Ceremony set for unique kiosk in Mayville
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The village of Mayville will soon have the first outdoor digital touchscreen kiosk in all of Western New York.
Outdoor digital touchscreen kiosks have become familiar features in the streetscapes of many large cities in the past decade. Currently, the closest place to Mayville with an outdoor digital touchscreen kiosk is Cleveland. Even the entire Toronto metropolitan area, with its 6 million population currently does not seem to have a true operative outdoor digital touchscreen kiosk (permanently installed, publicly accessible digital display located outdoors, with a public functioning interactive touchscreen).
Most larger cities, and many smaller cities, towns, and villages have indoor digital, static display screens, and similar devices, but not with the latest advanced technology that Mayville will have. Mayville will share with Blowing Rock, N.C., a tourist town, the distinction of being the smallest municipality in the U.S. with an outdoor digital fully interactive touchscreen kiosk.
Outdoor digital touchscreen kiosks are the product of several technological developments that came together in the past half century: public information terminals, touch-sensitive displays, digital signage, computers, the Internet, and increasingly rugged display and enclosure technology.
What began as experimental computer installations in universities and at world’s fairs eventually became a familiar feature of parks, downtowns, transportation centers, tourist attractions, campuses, shopping districts, and public spaces mostly in large cities.
The 1990s brought major improvements in computer processing, graphical interfaces, storage capacity, networking, and multimedia. Kiosks could now incorporate photographs, maps, video, sound, animation, and increasingly sophisticated databases. The Internet also changed the nature of kiosks. Earlier systems generally relied on information stored locally on a hard drive, CD-ROM, videodisc, or other media. Network connections made it possible to update information without physically replacing the kiosk’s software.
The arrival of smartphones in the late 2000s and 2010s initially seemed to threaten the future of public kiosks. People could now carry maps, directories, schedules, photographs, and Internet access in their pockets. Instead, smartphones changed what kiosks were expected to do. A modern outdoor kiosk could provide information while also allowing users to transfer that information to their phones through QR codes, text messages, or web links. A visitor might use a large public screen to locate a trail, attraction, business, parking area, or event and then continue using the information on a personal device. This created a useful division of labor: the kiosk served as a highly visible public information point, while the smartphone provided personal and portable access.
Outdoor touchscreen kiosks have particular potential in small towns and rural communities. A community may not have the resources to maintain a staffed visitor center seven days a week, but an outdoor kiosk can provide information continuously. A strategically located kiosk can serve residents, tourists, travelers, and local businesses simultaneously. It can provide maps of the community, historic information, photographs, local events, recreational opportunities, restaurants, lodging, shopping, public facilities, and emergency information. For historic communities, the technology offers another particularly valuable possibility: layering history onto the physical landscape. A visitor standing in front of a historic building could touch its location on a digital map and see historic photographs, descriptions of former businesses, newspaper articles, oral histories, maps, and photographs of the same location from decades earlier.
Mayville's outdoor digital touchscreen kiosk will be located at the southwest corner of the Mayville Depot, located on Water Street across from the Lakeview Hotel and Restaurant.
The kiosk is part of the Chautauqua Town Historical Society's Museum Modernization Project, generously supported by grants from the Northern Chautauqua Community Foundation, Lakeshore Bank, DFT Communications, Chautauqua County Partnership for Economic Growth, and the Village of Mayville.
Phase One included installation of WIFI, broadband and fiber optic, computers, printer/copier/scanner, and a touchscreen wall video system for showing short historical videos of Mayville and the Lake Chautauqua area. Prior to this, all secretarial and other informational work was done 19th century style - with pen and paper.
Phase Two is the installation and operation of the kiosk, provided by Empire Digital Signs, and establishing what promises to be a new venue in Mayville for public and personal interaction. Conveniently located by the Rail-to-Trail path next to the Depot parking lot, it should become a central information node for not only Mayville, but the entire Lake Chautauqua area. The content capacity of ODTKs is virtually unlimited. Want to find out about local businesses, public services, natural and commercial attractions, or simply local history? The Depot kiosk is the place to go.
There will be a grand launch and ribbon cutting Saturday at 3 p.m. In addition to a demonstration of the kiosk, there will be a large mobile LED screen on site, compliments of Empire Digital Signs, showing historical videos and other related items from 3 to 5 pm. This precedes the second Annual Mayville Community picnic in Lakeside Park at 5 p.m.