historic graveyards (public)•30 second youtube videos•15second audio files•200 word text files

Content in the handsof the Users

Power, M

More content inthe hands ofthe user using AR

LAYAR

• Augmented Reality V Mediated Reality

• The HG DRUPAL dataset ‘feeds out’ directly into LAYAR

• Associating the physical and the digital http://www.azavea.com/research/company-research/augmented-reality/

– Smartphone (GPS/Accelerometer/Compass)

• It calculates where you are

Conclusions•Years of engagement have resulted in a groundswell of interest in historic graveyard projects from community development, local history and genealogical perspectives.

•Currently most projects are not connected. The opportunity exists to work with various funding sources to achieve community development and rural development aims to benefit the broader community.

•This can only work as a community development project

•Communities generate their own heritage media

•The data must be freely available on the internet

•It must be populated with local voices, local accents, faces and stories