The barcodes are being used in various locations around the Massachusetts town.
Turner Falls, a part of the town of Montague, Massachusetts, is on its way to putting itself on the digital map by including QR codes to ensure that locals and visitors will be able to make their way around, understand what it is about, and see everything without missing the notable spots.
The entire project is the result of a student’s thesis at Hampshire College.
The QR codes are central to the Turner Falls RiverCulture organization, which is now hoping that this smartphone friendly link from the real world to the digital environment, will draw more attention to part of the town. When the barcodes are scanned by someone with a smartphone and a free scanning app, then they are automatically directed to the official website, on the relevant page.
The QR codes that are a part of the project are meant to help to draw attention to the history of the village.
The student, Robert “RJ” Sakai, is the individual behind the QR codes project around the town. He gathered a great deal of information about the past and present of the town, as well as several other interesting details, so that it could be linked to the barcodes and, therefore, made easily available to visitors and residents alike.
The QR codes are located in a number of different locations throughout the town, such as one located over the alcove of the doorway to “Nina’s Nook”. Scanning it leads the smartphone user to a video on YouTube that shows Nina Rossi, the owner of the shop, reading a poem. At the base of the page, the Google Map with the store’s location, to remind the device user of how to get there, or to tell someone else where to find the shop if they have viewed the video through social sharing.
The hope, according to the interim director of Turner Falls RiverCulture, Lisa Davol, is to have people stumble across the QR codes that are located throughout the town, so that they will scan them and learn more about the past, as well as what is going on now.
