Named in honor of the ancient muse of history, Clio can be found online at www.theclio.com. Over the past five years, Clio has grown to include over 30,000 landmarks and 450 walking tours throughout the United States as hundreds of universities, historical societies, museums, and libraries have created individual entries and walking tours in their communities. For example, Harvard University and Boston University have created entries and walking tours in Boston while New York University students, faculty, and librarians are using Clio to connect residents and visitors to the history of New York.
The grant will allow Clio to incorporate new location-aware technologies that weren’t available when Dr. David Trowbridge, an associate professor of history at Marshall, created the app in 2013. He will lead a team of humanities scholars and museum professionals, including Lori Thompson of Marshall University Libraries, as well as four graduate students, in establishing the new audio narration feature of the program, with help from software engineers at Strictly Business Computer Services in Huntington.
With additional funds provided by donors and a recent matching grant from the West Virginia Humanities Council, the new platform will allow humanities and cultural organizations in West Virginia and throughout the United States to create free walking tours that include narration and augmented reality features. For example, the team at Marshall will work to build a prototype design that will make it even easier to discover nearby historical and cultural landmarks. Users will also have the option to use Clio’s current system of turn-by-turn navigation, or they can be guided by an arrow on their mobile device. Users will even be able to listen to local historians and residents as the system guides them through their city. These new features will augment Clio’s existing features which include text, images, media, and links to related articles and books.
“This project began as a single-semester experiment,” explained Trowbridge, “but it grew into something more as students, and their families started using Clio and sharing it with others. The people of our community share a unique sense of place and identity, and I am so proud to see how something that began in my classroom inspiring people around the country to engage with local history and their cultural heritage.”
Trowbridge believes that, in addition to building a better platform, the grants and donations that are building Clio will serve as a catalyst that will support economic growth. He hopes that the project will continue to bring resources to Marshall and the Huntington community in addition to supporting education and tourism.
In addition to this outright grant, Marshall has received a matching grant that will support paid internships for students to study West Virginia history and create new walking tours and heritage trails. That grant still requires matching funds, and all donations will be matched 1-1 to provide numerous opportunities for students and improvements to Clio. All donations are tax-deductible, and anyone wishing to support the project can contact Trowbridge or the Marshall University Foundation.