Page 242 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 20152423.2 QR codesQR codes are already very familiar to most smartphone users. The main applications of codes of this kind have been to identify a particular article, document management and, above all, marketing campaigns. Owing to the amount of information they can transmit, they have subsequently been used to access other contents in very different ways.In case it is still not clear to anyone what a QR code is, it is a label similar to a barcode that can be read by mobile devices and contains some sort of information about the item or product to which it is attached. QR codes use four stan- dardised encoding modes: numeric, alphanu- meric, binary and kanji.the United States, of QR codes to complete information or seek experiences of all kinds, both as promotion/advertising and in the cultural sector, such as some of the examples we will be taking a look at.63The flexibility of QR codes offers visitorsto cultural institutions the chance to access information on exhibitions instantaneously as well as to take part actively in various gamesor activities. Visitors can furthermore interact and leave comments that are displayed on the museum’s website. They can also reply to what other visitors write, thereby creating a forum for debate. This approach is designed to connect museums’ visitors with each other and is condu- cive to community building.As we shall see, devices of this kind offer many possibilities, sometimes also in relation to other technologies such as augmented reality and3D images and also gamification approaches. Therefore, due to the speed with which cultural institutions are adopting digital labels of this kind, we have a host of examples to choose from. Nevertheless, we will point out a few that we consider representative of their various possible usages.One of the pioneers in setting up this device was the Museo del Libro Fadrique de Basilea, in Burgos. Thanks to a network of BiDi Codes64 located around the museum, users can access additional information in Spanish, English and sign language. They are also used to expand on the historical and artistic content of some of the most important pieces owned by this museum. Therefore, simply by using their mobile tele- phones, visitors can download and view extraExample of a QR code in a museumThis device has been implemented since very early on by museums and cultural institutions, as borne out by the high proportion of museums that report using QR codes: 42% in Spanish museums (May 2013 stats61) and, for example, 63% in the United Kingdom (October 2013 stats62). It should also be stressed that Spain is the country with the second highest use, afterFocus 2015. Museums and New Technologies