AddressingHistory

Title

AddressingHistory

Duration

April – September 2010

Website

AddressingHistory

Summary

The AddressingHistory project created an online tool to enable a broad spectrum of users, both within and outwith academia (particularly local history groups and genealogists), to combine data from digitised historical Scottish Post Office Directories with contemporaneous historical maps.

The AddressingHistory project was delivered by EDINA in partnership with the National Library of Scotland using materials already digitised under ongoing NLS programmes.

Crowd-sourcing through the AddressingHistory tool led to a fully geo-coded version of the digitised directories thus providing significant added-value to the general public, local historians and specialist researchers across multiple disciplines.

The project focused on three eras of Edinburgh mapping and Post Office Directories (1784-5; 1865 and1905-6); however the technologies demonstrated were scalable to the full collection of digitised materials which included 400 directories and associated maps covering the whole of Scotland.

Project Deliverables

The Web 2.0 enabled AddressingHistory tool, which will contribute to crowd sourcing through the georeferencing of historical addresses.
Increased community awareness and engagement with the digitised maps and Post Office directories at the core of this project.
An API onto the crowd-sourced data.
A sustainable exit strategy for the data created by users for AddressingHistory.
Final report