The project is a collaboration between QueenSpark Books, Brighton & Hove's community publisher, and the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics (CEM) at the University of Brighton.

The project will create a prototype mobile application based on the popular QueenSpark book "Backyard Brighton", which features images and stories from people who lived in the 'slums' in central Brighton before they were demolished in the 1940s. Information in the book will be geo-referenced to link images and stories to the physical places they relate to and selected passages will audio-recorded. The developed mobile application will recognise when matching content is available for a user's current location and notify them via an alert. People following up the alert will then be able to view historic images of their current location, read related stories and listen to audio recordings.

The prototype mobile application will be evaluated in field trials to understand how people engage with it and with the presented content in realistic outdoor environments. Field trials will involve QueenSpark's volunteer network, local community groups and interested members of the public in Brighton & Hove. The whole project will be documented in detail and, if it fulfils our expectations, server as a stepping stone to follow-up funding towards a fully featured app using information from a broader range of QueenSpark publications.

Contact: John Riches [john@queensparkbooks.org.uk] or Marcus Winter [Marcus.winter@brighton.ac.uk] for more information