Curatescape – creating historical digital representations based on location – software for humanists and heritage institutions

Abstract

Modern information and communication technologies contributed to the emergence of digital humanities, including digital history and “digital historiography”, as well as multimedia and interactive “historical digital representations”. Moreover, the revolution of mobile Internet and devices introduced new perspectives in the area of establishing relationships and sharing knowledge and information. Simultaneously, the need of efficient management and long-term curation of digital content and data for research purposes becomes more and more significant. The intention of the article is to indicate the potential offered by the open-source software Curatescape in the context of creating historical digital representations and “mobile interpretation projects”. The text bases on the Cleveland Historical project, which is a great example of merging digital humanities and public history. The article also aims at signalling possibilities offered by digital humanities to cultural heritage institutions, regional organisations, and educational institutions. This objective was acquired by implementing methods of literature review and case study. The article also presents output of analysis of information architecture and overview of function of the Curatescape suite, that is a set of plug-ins and a graphic theme for the open system Omeka. This text shows the need of cooperation between researchers and employees of heritage institutions, members of local communities, teachers, and hobbyists, in order to create high quality historical content based on geolocation. The research shows, that projects based on the Curatescape may contribute to supporting historical education, creating social memory, activisation of the publicity, development of cultural tourism, and implementing digital curation.