Reflections of History. An approach to augmented documentation of cultural heritage

Abstract

In this work we present our proposed approach for augmenting the documentation of cultural heritage assets to support the production of meaningful cultural experiences and other activities. As has been established, the use of experiential activities and storytelling is significantly more appealing to visitors to cultural heritage sites than simple descriptive information. However, the designers of such activities often struggle to find inspiring information about the artefacts to help them attract and foster historical empathy in these visitors. We believe that by augmenting the documentation it will be possible to support these content creators in their effort. It will also offer every visitor the opportunity to view each cultural heritage asset from a different perspective and in relation to his/her own life. We demonstrate how a few simple additions to the data model may result in a much richer view of any cultural heritage asset and may prompt the visitors to reflect on the past and to realise the sequence and the interlinking of events that ultimately create history.

In this work we present our proposed approach for augmenting the documentation of cultural heritage assets to support the production of meaningful cultural experiences and other activities. As has been established, the use of experiential activities and storytelling is significantly more appealing to visitors to cultural heritage sites than simple descriptive information. However, the designers of such activities often struggle to find inspiring information about the artefacts to help them attract and foster historical empathy in these visitors. We believe that by augmenting the documentation it will be possible to support these content creators in their effort. It will also offer every visitor the opportunity to view each cultural heritage asset from a different perspective and in relation to his/her own life. We demonstrate how a few simple additions to the data model may result in a much richer view of any cultural heritage asset and may prompt the visitors to reflect on the past and to realise the sequence and the interlinking of events that ultimately create history.