Historical collaborative geocoding

The latest developments in digital have provided large data sets that can increasingly easily be accessed and used. These data sets often contain indirect localisation information, such as historical addresses. Historical geocoding is the process of transforming the indirect localisation information to direct localisation that can be placed on a map, which enables spatial analysis and cross-referencing. Many efficient geocoders exist for current addresses, but they do not deal with the temporal aspect and are based on a strict hierarchy (..., city, street, house number) that is hard or impossible to use with historical data. Indeed historical data are full of uncertainties (temporal aspect, semantic aspect, spatial precision, confidence in historical source, ...) that can not be resolved, as there is no way to go back in time to check. We propose an open source, open data, extensible solution for geocoding that is based on the building of gazetteers composed of geohistorical objects extracted from historical topographical maps. Once the gazetteers are available, geocoding an historical address is a matter of finding the geohistorical object in the gazetteers that is the best match to the historical address. The matching criteriae are customisable and include several dimensions (fuzzy semantic, fuzzy temporal, scale, spatial precision ...). As the goal is to facilitate historical work, we also propose web-based user interfaces that help geocode (one address or batch mode) and display over current or historical topographical maps, so that they can be checked and collaboratively edited. The system is tested on Paris city for the 19-20th centuries, shows high returns rate and is fast enough to be used interactively.Comment: WORKING PAPE

Development of Distributed Research Center for analysis of regional climatic and environmental changes

We present an approach and first results of a collaborative project being carried out by a joint team of researchers from the Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems, Russia and Earth Systems Research Center UNH, USA. Its main objective is development of a hardware and software platform prototype of a Distributed Research Center (DRC) for monitoring and projecting of regional climatic and environmental changes in the Northern extratropical areas. The DRC should provide the specialists working in climate related sciences and decision-makers with accurate and detailed climatic characteristics for the selected area and reliable and affordable tools for their in-depth statistical analysis and studies of the effects of climate change. Within the framework of the project, new approaches to cloud processing and analysis of large geospatial datasets (big geospatial data) inherent to climate change studies are developed and deployed on technical platforms of both institutions. We discuss here the state of the art in this domain, describe web based information-computational systems developed by the partners, justify the methods chosen to reach the project goal, and briefly list the results obtained so far

Creating a Public Space for Georeferencing Sanborn Maps: A Louisiana Case Study

As institutional archives digitize their historical map collections and make them publicly available online, new methods for engaging with these materials emerge. Georeferencing the maps transforms their content from static images to dynamic map overlays, and allows for the extraction of geographic data like building footprints or place name coordinates. Many organizations have turned to crowdsourcing to georeference their large holdings, and this thesis approaches crowdsourced georeferencing from the perspective of participatory heritage, taking much inspiration from the idea of the archival commons. To test these ideas, a new extension was created for GeoNode—an open source geospatial content management system—that allows users to georeference map documents in a web browser. Further augmentation facilitated direct ingestion of digital content from the Library of Congress Sanborn Map collection, and a pilot project was conducted to engage the public in georeferencing maps of towns and cities across Louisiana. By the end of the project, 66 participants—from within Louisiana and without—had georeferenced all or a portion of 267 different Sanborn map volumes, creating over 1,500 new layers. These layers combine to create mosaics of 138 different communities across the state, including comprehensive coverage of the city of New Orleans in the years between 1885 and 1893—an especially valuable dataset in its own right. Seamless mosaics will be made from these layers and published via the LSU Atlas data portal for long-term public access. This experience led to new ideas for how to better engage citizens with historical maps of their communities, while the underlying construction of the georeferencing system itself provided insight into how users participated in the work. Ultimately, this thesis lays a conceptual foundation for future efforts of a similar nature, whether they pursue exactly the same technological approach or not

Historical map digitization in libraries: Collaborative approaches for large map series

Academic libraries are playing a role in the digitization of Canadian government documents, but maps tend to be excluded from these activities due to their unique dimensions and display requirements. Using a topographic map digitization project as a case study, this paper presents a collaborative approach to map scanning, georeferencing, and metadata creation across several Ontario universities. Collectively, the 21 institutions making up the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) possess and maintain large volumes of Canadian topographic maps. However, few OCUL universities hold complete sets of these map series. While the Canadian government’s most recent topographic maps are now available online, older editions of these maps have not been digitized. This project, currently underway at several participating universities, will enable us to share digital versions of some of our most-requested historical map series with the public at large

Bringing Vanished Landscapes to the Surface: A Multi-Tool Approach to Unearthing Charleston\u27s Walled City

The early 18th century historic fortification system that surrounded the urban town of Charleston has been a focus of excavations and historical research within the past two decades. However, while the outline of early Charleston’s walled city is hypothesized through the analysis of historic maps and plats, very few fortification locations have been visually confirmed. In order to determine their accuracy, this thesis georeferenced eleven historic maps and four plats to the modern landscape. As a result, possible locations of Charleston’s walled city were predicted. These were surveyed as test sites and remote sensing methods were employed that helped confirm or deny each hypothesis. After an analysis of georeferencing and ground penetrating radar results, the surveys of portions of the historic fortification system that was once made of earth and entrenchments were unable to identify with confidence any remaining features. However, the location of the brick-made curtain line on East Bay Street near South Adger’s Wharf and near South Market Street was identified, as well as a segment of the northern parapet wall of Craven’s Bastion located today under the United States Custom House

DNA barcoding and taxonomy: dark taxa and dark texts

Both classical taxonomy and DNA barcoding are engaged in the task of digitizing the living world. Much of the taxonomic literature remains undigitized. The rise of open access publishing this century and the freeing of older literature from the shackles of copyright have greatly increased the online availability of taxonomic descriptions, but much of the literature of the mid- to late-twentieth century remains offline (‘dark texts’). DNA barcoding is generating a wealth of computable data that in many ways are much easier to work with than classical taxonomic descriptions, but many of the sequences are not identified to species level. These ‘dark taxa’ hamper the classical method of integrating biodiversity data, using shared taxonomic names. Voucher specimens are a potential common currency of both the taxonomic literature and sequence databases, and could be used to help link names, literature and sequences. An obstacle to this approach is the lack of stable, resolvable specimen identifiers. The paper concludes with an appeal for a global ‘digital dashboard’ to assess the extent to which biodiversity data are available online. This article is part of the themed issue ‘From DNA barcodes to biomes’

Mapping Downtown Honolulu's Urban Past: Exploring the Potential of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for Historic Preservation

Historic maps are a valuable resource for understanding our past. Historic preservationists, in their endeavor to conserve, protect, and preserve historic buildings and neighborhoods, use historic maps to gain a richer understanding of the places where we lived, worked, and played. This research explored the synergy of using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with historic maps to achieve a greater appreciation and understanding of the past. The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps are a set of maps that traced the growth and development of major cities and neighborhoods from 1867 to 2007. Developed as an aid for insurance companies in estimating fire insurance liabilities in urban areas, the maps not only provide parcel information such as property sizes, block numbers, street names and addresses, they also depict a wealth of building information, such as shape and height, construction materials, locations of windows and doors, uses and occupants. When viewed over an extended time period, these maps accurately document the growth, decline and changes in cities and communities over time. ArcGIS software was used to digitize and map the rich source of data inherent in the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for a 25-block area surrounding Fort Street Mall in downtown Honolulu, Hawaii. Seven time periods of Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps from 1914 through 1993 were digitized and mapped using GIS to demonstrate how urban areas could be studied and interpreted through this particular mapping method. The resulting methodology showed that by using GIS with historic maps to track and analyze urban changes over time, a wealth of information and insight about a community’s past is revealed, something that is not apparent when simply studying individual paper maps

Representing and Indexing Archaeological Information

The need to preserve and remember the past is a particular human trait. The richness of our cultural history is approached by a vast array of disciplines, that investigate and manage it. However, their effectiveness can be hindered by several technical issues. One of the concerns of experts in this area is the way the importance of cultural heritage is communicated in order to cultivate interest, curiosity and respect. Another concern is the lack of suitable tools that can handle the dimension and complexity of the collections with which they interact. With the emergence of digital tools and the creation of online repositories for the collections of cultural institutions, it is possible to suggest different solutions to tackle these problems. The proposed solution aims to facilitate access and interaction with cultural information, through the implementation of an application capable of integrating multiple forms of representation of historical artifacts. The application tackles two problems that arise from distinct goals. One is the need to represent, in a single view, collections of related items from different repositories. The other is how to, effectively, communicate the information associated with an artifact and its context. This MSc dissertation is part of a collaborative effort between NOVA LINCS researchers and several archaeological institutions of the Iberian Extremadura, aiming to develop tools that will support research and help sharing the cultural wealth of archaeological sites and artifacts from the region. In this dissertation, the developed application covers a general view of the aforementioned problems, while being flexible to the customization of the representation of cultural data. The solution was evaluated on usability and effectiveness on reaching the proposed goals, during a process that involved target audience users and experts in the area of culture and history, as well as human-computer interaction. The results provided positive conclusions