I’m sure you realise that the important thing is not the QR code itself, but what happens when it is scanned. Let’s look at some quick do’s and don’ts (this is off the top of my head, so forgive any omissions)…

— Do —

1. Use them around your site to enhance the interpretation – they are not only a marketing tool
2. Make sure they works in any specific location you put them (test on different networks – consider free wi-fi at your venue if necessary)
3. Make it lead to a mobile-optimised page THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT and a common mistake
4. Make the landing page directly relevant to the place the person is standing
5. Include audio or video guides if you have the bandwidth (I see you have some good ones on Napier) by putting them in public repositories and pointing your codes at them (which you can do at no/low cost with Q-Action) I prefer to use repositories like Dropbox or Google Drive in preference to You Tube as you don’t get the ads and distraction of other videos.
6. Use a CMS so that you can devolve content contribution to many volunteers (see below)

— Don’t —

1. Fiddle with the QR code design – is is a standard so that it reads reliably even under poor light/reflections/faded code tags
2. Send users to your normal home page (except perhaps from your main leaflet)

As well as the Q-Action, which is a self-service public offering on a ‘freemium’ basis, we are currently piloting at some UK heritage sites ‘Q-Point’ which is backed by a CMS engine that enables more comprehensive management and customisation of the system, including networking volunteers into an on-line community and facilitating their work. We have a major open event at an Iron Age hill fort on July 1st to test this with the public.

I’d be happy to work with any US destinations and providers of heritage interpretive services to pilot Q-Point in the States. You are though looking at significant costs (say $5000 – $20,000) as a ball park figure to set up a complete system with training etc.

Hope this helps. Have a good (our Queen’s Diamon Jubillee) weekend.

Neil

I stumbled upon and idea and I have a lot of interest in it. The museum I work for has conducted several oral history projects successfully, but this is before the advent of social media and I am wondering how to integrate Facebook and other social media platforms to collect other potential oral histories. I would love to be a part of this conversation.

Best regards,
Chad

I just stumbled upon your very interesting idea. My museum is considering starting their own oral history project and I am very interested in hearing more about what was uncovered in your discussion. Is there anywhere that I can receive more information about it?

Thanks!

Allison

I think this sounds like an excellent topic for discussion. I am a Research Assistant at the Southern Oral History Program at UNC-Chapel Hill, and I (along with two of my colleagues) would be happy to share our experiences with building a digital oral history archive. I’d also be interested in hearing more about your ideas re: crowdsourcing subjects and stories.

Liz

My flight leaves at 6AM and arrives in MKE at 930, so I will be a little bit late in arriving. I look forward to meeting you all tomorrow morning.

Home

web pages

Audio guide

Video guide

I’d be very interested in discussing this at our camp! I am a history student at UWM, and I am planning on conducting a series of oral history interviews for my master’s thesis. I’d really like to learn more about the various ways in which I can make these stories available to as wide an audience as possible. Looking forward to speaking with you next week!

Luke

Look forward to seeing y’all this week!

This sounds like a good conversation, and you are certainly correct about the possible dangers when it comes to permissions/consent. But this should not be something that derails us, especially as most oral histories languish in archives.

For exampe, I just discovered 80 oral histories of African American schoolteachers in Appalachia-each of whom taught in rural, all-black classrooms from the 1920s-60s. Most contributors are no longer with us, so how do we go about getting these digitized and available beyond the archive the right way?

I think you are working on two very important projects, and I salute you for the clarity with which you write instructions for contributors to your book. I’m a huge fan of bringing local history to life as a resource for teachers, and so I am equally interested in your project on Hartford. I look forward to picking your brain a little about how to get a website I put together on Appalachian Af-Am history in front of more college and high school teachers, as well as the future of open source/Creative Commons projects in history.