John Hodgson, Jo Lambert and Matt Ramirez recently hosted a workshop at the John Rylands Library to demonstrate the Scarlet augmented reality project to archivists and librarians from other institutions in the region (though Alison Cullingford will no doubt wish us to point out that Bradford is firmly in Yorkshire!). Our guests were treated to a sneak preview of the app Matt is currently developing for the Columbian printing press, which promises to bring to life this fabulous relic of the hand-press era. They were also able to try out the app we have developed for Guyda Armstrong’s third-year Dante course. Delegates seemed really impressed with the whole concept of AR, and they could see lots of potential in their own situations, especially with first-year undergraduates and school groups.
Colleagues from Manchester Libraries, who are developing exciting proposals for the refurbished Central Library, seemed very interested in the potential for AR to contribute towards their innovative ArchivesPlus project, which will involved lots of interactivity, bringing archives to life virtually.
Alison has provided a much fuller account of the event, with her own impressions of Scarlet, on her fabulous Collections in a Cold Climate blog: view it here.