Peter Levi - The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Royal Tropical InstituteInformation & Library Services

Map room

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps and making them accessible by internet

Peter Levi, map curator

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

The map collection

-Beginning in 1864-Until 1950 only the Dutch colonies-After 1950 the other tropical and

subtropical countries


Number of available maps and atlases

-Ca. 27,000 map sheets-Ca. 1000 atlases

Belonging to the cultural heritage collection

-12,000 map sheets-250 atlases




-Part of project ‘KIT Cultural Heritage Extra’

-Project with support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to conserve and manage colonial cultural heritage, comprising museum objects and documentary materials.

Conservation of colonial cultural heritage



Made to measure

-Determining functions-Sets of maps and sheets linking within a

series-Accessible from Library database-Searching by geographical location

Digitizing Software: off the peg or made to measure?



-Determining the number of maps to digitize and the format-Copyright?-Digital number

Activities



-00071-A for the front and 00071-B for the back

-04150-01, 04150-02 etc for sheets from a map series

-04150-01-A, 04150-01-B etc when there are different editions of sheets in a map series

Example numbers



-Determining the number of maps to digitize and the format-Copyright?-Digital number-Transport list

Activities



Example of a transport list



-Determining the number of maps to digitize and the format-Copyright?-Digital number-Transport list-Progress list

Activities



Progress list



Verifying digital data

-All sheets returned?-Correct digital number?-Colour deviation-Position of the picture-Other imperfections

Verifying digital data

- Other imperfections




Activities

-Making missing index maps-Linking map sheets with index maps



Linking with index map



Provide co-ordinates



Framing map picture



-All map leaves supplied with co-ordinates-Map series supplied with co-ordinates-Framing map picture-Converting prime meridian

Searching on geographical location



Java-Batavia-Tjermai

Sumatra-Middle meridian of South-Sumatra-Padang

Borneo-Singkawang

Celebes-Middle meridian of Celebes

Prime meridians in Indonesia



-All map leaves supplied with co-ordinates-Map series supplied with co-ordinates-Framing map picture-Converting prime meridian-Downloading dataset of geographical

names

Searching by geographical location



Times NGAReal

Malang E 112°46’ E 112°37’44” E 112°37’47”

S 007°56’ S 007°58’40” S 007°58’54”

Difference 1798 mtr 434 mtr

Magelang E 110°12’ E 110°13’04” E 110°12’56”

S007°27’ S 007°28’13” S 007°28’28”

Difference 2728 mtr 465 mtr

Differences in co-ordinates



-Tool to find maps of a certain location

-Old maps have not always been correctly surveyed

-Maps not findable

Results



Example map not findable

North South



-Correcting co-ordinates-Adding new or alternative names-Adding new maps

Online management options



-Adding missing maps

-Linking photos and museum objects

-Adding extra historical information to locations

-Adding new locations

Future ambitions



-Fewer visitors for the colonial collection

-More questions via e-mail

-More requests for permission to publish maps

-More maintenance of the digital datasets

Changes



-The project started at the end of 2003

-December 2005 online



WWW.KIT.NL/MAPS

WWW.KIT.NL/KAARTEN

WWW.KIT.NL - Resources – Dutch colonial maps

-http://maps.kit.nl/apps/s7#

Accessible via:



Thank you so much for your attention

Design

Peter Levi - The process of digitizing 12,000 maps