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

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

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

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

-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

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

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?

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

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

Activities

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

-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

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

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

Activities

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Example of a transport list

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

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

Activities

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Progress list

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Verifying digital data

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

Verifying digital data

- Other imperfections

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Activities

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

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Linking with index map

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Provide co-ordinates

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Framing map picture

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

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

Searching on geographical location

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Java-Batavia-Tjermai

Sumatra-Middle meridian of South-Sumatra-Padang

Borneo-Singkawang

Celebes-Middle meridian of Celebes

Prime meridians in Indonesia

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

-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

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

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

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

-Tool to find maps of a certain location

-Old maps have not always been correctly surveyed

-Maps not findable

Results

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Example map not findable

North South

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

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

Online management options

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

-Adding missing maps

-Linking photos and museum objects

-Adding extra historical information to locations

-Adding new locations

Future ambitions

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

-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

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

-The project started at the end of 2003

-December 2005 online

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

WWW.KIT.NL/MAPS

WWW.KIT.NL/KAARTEN

WWW.KIT.NL - Resources – Dutch colonial maps

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

Accessible via:

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

The process of digitizing 12,000 maps

Thank you so much for your attention