I blogged about a fun site-specific project involving QR codes a while back, and I’m absolutely thrilled to show it off now (even in its infancy).  We didn’t launch GPS as an official public library project, instead we are offering it as a public art project which poses a question to public libraries and their patrons.  Can and should the unfiltered creative work of the community be hosted on a public library’s website?  Would the collective, uncensored ‘poetry’ of anyone writing to this site in Greenpoint be appropriate Brooklyn Public Library website material?  How should policies differ between the inclusion of the printed word and the electronically published word in public library collections?  What is appropriate web content at a public library, and who should be creating it: the patrons or the librarians? Perhaps this experiment can help define a mission and vision for the inclusion of unfiltered, localized, community-created content in public library electronic collections. Here’s the project description from our ‘about’ page:

Location, sensation, interaction, and community combine to create place.

Greenpoint Poetry Sites is a platform for creating our collective community poem. We have placed stickers of 2d barcodes in six locations around Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Those stickers are writable nodes that you can access with your smartphone. Taking a picture of the barcode on the sticker will launch an editable mobile blog on your web enabled smartphone. Then you can immediately enter text based on whatever you may be reacting to in that place at that moment. Is it raining and cold? Does a smell in the air remind you of a long forgotten memory? Start writing.

Your participation will create six crowdsourced neighborhood ‘poems’; a reflection of a specific piece of our community’s presence or consciousness in relation to a specific location.

Here is what one of our stickers looks like (though the color is a little funky in this post for some reason):
Will anybody participate in this thing?  Will YOU write to these locations? Can this take off?  That remains to be seen, but its not going to stop us from exploiting a fascinating bit of technology to ask important questions.

Picturing America, an exciting new initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities, brings masterpieces of American art into classrooms and libraries nationwide. Through this innovative program, students and citizens will gain a deeper appreciation of our country’s history and character through the study and understanding of its art.

Participating institutions will receive:

• Forty large, high-quality color reproductions of the selected masterpieces (24” x 36”).
• A Teachers Resource Book providing a wide range of ideas and background information to support educators using the works of art in core subject areas.
• Additional resources and lesson plans available through PicturingAmerica.neh.gov.

You can peruse these materials and apply online. Applications are due by April 15, 2008; public libraries, K-12 schools, and home school consortia are eligible.