MonmouthpediA
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| Available in | Multilingual |
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| Created by |
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| Website | monmouthpedia |
| Commercial | No |
| Launched | 19 May 2012 |
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Content license
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Creative Commons Attribution/ Share-Alike 3.0 |
Monmouthpedia (styled as MonmouthpediA) is a collaborative project linking the online encyclopaedia and the town of Monmouth in South Wales.
The idea of Monmouthpedia was conceived in late 2011 by John Cummings, a resident of Monmouth. Cummings attended a TEDx event in Bristol which discussed the QRpedia project in use at Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Cummings founded the project with chair of , Roger Bamkin, who co-founded QRpedia. The project was subsequently supported by Monmouthshire County Council, and the council-owned Shire Hall later announced plans to instate a and introduce sessions to help visitors with contributions to the project.
Monmouthpedia's initial goal was to have 1,000 QR codes by April 2012, with each article having a corresponding ceramic plaque emblazoned with a code. By May, the project's home page reported 712 new and improved articles in 25 different languages. For non-English speakers, where available, articles in other languages are automatically displayed in the language of the user on the basis of the phone's language configuration. At project launch, some 500 articles in other languages were available thanks to the collaboration of editors abroad. In addition to this, the project covers over 250 pre-existing entries on Monmouth-related topics. In the same period, over 1,000 photographs were uploaded.
One of the issues that Monmouth faced in making the project a success was that there was poor 3G mobile coverage. To help with this, wireless (Wi-Fi) broadband was provided in the high street and at most QR code plaque locations.
Monmouthshire County Council announced in July 2012 that it was planning to extend the initiative to other parts of the authority's area, starting with Chepstow and Raglan. A new post, with the aim of delivering Monmouthshirepedia (sic), was advertised by the council in November 2012.
Monmouthpedia was awarded the "Excellence in Marketing" award at the Monmouthshire Business Awards in October 2012. Wynndel Property Management, developers of new housing at "Severn Quay" in Chepstow and sponsor of the award, praised Monmouthpedia on their website, noting that "Advertising value for Monmouth alone has been estimated at £2.12 million", and predicting that "Chepstow property, together with new developments in Chepstow and new developments in Monmouthshire, will also benefit" when a similar project starts for Chepstow.
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