RunCoCo present how to run a Community Collection online....

 

Yvla Berglund Prytz from the University of Oxford will be speaking at Digital Past about RunCoCo, an Oxford Community Collection model that brings together online crowdsourcing and face-to-face engagement, and which has successfully been used to create digital, user-generated collections since 2008.

 Yvla will be introducing the model and demonstrating how it can be adapted to suit different projects and communities.  Some of the successful and wide-ranging projects undertaken will also be showcased, including collections on First World War memorabilia and freely available Anglo-Saxon educational material.  

Digital Past 2015. Featuring the British Museum’s Samsung Digital Discovery Centre

The British Museum’s Samsung Digital Discovery Centre provides digital learning opportunities to approximately 10,000 school and family visitors annually.  We’re pleased to announce that Juno Rae and Lizzie Edwards, co-managers of the Centre’s learning programme, will be at Digital Past to introduce ‘A gift for Athena’, a new app created with games development company Gamar, which uses Augmented Reality to support Key Stage 2 student visits to the British Museum’s Parthenon gallery.

Using tablets supplied by the Centre, the app encourages students to explore the Parthenon sculptures and through a variety of challenges and puzzles, learn about Ancient Greek architecture and mythologies.

Juno and Lizzie will discuss the development of this innovative digital learning session and share their experiences on the benefits and challenges of incorporating augmented reality into museum learning. 

3D Heritage: The Collections Trust at Digital Past 2015

Nick Poole, Chief Executive of the Collections Trust, the professional association for people working in Collections Management (www.collectionstrust.org.uk), will be our opening keynote speaker at Digital Past 2015. He is also on the Executive Board of Europeana, the online portal to Europe’s digital cultural heritage (www.Europeana.eu) and currently represents the UK at the European Commission in the field of heritage and technology.

 

Nick will be sharing how the Trust has been exploring the use of 3D technologies to open up heritage for discovery and enjoyment. Working in partnership with leading creative 3D agency Inition and heritage organisations in the UK and US, the challenge has been to look past the technologies for their own sake, to how they can be harnessed to further the public mission of those using them.    

 

Microsoft Research 

Do you remember that digital project you were involved in a decade ago? Do the interactive elements still work and can you still access all of the files? File formats change and software to run those files becomes obsolete, so how can we prevent these problems in the future? Natasa Milic-Frayling, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research will explore these issues at Digital Past 2015 and look at how modern technologies can be used to enable access to older projects.

“Most of our efforts to secure access to our digital assets focus on preserving content files and less so on ensuring that the legacy software is usable. At the same time, the digital content can be accessed only through software applications that can process the files.

Ensuring that such applications are available and can run in a contemporary computing ecosystem is a challenge. If we wish to secure access to legacy content, especially highly interactive digital artefacts, we have to find economically viable ways to prolong the ‘life’ of software technology beyond the point of sustainability in the original market.

We discuss three approaches to ensuring that the content is accessible to users: file format conversion, software porting, and virtualization of original software. We expect that all three are needed to cover a range of scenarios and preservation requirements.” 

 

Leica Geosystems support Digital Past 2015

Many thanks to Leica Geosystems for once again being a Gold sponsor of Digital Past. Supporting the conference for the sixth year running, representatives from Leica Geosystems will be on hand at their stand to demonstrate the latest technology, as well a running a hands-on scanning workshop on the second morning.

With close to 200 years of experience pioneering solutions to measure the world, Leica Geosystems products and services are trusted by professionals worldwide to help them capture, analyse, and present spatial information. Leica Geosystems is best known for its array of products that capture accurately, model quickly, analyse easily, and visualize and present spatial information - come along and the meet the team to find out more. 

 

One Month to go....

There is only one month left to go until Digital Past 2015! To register as a delegate or to book a stand, go to our online booking form at Eventbrite. If you are interested in the sponsorship packages, or have any queries about registration or stands, please contact one of the Digital Past team at digitalpast@rcahmw.gov.uk or on 01970 621219. 

Showcasing the Blaenau Gwent Access to Heritage Project at Digital Past 2015

With a number of initiatives this project aims to make the rich local heritage of the County Borough accessible to as wide a range of people as possible.  Frank Olding and Emyr Morgan will be at Digital Past to talk about the project, discussing how they’ve established a partnership of local heritage organisations to offer training and advice to volunteers and community groups and a project website which provides community groups with a presence on the web and a place to make their archives accessible. 

From the Brynmawr Community Archive:  Brynmawr Fire Brigade on parade at the unveiling of the war memorial in 1927.

The website also includes on-line resources, school visit formats and themed exhibitions to enhance educational activities and increase school visits at local heritage attractions.