Communicating city histories

Communicating city histories Suzanne Keene New developments in electronic communications have the capacity to transform the ways in which people gain access to archaeological and historical information. Several projects are already under way, which aim to disseminate urban history to the public in London and other European cities. 0 ne of the most active and inter­ esting areas of research by historians and archaeologists is the history of cities. New discoveries are constantly being made, and yet people interested in cities, including many of us as cultural tourists, have to rely for information mainly on commercial guidebooks and the like. Such information is often inaccurate, and, however recent the publication, some of it is inevitably out of date. It can even be positively misleading. The capabilities of information and communications technology (ICT) may now allow us to overcome these deficien­ cies. Rather than continue to rely on publishers and travel writers to re-work historical knowledge and deliver it at sec­ ond hand, could the new technologies be used to take the results of scholarly research (as well as other material such as images from museums) and deliver it direct to the public in ways that they will find attractive, useful and interesting? Digital technologies have several advan­ tages. First, the whole process of printing and distributing physical books is cut out. Secondly, more diverse audiences can be served, by tailoring the content delivered to a person to his or her particular interests a process sometimes referred to as nar­ rowcasting, as opposed to broadcasting. Thirdly, information can more easily be -ept up to date (given the continuing com­ mitment of the researchers). Fourthly, information can be delivered in many dif­ ferent formats: for desktop use, through to high-speed networks; for home users; and, significantly, to people on the move in the cities themselves , via the variety of hand­ held and wireless devices that are now becoming available and are, in effect, elec­ tronic guidebooks. These advantages have the potential to link, as never before, researchers with those who would like to know about their discoveries. This possi­ bility is of great interest to archaeologists and historians, and also to technologists, who would like to see their innovations applied in such a worthwhile way. A group of historians and computer sci­ entists have recently jointly developed, with a commercial e-publisher (electronic publisher) , a proposal for a system, referred to as e-C!TillS, that it is hoped will attract funding in due course.1 The concept is generic: it could be implemented for any city, anywhere, although it was developed initially for European cities, including London in particular, part of the historic City of London.

0 ne of the most active and inter esting areas of research by historians and archaeologists is the history of cities. New discoveries are constantly being made, and yet people interested in cities, including many of us as cultural tourists, have to rely for information mainly on commercial guidebooks and the like. Such information is often inaccurate, and, however recent the publication, some of it is inevitably out of date. It can even be positively misleading.
The capabilities of information and communications technology (ICT) may now allow us to overcome these deficien cies. Rather than continue to rely on publishers and travel writers to re-work historical knowledge and deliver it at sec ond hand, could the new technologies be used to take the results of scholarly research (as well as other material such as images from museums) and deliver it direct to the public in ways that they will find attractive, useful and interesting?
Digital technologies have several advan tages. First, the whole process of printing and distributing physical books is cut out. Secondly, more diverse audiences can be served, by tailoring the content delivered to a person to his or her particular interests -a process sometimes referred to as nar rowcasting, as opposed to broadcasting. Thirdly, information can more easily be -ept up to date (given the continuing com mitment of the researchers). Fourthly, information can be delivered in many dif ferent fo rmats: for desktop use, through to high-speed networks; for home users; and, significantly, to people on the move in the cities themselves, via the variety of hand held and wireless devices that are now becoming available and are, in effect, elec tronic guidebooks. These advantages have the potential to link, as never before, researchers with those who would like to know about their discoveries. This possi bility is of great interest to archaeologists and historians, and also to technologists, who would like to see their innovations applied in such a worthwhile way.
A group of historians and computer sci entists have recently jointly developed, with a commercial e-publisher (electronic publisher), a proposal for a system, referred to as e-C!Till S, that it is hoped will attract funding in due course.1 The concept is generic: it could be implemented for any city, anywhere, although it was developed initially for European cities, including London -in particular, part of the historic City of London.

Components of e-CITIES
The e-CITill S system is shown in Figure 1; there are four major components: • Content: historians and archaeologists creating information, images and other data.
• Repositories: the means of storing the data in permanent data repositories.
• Distribution: the means of distributing the information using telephony and Internet technologies.
• Publication and distribution: the deliv ery of information to users via a range of desktop and handheld devices. The fo undations for the required sys tems and technologies are relatively well established. Standards and guidelines have already been developed by means of large scale content-creation projects, such as those recently funded by the UK Lottery New Opportunities Fund for museums, libraries and archives. Digital-data reposi tories are already operated to international standards on behalf of the UK universities' Joint Information Systems Committee, for example by the Arts and Humanities Data Service. The technologies for distribution and delivery are the innovative challenge, as this is one ofthe fastest developing areas of new technology. Also, the requirements for managing and sustaining a comprehen sive information system on historic cities would be considerable.
Considering first the generation of con tent for e-C!TillS, it can be said that many scholars working on urban history already use electronic tools to generate and store research data and information. There is also a wealth of material in libraries, archives and museums that could be drawn upon. The kinds of data and infor mation generated by urban historians that would be used in e-CITillS include: • Digitized maps: to be used as a means of navigating the city and providing links to information on historical or cultural places, interactively connected to brief accounts of the places held in digital gazetteers.
• Scanned images and texts linked to those places: historic photographs, manuscript illuminations, paintings, drawings and other material fr om cul tural collections. • Video and sound recordings, derived from sources such as the UK National Sound Archive.
• Biographical information on historical people connected with the places.
• Material contributed by the users of e-C!TillS. For London, for example, where there is an active group of urban historians in the Centre fo r Metropolitan History of the Uni versity of London Institute of Historical Research, early Ordnance Survey maps are already being digitized (they are not sub ject to copyright). The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at UCL also has a project to develop virtual-reality represen tations of some London streets based on historical data. 2 Before an e-CITIES system could be implemented, several other technologies would need to be developed: • An information model of the con tent of an historic city, defining the basic ele ments of information relating to it.  • Translation technologies to make the content available in several European (or other) languages.
The dissemination and exploitation of the content of the e-CITIES system would also need to be developed. Marketing stud-ies would have to be undertaken and cop yright negotiated. If the content were to be made available for payment, the repositor ies would need to provide for this.

Users and uses
The primary e-CITIES users would be all those interested in the history and culture of cities. Researchers within academic institutions, and also those researching for their own interest and enjoyment, would benefit from the tools and information pro vided by e-CITIES. Historians themselves would be able to contribute to and build on e-CITIES information, and there could be tools for the general public to use and pos sibly contribute to e-CITIES information, and general users might be able to interact with and contribute to e-CITIES.
It is easy to imagine how e-CITIES infor mation could be used. Researchers wish ing to gain up-to-date knowledge of the history of a city would use their desktop computers. Using interactive maps of the city at various stages of its development, they would be able to click on an area or building, such as Cheapside in the City of London with the church of St Mary le Bow (Figs 2, 3), to discover what was currently known about it. Someone planning a visit might want the same information. In addi tion, they would be able to link via the maps to find convenient practical facilities such as the location of the railway station or of major museums. A lecturer or teacher would be able to collect a portfolio of electronic e-CITIES information for use in lectures, seminars or classes.
These uses are relatively familiar and static. A particular feature of e-CITIES would be its availability to people out and about in the city itself. It should be possible for the user to stand in a street and access information about that location, via their PDA (personal digital assistant) or mobile telephone, such as text ab out buildings and their uses, images of it in the past, and even historical soundscapes. Other poten tially useful information would be the location of nearby cafes and shops, also linked to the e-CITIES interfaces. There might be deals with telecommunications companies to provide income for the development of e-CITIES systems, and corn mercial publishers would be able to make more detailed information available to users who were prepared to pay for it.

The state of the art
The challenge is to develop and implement the entire process of knowledge manage ment, fr om drawing on scholarly research data to provide information of general interest to the dissemination of it to users through a framework based on geographi cal context and precise location. Although many of the technologies exist or are being developed in some form (especially via projects funded through research pro grammes of the European Commission), they have not yet been implemented in an integrated manner and applied to city his tories.
For some cities (such as Bologna and Pisa in Italy) research findings have already been represented in virtual reality and 3-D, allowing a dynamic appreciation of their development over time, with vir tual walkthroughs of each city. 4 The CASA project to make virtual-reality representa tions of historic streets in London has already been mentioned. The Museum of London's LAARC Online (London Archaeo logical Archive and Research Centre Online) system is another example of information that already exists, although it would need to be configured and aug mented for popular use.
Two relevant European projects are ARCHEOGUIDE and IMAGE. ARCHEOGUIDE is developing a local-information system for the Classical archaeological site at Olym pia in Greece.5 The information delivered includes that which might be found in a good guidebook -textual information, supplementary images and site plans -but using personalized technologies to select content according to the user's profile and what they have already accessed. Informa tion and images are delivered to users via a choice of hardware platforms to be rented on site: either a small handheld PDA or a mobile unit that consists of a wearable computer and a head-mounted display similar to a pair of binoculars. Both types of device are also location-and direction sensitive by means of electronic com passes and GPS (global positioning system) technology. The PDAs can display limited text and images, but the mobile units can display a virtual-reality re-creation of the structures of the site in their correct per spectives and alignments. Events such as foot races can be depicted in the racetrack where they used to take place. The ARCHED GUIDE project is still being developed, so it is too soon to know whether the technol ogy will work adequately, although reports are optimistic. However, this project re quires a great deal of communications infrastructure, designed and installed spe cifically for Olympia, whereas e-CITIES would use generic channels of communi cation.
A project that is using generic technol ogies is IMAGE. 6 It uses both wireless and ;t·liii;il•l lel li'Mi�l li i�i&iltj �fj telephony networks to provide tourists or business visitors with information on serv ices, shops or transport that is location sensitive. For example, it could provide users with information about nearby res taurants. The IMAGE system is now being tried out in Tampere (Finland) and Turin (Italy). In Canada a project funded by the National Research Council is using virtual reality software to enable history students to test out their assumptions about sets of historical data or information by making 3-D reconstructions of buildings or even streets.7 Other successful 3-D or virtual reality projects include Virtual Egypt, developed by UCL's Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in collaboration with CASA. 8 Other fast-developing aspects of mobile technology that are not only applicable to urban history are the portable computers and the corresponding wireless networks for which the computers are designed. The availability of this hardware and software is driven by and drives the growth of port able devices that can connect with the Internet anywhere without the need for cables. In the UK, continental Europe and elsewhere there are frequent reports of pro viders planning or implementing wireless networks in cities, such as British Telecom in Starbucks and Costa Coffee cafes.9

Conclusion
It would be sad if city tourists could use their brand new electronic guides only to find out when the next bus is due or when the next football match is going to start. A ready audience undoubtedly exists for information relating to city history, as does much of the technology. The concept of e-CITIES has aroused a great deal of interest, especially among historians and archaeol ogists, who would like the knowledge they generate to be more widely accessible.
The idea also responds to European pri orities and strategies. It arose in the context of the European Commission's Sixth Framework research programme, in which culture is seen as one of Europe's core assets, a key to diversity and identity within the European Union. ICT is now the EU's second most important economic sec tor.10 Using technology with digitized cul tural materials to explain and explore city histories is not just an attractive option for Europe. For example, historians of New York have already expressed interest in the idea, and in Afghanistan UNESCO is facili tating Internet access via satellite for an enthusiastic local population. Given the will and the means, the new technology could be applied in any urban context in the world and could deliver to city dwell ers the results of archaeological and his torical research.