Historic Digimap service improvements

Historic Digimap is due to benefit from a recently-agreed JISC funding programme. Over the coming months, the historical mapping service will be improved and enhanced in three ways: an improved user interface, additional metadata and the inclusion of a new dataset covering large-scale town plans.

Interface development

The period from December 2008 to August 2009 will see the re-development of the Historic Digimap interface, focusing on improving existing functionality and adding new facilities:

The addition of 1:25,000 and 1:10,000 OS contemporary maps to the overview maps
Improving the quality and speed of producing maps
An advanced map sheet download facility
A map overlay and fade transition tool
Voluntary user registration

In addition to increased ease of use, these changes will bring modernised online map delivery in line with commercial services.

More metadata

The current metadata for the historical Ordnance Survey maps lack survey date information. The National Library of Scotland (NLS) has expressed interest in a joint project with EDINA to capture data (including the survey date) from the marginalia of their Scottish County Series and early National Grid map collection to enhance the Historic Digimap service.

NLS already holds detailed metadata for 45,000 large-scale 1944-1991 National Grid map sheets. It will pass these onto EDINA/JISC at no cost, in return for the funding of further metadata recording work for the pre-1944 maps to benefit both NLS and users of Historic Digimap. This work should take place between January and May 2009.

Addition of large-scale town maps

Town Plans at 1:500, 1:528 and 1:1056 were introduced in 1840, and by 1895 covered most towns with a population of over 4,000. These plans showed much more detailed information than the 1:2500 maps. Most towns were only mapped once at these scales; some, such as London, had a couple of revisions.

The inclusion of these maps in Historic Digimap, between January and June 2009, will provide much more detailed mapping than the 1:2500 maps currently in service, showing placement of features such as lamp posts and garden layouts. There will be better comparison with contemporary mapping, as scales are closer to the contemporary OS MasterMap product. The extra detail should be of valuable historical interest to researchers as well as of broader interest to those with a general interest in the history of urban change and development. These maps are being provided by Landmark Information Group.

Contact the EDINA helpdesk, edina@ed.ac.uk, with feedback and for more information on these enhancements.

http://edina.ac.uk/digimap/