History at Your Fingertips: Providing Access via Interactive Multi-touch Technology

Technology is consistently transforming the ways in which museums and libraries provide access to their collections and holdings. Multi-touch interactive table exhibits have the power to deliver objects and documents in engaging communal settings. The unique experience that interactive tables provide, both in terms of the type and quality of interaction with artifacts and with other individuals, makes them ideal for sharing collections on-site and beyond the walls of the cultural institution. This paper examines these benefits within the context of the Library of Congress’s interactive multi-touch application, History at Your Fingertips: U.S. Presidential Nominating Conventions, which showcased historical content on the Microsoft Surface platform at the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions.