I started MonmouthpediA because I think
that knowledge can give us context and
allow us to appreciate the things around us more.
The project is a collaboration between Wikimedia UK,
Monmouthshire County Council, the museums,
the library, University of Wales, Cardiff Met,
but most importantly individual contributors,
local community groups and people
not just from Monmouth but people all over
the world that are creating the content and
making this happen.
A QR code is a kind of bar code
that you can read through your phone or
tablet computer and it can take you to a web page.
The great thing about QRpedia is that
whatever language your phone is in
it will take you through to that language page
on Wikipedia.
If you have a Spanish phone
it will take you though to the spanish article,
German, German article.
I think the real attraction of QR codes for us
is it gives us the chance to let people see our
information in their own language which
is a great boon, especially in Monmouth.
The Welsh language is a possibility
but also all the other world languages.
The other big advantage from a curatorial
point of view is that we love to give people
information until the "cows come home"
and we can't do that in our ordinary labels
because there's not enough space.
What we have here is a Grade 1 star listed building
with great stories to tell, lots of events and activities
which have taken place in the building,
and yet we got a very very small collection.
So using the QRpedia codes, it gives people access
to a wide range of information about the stories,
as well as the artifacts.
As a history student it's nice to pick and choose
which information I can see and not having to be
bombarded with information, which can be quite
intimidating sometimes when you go into a museums.
It's fantastic that Monmouth is one of the first town
to offer the QR codes, and that is gonna become
internationally renowned for the Wikipedia project
is going on here. I think it's going to introduce
a lot of people around the world to our
quite fascinating history.
The author William Gibson once famously said:
"The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed".
With Monmouth embrassing QRpedia as technology
and becoming a WiFi town, we now have a real
practical example of the way in which we can have
communities coming together both locally
and globally, to share and create a new
sense of place in Monmouth and enable
new visitor experiences for the town.