Stimulated by Saturday's BIFHSGO presentation I went to revisit MAPCO, an Australian site that includes digitized old maps. Last month saw the addition of a new map after a year-long hiatus, a Map of Ireland 1838 described as a highly detailed, high resolution scan. Topographic shading conveys a vivid picture of the terrain.
If you haven't visited MAPCO check it out, especially for the 73 high quality London maps and views from the 2nd to the early 20th century and the featured 1868 map by Edward Weller at nearly 10 inches to the mile.
I read your article on MAPCO and also the recent one on James F Thomson's talk to the BIFHSGO just after discovering a report in today's Times of London covering the British Library's success in getting their collection of 2.7 million maps geo-referenced online by a team of volunteers. The original estimate for geo-referencing the collection was £10million. The first batch of 725 maps put online was completed for free within a week. The map collection is worldwide.
ReplyDeleteThe Times did not give a URL for the project, but I found it described at http://www.bl.uk/maps/. The third batch has just been completed. Would that I had time to join in.
It led me to thinking about why the civil registrations of 19th century England and Wales are not online. Given BL's success, surely the problem for the General Registry Office is one of security, not of production.