The British Library is the largest public building constructed in the UK in the 20th Century. This Grade I Listed building holds an extensive collection of treasures including over 150 million items serving business and industry, researchers, academics and students in the UK and worldwide. The Exhibition Taking Liberties: The Struggle for Britain's Freedoms and Rights charted the history of Britain’s fight for freedom and rights from the Magna Carta of 1215 to the Human Rights Act of 1998.
Presented with an interactive voting system, visitors were allowed to record and compare opinions on specific contemporary political issues. Participation was also open to web-users through a two-way, real time link to the exhibition’s website, making this an inclusive and fully accessible voting system.
The design, build and installation of all hardware and the network infrastructure, provided a database system to store visitor response as well as custom rotary input dials for on-screen navigation and the on-screen visitor interface. Each of the fourteen voting stations included a main content screen, barcode scanner, rotary navigation wheel and small vibrant text display screen.
Using bar-coded wristbands, votes were individually identifiable to enable each person’s response to be viewed on its own or as part of a group. As people expressed their opinions and votes were cast, the cumulative results were projected as an elegant ‘data wheel’ that positioned each visitor’s views on two-way axes: freedom versus control; caution versus reform. Visitors could then see how their opinions compared to others; whether their views were mainstream or radical.
Nominated for Best Use of Technology in the 2009 Museums and Heritage Awards for Excellence.
Winner of the Premiere Award in the 2009 Learning On-Screen Awards.