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.