Placebooks: An App to Tell the World About Your Place

For Immediate Release: 31/07/2012
Photo Opportunity: Workshop being held at Cefnlen, National Eisteddfod Maes, Monday 6th August 10am.
Headline: An App to Tell the World About Your Place

On Monday 6th August at the National Eisteddfod the People’s Collection Wales, University of Nottingham and Swansea University will showcase Placebooks, an innovative, bi-lingual, online toolkit that allows anyone to create, publish and share digital “books” on the places they care about, and make these available to all online, or via a smartphone app designed to work even in areas with no mobile phone coverage.

The website and app are being developed with funding from the Research Councils UK and support from the Ordnance Survey, and are designed specifically for use in rural Wales – much of the testing and development work has been conducted in Ceredigion. Both the app and website make use of detailed Ordnance Survey mapping, and the app is designed to work even in areas with no mobile phone reception.

Users of the website can upload their own media, or draw on a wealth of content from their People’s Collection Wales user accounts to create “books” that incorporate text, images, video, audio, maps and routes. Dr Chamberlain of the Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham said, “Giving people the chance to tell and share stories about their culture, interests and daily life is of the upmost importance, and could have both a direct impact upon the economy and heritage of an area for years to come.”

Those attending the workshop on Monday 6th August will be given a chance to start developing their own Placebooks, will take part in a discussion over the further development of the open-source system, and will be able to ask the developers for advice about how best these tools can be used to promote their community,

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Ends
Notes for Editors

Placebooks website – placebooks.peoplescollectionwales.com
Placebooks app – available on Android app store http://bit.ly/QsXmks
People’s Collection Wales website– www.peoplescollectionwales.com
This work was supported by the Research Councils UK (RCUK) [grant number - EP/I001816/1]

Contact

Name: Dr Alan Chamberlain (English& Cymraeg)                                           Email: Alan.Chamberlain@Nottingham.ac.uk
Name: Tom Pert (English) Tel: 07818593114
Name: Rheinallt Jones (Cymraeg) Tel: 07540881925