Government Technology - October 2008 - (Page 38)

education is the product of creativity,” Raymond said, referring to Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence rough draft. “It’s a way that you can touch history,” he continued, noting the visibility of the parchment paper’s fiber and the repairs and edits made to the document by literally cutting and pasting. Visitors can flip electronically through books from Jefferson’s library, turning pages with their fingers as they would a printed book. Where necessary, users also can overlay a typewritten translation if the original text is in a foreign language. For the text displays and architectural elements, kiosk users can call up additional information, such as other written works that helped form the documents on display and explanations of the symbolism found in architectural elements. “The Great Hall of the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress is truly one of the most amazing buildings in Washington, D.C., if not the country,” said Sampson. “Yet, if you walked in and weren’t lucky enough to have a curator at A kiosk provides a close-up of Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence with typewritten overlay to make the original handwritten text and edits easier to read. That new understanding extends to Web visitors too. Images and interactive material similar to the library kiosks also are available online. In fact, there’s more to be done on the Web at www.myloc.gov even if a visitor has already spent time at the library. The Online Experience Like on-site visitors, online visitors can look at and zoom in on exhibit photographs. In addition, they can view the original versions of historic documents and typewritten transcriptions. Using the kiosk to zoom in, visitors can see where the Founding Fathers patched paper over the original text while editing. “We have an entire generation of people who have grown up not knowing a world without the Internet. They are used to this kind of interaction, and they’ve come to expect it.” Matt Raymond, communications director, U.S. Library of Congress The real document lies under glass next to the kiosk. your side to help you interpret all the amazing artwork and carvings, you certainly would know that you are in the presence of something amazing, but you wouldn’t really understand it. What we are able to do with the kiosk is help people to understand what they are seeing and some of the symbolism around them.” OCT_08 Kiosks in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress’ Jefferson Building let visitors zoom in on the hall’s architectural elements and provide information on their signiﬁcance. Several interactive learning activities are available exclusively online, including games and activities that help children in grades three through 12 comprehend the displayed materials. Lesson plans for grade school educators are also available on the site. In addition to the current offerings, Raymond said, the library will soon offer a “Passport to Knowledge” with a bar code that will allow users to create a personalized online collection. “People can swipe the bar code on an exhibit or an artifact that they like,” he said, “and it will build a Web site personalized for them on the back end where they can really create their own collections.” With their personalized collections, users can bookmark artifacts for further research, share with others or play a game called Knowledge Quest — at the library or at www.myloc.gov — that challenges visitors to solve riddles and puzzles associated with the bookmarked items. According to Raymond, the Library of Congress Experience has been a hit with the younger generation of learners who visit the landmark library. “We have an entire generation of people who have grown up not knowing a world without the Internet. They are used to this kind of interaction, and they’ve come to expect it,” he said. The Net generation gets more out of the interactive technology than from “dry, old textbooks,” Raymond said. “When you go through the Experience, you will see young people going right to the interactives and moving the documents and manipulating them, and it opens their eyes to the actual artifacts and history that is all around them.” TO SEE VIDEO OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS EXPERIENCE, VISIT WWW.GOVTECH.COM/HISTORYUPCLOSE. 38 http://www.myloc.gov http://www.myloc.gov http://WWW.GOVTECH.COM/historyupclose http://www.govtech.com

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Government Technology - October 2008 Contents Point of View On the Scene Big Picture Four Questions for... Letters Cover Stories: Border Crossing The Australian E-Connection Easy Rider Northern Exposure Technology on the Cheap Ditching the Desktop Heightening the Experience Pipe Dream Falling Between the Cracks Come Together, Right Now... It's a ... Car? Digital State of the Art Spectrum Products Two Cents signal:noise

Government Technology - October 2008

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