Mobile Historical Landscapes: Exposing and Crowdsourcing Historical Landmarks

Presented by Dave LesterAAHC 2009 Conference

“2009 will once again be the year of mobile devices”

Build something useful.

DIY, welcoming failure and mistakes.

Creating all of the content from scratch would be a waste of our time. really.

1 of 2 mistakes I'm trying to avoid:

Using complicated solutions to solve simple problems.

The 2nd mistake I'm trying to avoid:

While the ubiquity of mobile computing and the Internet have made cartographic data increasingly accessible to the public, it remains difficult to access and interface with historical data in ways similar to business or transportation information.

How can we create a central database of historical sites?

allows users to easily find historic landmarks in relation to their physical location

The first step is to realize what we already have

what we already have:

Data: National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)

Technology: Omeka & PHP

Participants: Enthusiasts and you.

Potential design of iPhone web version

Currently 80,000 historic sites from the United States in the HistoryPlot database

* Partnerships with historical societies

* Ingest the abstract description of the site from wikipedia, or encourage users to add/edit that

* Pull in photos from Flickr. Create an easy interface for users to upload their own photos

Ideas for content on sites:

* Plans to install a rate and review plugin to allow people to comment on what sites they enjoyed, and others that fell short of their expectations.

And a lot more via an REST API (using the Zend Framework)..

More

How can historians leverage the power of open data and digital tools to engage the public?

Community-based DIY history enthusiasts leveraging the power of digital tools to promote an understanding of our shared histories and experiences

Planning local meetups, where people help seed the website and explore their communities

Leveraging a Digital History Street Team

REST API

* Connect archival photos of local historical societies, libraries, and museums to this map.

* Iphone application

* Ambient soundscape

* Alternate reality games (ARG)

Dave Lesterdave@omeka.orgtwitter.com/digitalhumanistdavelester.org

twitter.com/historyplothistoryplot.com

Thank you. Let's chat