Experience history live in Scharnstein!

Just in time for the start of the Capital of Culture 2024, Scharnstein is presenting its historical delicacies digitally - with XiBIT!
In addition to huge natural backdrops such as the Almsee, which has always been a tourist magnet, or the Kasberg family ski area, the Almtal tourist region also has a lot to offer culturally. Thematic areas include industrial culture, hunting and forestry, nativity scene art, ruin flair, criminal history and castle life.

Stefan Schimpl, deputy Managing director of the Traunsee-Almtal tourism region took on the topic of making the cultural assets in Scharnstein visible and commissioned us to create the infoguide "The Historicum Scharnstein". “We locals obviously know our history, but people who come to visit the Almtal need to have information presented in an accessible and well-prepared way,” says Stefan. And we think so too.

The bilingual digital infoguide consists of four stations in German and English: The Almtal Forest School, the Viechtwanger Nativity Scene, Scharnstein Castle and the Crime and Gendarmerie Museum in Scharnstein Castle. The Scharnstein Ruins and the Geyerhammer Scythe Museum were previously equipped with their own infoguides, which can be accessed via the XiBIT profile page of the Historicum Scharnstein, but here the language English was added. Each station was equipped with an information sign on site, using the XiBIT QR labels to access the digital information. The infoguide is also published on the XiBIT platform and can therefore also be accessed using the search function.

The German audioguide versions were spoken by the object holders themselves in the XiBIT recording studio, and the Native American voice Kelly Wagner lends her voice to the English versions. Many thanks at this point to Kelly, who probably had to do most of the work.

And this is what the main information sign looks like, placed in a central location:

Kelly Wagner in the studio for the English audioguide
With tireless commitment, Kelly spoke the English part of the audio recordings for the infoguide "The Historicum Scharnstein", but also all English translations of the infoguide for the Scharnstein Ruins and the Geyerhammer Scythe Museum. Ugh... and yet, in addition to her American language skills, she always gave us a smile. Thanks for that!

Not much? You don't have to be embarrassed, you can now read or hear it at XiBIT

As a leader project with the aim of promoting the regional development of the Traunstein region in the Upper Austrian Salzkammergut, the themed trail of the Almtaler Bergwiesn association around the protective wall of the Scharnstein Ruins - one of the most popular excursion destinations in the Traunsee-Almtal holiday region - was recently created.

The association, whose purpose it is to work for nature and the preservation of local cultural assets, has now put the idea of making the existing knowledge tangible with a themed trail into practice. The existing texts were revised in cooperation with XiBIT. In order to preserve authenticity, the club's chairman, Franz Mayrhofer, spoke the German audio announcements himself. An American woman living here - a so-called Native American Voice - could be won for the English version of the audio announcements. The atmosphere at the recording date in the XiBIT recording studio was super effective and pleasant, thanks to the actors involved.

The bilingual digital information guide "The Weir Wall of the Scharnstein Ruins" consists of four stations in German and English, which can be visited one after the other in a hike. Each station has been equipped with an information sign whose XiBIT QR labels provide access to the digital information.

You can find out the purpose of the defensive wall, which dates from the time of the second Turkish siege of Vienna, what the so-called loopholes were good for, why the Wagner Chapel was built and what people looked out for at today's cozy vantage point, you can find out in the info guide at XiBIT!

To the Infoguide

In our blog area you will find all previously published blog and newsletter articles to read, divided into project portraits and expert tips and archived by year.

To the blog

We have set up a Paypal donation function on www.xibit.info!

Donations are a great support for start-ups, which put every cent they earn back into the product. So people who like what we do can help us to develop faster. In general, there is a lot going on in the digital field and the speed at which technology is advancing is getting faster and faster. We also have so many functions on the screen that we would like to implement. A lot of money flows into it - a bottomless pit, so to speak. But we keep at it, because paths are made by walking them. We are excited about this new opportunity!

The link button on the website at the top right or right below this paragraph leads to the donation page set up at PayPal. There you can choose between a one-time and regular donation.

Donate with PayPal!

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your XiBIT team!

The submission period for the "Digital Transformation" funding from the Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Public Service & Sport starts today!

Do you have a project in mind that deals with digital cultural mediation? Now you can have your project funded! Below you will find the official funding description according to the BMKÖS website:

Austrian art and culture institutions and artists should be supported in further developing and making greater use of the digital transformation in the art and culture sector through technological innovations.

art and cultural institutions with their own legal personality and natural persons (artists and cultural workers)

Supporting art and cultural institutions in the digital transformation:

• Creation of digitization strategies in cultural heritage institutions
• Development of training and further education offers for digital skills in cultural heritage institutions
• Encouraging the development of usage scenarios for new concepts of publishing and presenting cultural heritage
• Development of digital mediation activities (e.g. user-centric interface and web design, gamification, multimodal storytelling, augmented and virtual reality, etc.)

• Innovative dimension
• Comprehensible project description
• Projects must be sustainable / subsequent use (in terms of content and financially); Protection against possible follow-up costs after the project period
• Consider any existing technical data standards / interfaces
• Make accessible/usable to the public (Open Access)

Excluded: Projects used for an institution's digital marketing (blogs, podcasts, interviews, social media…).

Funding amount: max. EUR 30,000

Applicants for funding must make a financial or material contribution based on their economic ability.

Allocation mode: jury

Submission period: March 15 – May 15, 2023

Please note the submission deadlines: Applications must be submitted no later than 3 months before the start of the project. From now on, submissions of funding applications will only be accepted via the online tool.

The application must be submitted in German: application form

• Exact description of the projects and activities
• Breakdown of the total costs including a detailed cost calculation and the desired time for the payment of the subsidy
• Schedule of the project or project progress
• Association statutes, extracts from the commercial register, current extracts from the register of associations, etc.
• Details of the persons authorized and responsible for the implementation of the project
• List of public subsidies (EU, federal, state and local) in the last five years

The Federal Art Funding Act applies to funding/projects.

Tenders

Subsidity settlement

Tax law information

If you have a project in mind about which you would like to convey information digitally - also with gamification - please contact us without obligation!

Browse through our new info folder or send it to friends or acquaintances who could benefit from XiBIT. It gives interested parties a good overview of our services. If you would like original information material, then request our XiBIT information folder, consisting of a folder with the contact details of a contact person, a folder, a price overview of the project implementation by XiBIT, a writing pad and a ballpoint pen. Request information material for more culture on the Internet!

Your XiBIT team

the bible exhibition of the bible work linz shines thanks to XiBIT feat. hublz in new digital splendor!

The traveling exhibition "Expedition Bible" by the Bibelwerk Linz invites you to grasp and experience the Bible - the best-selling and most-read book in the world - with all your senses. "Please touch!" is the motto and if you follow the request, there is a lot to do: guessing games on various biblical topics, recognizing oriental spices, feeling the Bible in Braille and antique materials or connecting Jewish terms and objects, and much more.

Here visitors encounter concentrated Bible competence and learn everything about the book of books in an entertaining way. It is worth mentioning that there is a lot to discover especially for younger visitors in the exhibition, specially tailored to the needs of children. As a mobile traveling exhibition, the "Expedition Bible" tours through Austria regularly, but is also on the road in Germany, Switzerland and other countries.

In addition to the numerous analog experience possibilities in the exhibition, another application was used for a long time: a digital Bible app, which was specially programmed for the exhibition several years ago and made available to visitors on existing tablets. However, the expenses to maintain and further develop the application were ultimately no longer proportionate and a modern alternative was needed. "One where you can focus more on the content and its quality than on the technology behind it," say Franz Kogler and Reinhard Stiksel from the Bibelwerk Linz, the initiators of the digitization project. Functionality and appearance were no longer up-to-date, maintenance proved to be increasingly difficult. A modern CMS system should solve the problem. And this is how XiBIT came into play.

After an initial discussion, presenting all the playful elements in the exhibition digitally was challenging. No problem with the new hublz feature at XiBIT. As an XiBIT partner, the didactic cultural mediation app hublz from Schörfling am Attersee offers the opportunity to individually design digital scavenger hunts and discovery tours and integrate them into XiBIT. The basic technical requirements were therefore in place and now one could devote oneself to the organization of the numerous contents of the Bible exhibition, which already included audio and video material in addition to the entire text and image material.

The implementation was based on the seven three-point boards on site, which lead through the exhibition. Each panel of three is dedicated to a specific topic, which is again divided into 3 topics. Technically, this was implemented with the new parent-child object function. Maintained objects can be assigned to other objects as so-called "group objects", which then appear together as a tab on their object page. This feature provides more clarity and allows you to go more in-depth. All seven three-way panels and the starting point, a roll-up in the entrance area, were each equipped with a QR code.

Another new function could be used to visualize the Israel and Mediterranean maps and the places named on them: the PDF implementation on object pages. By means of iframe integration of two interactive PDF documents uploaded to XiBIT, the two maps could be displayed beautifully and operated in the same way in the iframe window. If you now click on a biblical place on the map, the PDF jumps to the right place in the document thanks to the internal links. In this way, the various events associated with the respective location can be read immediately.

The extensive interactive scavenger hunt in the hublz app for younger and young-at-heart visitors deals with various relevant Christian faith topics in a child-friendly way: From life in the time of Jesus to Judaism and Bible artwork. Using an interactive chatbot and puzzles, the children are guided from one point in the exhibition to another and thus through the entire exhibition, during which specific tasks are to be completed. We also thought about teaching in school classes and created a separate version for external use in preparation for visiting the exhibition.

Visitors now get a very good overview of the Bible, even from home, because the "Expedition Bible" is published on the XiBIT platform and is therefore accessible via the Internet. Contents can now be maintained by the Bibelwerk Linz itself and exchanged if necessary. The team no longer has to worry about technical development. And should the exhibition ever be expanded to include a foreign language, that is not a problem.

The central seven three-part panels in the Bible exhibition were each covered with a QR label from XiBIT so that the respective information can be called up by scanning. There is also a roll-up in the entrance area of the exhibition that contains the Infoguide QR code that leads to the Infoguide overview of the "Expedition Bible".

The numerous puzzles in the exhibition were reworked by hublz - the app from Schörfling am Attersee for didactic cultural mediation. The connection between the two applications was established by means of a deep link. XiBIT produced the necessary signage, a total of 6 displays, which represent the stations of the scavenger hunt.

You ask yourself: "What's the point?" - We'll tell you!

This is what awaits you after the current XiBIT-app update:

Show profile members
Not to be compared with a friends function, profile membership is used for a joint profile appearance. Several users can join forces and present together. ("My Account" > "Profile Memberships").

PDFs
If you have further documents in the form of PDFs, you can now upload and publish them in the admin area for any object. ("Objects" > Select object > "PDF")

Link to hublz - go.discover.art
With immediate effect, the Infoguide offers the option of entering a link to hublz, the application for didactic, playful cultural mediation. For this you need active content at hublz. This makes it possible to conveniently connect the two applications. ("Infoguides" > select Infoguide > "hublz link")

For premium users:

Object Groups: Parent/Child Objects
For more depth within your infoguide, you can now subdivide individual objects into further objects. These "child objects" are then displayed as tabs at the superordinate object (parent object). ("Objects" > select object > "PDF")

How do I become a premium user?
To become a premium user, please contact us personally: +43 5 0801

Until now, this was only reserved for Infoguide objects: With the new app update, your XiBIT profile page now also supports audio files and links! The new profile information board will make your audience aware of you!

An audio announcement will make your profile more interesting and if you intend to present yourself or your cultural institution digitally on site, you can do this e.g. with a signage in the outdoor area, which leads to your XiBIT profile page using a QR code, on which audio files are now also displayed in addition to videos. This makes it possible for visitors to listen to your personal story. In addition, you can enter further links to link to external websites (e.g. your homepage and much more).

Your XiBIT profile serves as the perfect starting point for your digital cultural mediation. XiBIT is at your side as a competent partner. Not only do we offer you the right cultural mediation platform, we are also happy to provide you with media content or marketing material such as e.g. signs, flyers, etc.! Get in touch with us personally!

New features on your XiBIT profile page:

1) Complete your profile with audio files:

Upload audio files (under "my account" > "profile") to make your profile audible. If you would like to create audio announcements, we would be happy to talk about the realization. Contact us!

2) Add further links to your profile:

Raise your profile by linking to your home page and other informative websites related to your cultural topic (under "my account" > "profile").

3) New: QR code label for your profile page:

Your profile page is now also available as a downloadable XiBIT label! A graphic file that you can easily integrate into your own signage layout or into the new XiBIT information board (see point 4) to present your profile digitally on site.

4) New sign template to mark your POI:

In addition to the templates for labeling individual objects, stations, exhibition rooms or infoguides, there is now a information board for your point of interest with your XiBIT profile in the XiBIT download area.

Don't be stingy with your charms!

With the downloadable information board you also provide insights from outside e.g. outside the opening times:

Would you like an individual sign?

No problem. Matching your corporate identity, our team will be happy to manufacture according to your wishes. Our downloadable information boards can also only serve as inspiration or text templates.

Phone support:
+43 5 08010

For more culture on the Internet,

your XiBIT team

What should it look like?

There is a multitude of digital cultural mediation offers today. Every larger institution has already digged deep into its pockets, either to have its own app produced or to park its content in an application.

inventory

Many companies that specialize in the implementation of mediation apps sell the basic form of an application again and again and only fix small details such as e.g. the surface of the application according to the requirements of the customer. In other words, a lot of money goes into one and the same task. On the other hand, there are the users, who react with an increasing stagnation of interest due to the resulting large number of apps. Most people know that and this is confirmed by facts and figures. Nevertheless, it is often not entirely clear what a sensible alternative would be. An investment for a homepage makes of course sense, because of course every company nowadays needs its own and modern website. That is why many people make their content available on their own website and work with QR codes. In principle, this is not a bad approach because it is cheaper, but it is and remains an isolated solution, because it always has its limits.

Of parallel worlds and their borders

It would make more sense to think away borders and invest the budget in the preparation of the content instead of investing in another parallel application, which is already available in thousands of versions, and for this very reason only prompts people to stop consuming it. An application is - as difficult as it is to admit, because all project managers with an affinity for technology are usually euphoric at the beginning of such a prestige project, unfortunately often doomed to become the next dead body on a user's mobile phone display, which often  falls victim to a deletion process in case of a memory clearance. What is allowed to remain is YouTube, Facebook, Insta & Co. Another attempt to reinvent the wheel leads to a dead end, as experience has shown all the time. The laboriously and carefully prepared content thus disappears into oblivion and does not reach the consumer in the desired form in the long term. Despite well-intentioned digital intentions, data is sidelined in this way. Stagnating usage figures lead to less maintenance, thus obsolete data. A vicious circle. Of course, it can also happen that one or the other user during a second stay in the same museum or in the same region might bring himself to download an app that has already been deleted a second time, but this is certainly the exception and which does not mean that users would not interrupt or finally end this cycle the third time at the latest.

Conclusion

Institutions and tourism professionals want dialogue with visitors, response or resonance. In the digital world we are talking about comment functions, sharing, followers, crowd. What does that mean next? That everyone should build their own digital and social universe? No, not at all. Platforms will come to the fore - unfortunately much too late in this area - isolated solutions will disappear more and more. It would make sense to have a platform that is constantly evolving and thus more functional than letting institutions invest money in the maintenance of their own isolated solutions, which ultimately rest in peaceful coexistence. In this context, it is important that you are still in possession of your data yourself, have the opportunity to maintain it by yourself and decide under what conditions you’d like to make this data available. The existing willingness of institutions to help themselves with digital solutions shows how great the need is for a platform on which cultural content can be presented and seen by as many people as possible. People who exchange ideas and then accidentally stumble across you and possibly follow you - mutually use synergies.

The “adventure trails.climate.energy” of the climate and energy model regions in Austria has been expanded to include a further informative route: Mondseeland proudly shows its hotspots with pioneering position in the climate and energy sector - with XiBIT.

As an alternative and flexible source of information on climate & energy, Xplore Energy is a destination for families, school classes, tourists, groups and people who not only enjoy an original undertaking, but rather appreciate the additional learning value. The individual stations, which can be visited at will, inform visitors about their pioneering position directly where renewable forms of energy are produced, special examples of energy efficiency take place and/or exemplary forms of mobility are developed.

Xplore Energy - a project of the "Klima- und Energiemodellregionen"

In Austria there are 105 climate and energy model regions. The sponsored program of the Climate and Energy Fund Austria consists of united communities with a common goal: to save energy in order to protect the climate. Away from crude oil and gas - instead, clean energy generation from sun, wind, water and bioenergy from the region. They have one thing in common: the role model for other regions. The long-term vision: 100% phasing out of fossil fuels. Each KEM region is headed by a model region manager. Stefanie Mayrhauser organized as such in Mondseeland the participation of 15 stations in the information communication project Xplore Energy. The Mondseeland is thus the fourth region to take part in the project. Each station was equipped with a weatherproof A3 sign and a postcard holder with 100 postcards for free removal for use on site. Interested parties can access the respective page at XiBIT via a QR scan with the XiBIT app on the sign or on the postcard, on which an audio guide is also stored. Of course, the infoguide is also published on the XiBIT website and can therefore also be accessed via the search engine.

Key data of the KEM Mondseeland

The seven communities of the KEM Mondseeland are located in the Upper Austrian Salzkammergut, a scenic and historical cultural area on the northern edge of the Alps. All seven municipalities are members of the REGMO (Association for Regional Development). The Mondsee-Irrsee holiday region also developed through cooperation in regional development. The territory of the municipalities extends over an area of 181.35 km2. The population density is 95/km2.

Was gibt’s zu erleben?

The municipality of Oberhofen am Irrsee provides information about local heating, a local gardener gives an insight into its award-winning energy-saving measures, a gravel mining company shows innovative energetic solutions, an organic dairy farm sustainability in practice. Here you can find out how an elementary school, a camping area, the research institute of the University of Innsbruck or street lighting contribute to climate protection:

Imagine, on your next cultural trip, you could navigate your way through your travel destination with just one tool to get information about places steeped in history.

Wouldn't that be awesome? A tool that shows you places to discover and at the same time allows insight, reads to you or e.g. plays a video about it. Imagine the possibilities that would be offered in combination with technologies such as augmented reality, social media, GPS or e-commerce. Finally, cultural knowledge would be given an appropriate priority, which platforms such as Facebook, Instagram & Co have already achieved in the lifestyle sector. To experience and share education and history in an interactive way. This is our vision, our drive. That's why XiBIT exists. We want to offer tourism-related and object-related cultural content a platform for more presence for art, culture and points of interest.

Too good to be true?

In view of the current situation (you know what we mean, we don't want to write it down anymore, it's just annoying) it might feel a bit strange to imagine strolling carefree with friends through the streets of a strange city on the heels of the founding fathers or mothers ;-) But we all hear the call from afar very loudly, even if it currently leads us just to the edge of our garden or into madness. At some point things have to go uphill again, and until then, unfortunately, points of interest can mainly be researched digitally. An opportunity to position oneselves digitally in order to be seen.
As an XiBIT user, you are part of our movement, and that makes us proud.
Together we are getting closer to our goal of building a cultural information network by people for people.