Content licences in the UK's cultural heritage sector

An event to be held by Creative Commons Salon London on November 20 will feature a discussion on 'open content licences in the UK cultural heritage sector':

This time round we'll be joined by Jordan Hatcher, a lawyer and legal consultant specialising in intellectual property and technology law, who will present and discuss his work on a new report entitled "Snapshot study on the use of open content licences in the UK cultural heritage sector". This study primarily examines the use of the Creative Archive (CA) and Creative Commons (CC) licences among UK museums, libraries, galleries, and archives. The key objective has been to get a snapshot of current licensing practices in this area in 2007, and Jordan will report on his findings.

Via A Consuming Experience.

The MoLAS 'Roman glass' research project blog is live

Hooray! The first proper MoLAS blog is live. The Roman glass blog is written by Angela Wardle, a Finds specialist for the Museum of London Archaeology Service. To quote from the 'about' page:

In 2005 at 35 Basinghall Street London, a large dump of waste from a glassmaker's workshop was excavated by the Museum of London Archaeology Service for Stanhope plc.

...

This website tells the story of the discovery, and how John Shepherd and I, with other colleagues, are working on this amazing collection of glass in order to learn more about the glassworkers of Roman London.

There's also a related photo gallery on Flickr. Angela will be explaining more about some of the images in the gallery as the project progresses. I hope the blog will provide a fascinating insight into the kinds of things we can learn from finds, as well as how specialists actually discover those things.

Breaking out of the walls of the museum?

Wired on a location-based game at the Tower of London.

Through a thick drizzle I gaze at the ominous gray stone buildings of the Tower of London, England's most notorious prison. I wander from one to the next, trying to imagine what it was like to be held captive here hundreds of years ago. That's when I hear a ghost. "Psst, you there... I'm sentenced to die tomorrow morning. Please, I beg you, can you help me escape?" I stop walking and look down at the screen of my HP iPAQ. There's a picture of a portly Brit in 18th-century garb. His name is Lord Nithsdale, and he was involved in a plot to overthrow King George I. In my earphones, the voice tells me I've entered the year 1716 and again asks if I want to play the Lord Nithsdale adventure. I wipe the raindrops off the clear plastic pouch holding the PDA, a GPS unit, and a radio transmitter and hit Yes.

The adventure is part of a prototype location-based game designed for visitors to the tower, where inmates like Guy Fawkes and two of Henry VIII's wives were executed. The idea is that instead of reading plaques and staring solemnly at the Bloody Tower, tourists skulk around with PDAs, re-creating classic prison breaks.

...

These historically accurate scenarios were created by the charity group Historic Royal Palaces, working with Hewlett-Packard and using software developed by HP Labs. The free app lets anyone layer a virtual landscape — what HP calls a mediascape — over real-word terrain using maps and GPS coordinates. Audio and visual media can be triggered by a user's location or by sensors that detect proximity, light, heat, trajectory, and even heart rate.