Information technologies and society: The City of Monmouth in Great Britain will become the world’s first “Wikipedia-city”

The administrative center of Monmouth in the Southeast of Wales (Great Britain) will become the world’s first so called “Wikipedia-city”.

Starting from May 19, 2012 any resident or guest of the city, where in 1387 the future King of England Henry V was born, will be able to obtain information about its attractions, scanning their smart phone the bar codes, installed on the urban sites of interest.

This simple operation will allow users of smart phones to instantly connect up the database of the Internet encyclopedia “Wikipedia” and get on the screen of their mobile phone information about buildings which are of special interest, museums or squares of Monmouth. This information will be available on 26 foreign languages.

The project entitled “Monmutpedia” is implemented with the assistance of the fund “Wikimedia UK” according to which the reading of bar codes (there are more than 1 thousand of them in Monmouth) will provide an instant access to hundreds of articles, telling about this town and its history.

Preparations for the implementation of the project have taken six months with the participation of municipal authorities ensuring in particular the installation and access to the Internet via the wireless communication system Wi-Fi throughout the administrative center.

According to the “Wikimedia UK” representative Stevie Benton, Monmouth was elected as the first “Wikipedia City” due to its rich history and architectural monuments, among which is the only surviving in the United Kingdom Bridge of the 13th century. S. Benton expressed the hope that Monmouth example will be followed by other British cities. This initiative was supported by the founder of “Wikipedia” Jimmy Wales.