Mobile app to bring Kolkata’s history alive

If you happen to pass by the Victoria Memorial, Writers Buildings and several other British-era monuments in the city, wait a second and get every information pertaining to the monument on your smartphone itself.

Jadavpur University and University of Liverpool in UK in association with the British Library have created an application, ‘Timescape: Kolkata’, which allows smartphone users get all information of the 19th century British-era monuments in the city. The application was launched on Saturday at the Victoria Memorial. 

All that a smartphone user has to do is click a picture of the monument and get historic images besides the information on their mobile screen. The historic images have been provided by the photographic archives of the British Library. 

The application will provide information and images over 100 geographical points (such as National Library and Victoria Memorial Hall) and other historic images of the city. 

“This application aims at bringing past alive. In today’s time once has little time to go through the historic images of the city and the British-era monument’s details. The application will allow smartphone users to see images corresponding 19th century photograph,” said Jayanta Sengupta, curator, Victoria Memorial at the launch of the application.