AddressingHistory is an interesting example of how a project can use good, digitised material and community engagement to produce new resources.
The project, run by Edina in partnership with the National Library of Scotland, is creating an online tool for linking digitised data from Scottish Post Office Directories with historical maps.
From a recent conference contribution:
“The AddressingHistory geo-coding web tool will allow users to plot the location on a map of any address, street name, advert, or listing from the directories onto an appropriate map thus enhancing both mapping and directory data and allowing opportunity for original research that utilises the rich contextual perspective the tool will draw out of the combined resources. ” (http://ciser.cornell.edu/IASSIST/poster/ps3.shtm)
The project is running from April to September 2010 and will be using a range of crowd-sourcing methods to encourage interested users to contribute. For this stage, the focus will be on Edinburg data from three eras (1784-5; 1865; 1905-6). It will, however, be possible to use the same technology for a larger project covering the whole of Scotland.
More information:
- A recent conference poster offers a good introduction to the project. http://addressinghistory.blogs.edina.ac.uk/files/2010/06/AHposter.pdf
- AddressingHistory project blog (http://addressinghistory.blogs.edina.ac.uk/)
- Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/AddressingHistory/114317218608533).
- Twitter (http://twitter/AddressHistory)
AddressingHistory is funded by JISC and is being run by EDINA, working in partnership with the National Library of Scotland.