The British Library has just launched a few days ago the BL historical map project  an online 3D visualisation, using Google Earth, of 724 rare maps in order to be able to  compare the past with the present…what an opportunity to join in and participate in this innovative project.

• The project involves 724 maps of England and Wales and large scale street plans of London from 1560 to 1860 and will run for a year, finishing in January 2013.
• You can help georeference rare maps (connect the historical maps to the contemporary map, to see how the historic and current correlate.)
• Here is the video explaining georeferencing and how the project works;
• The British Library: Georeferencer Pilot from Klokan Technologies on Vimeo.
• BL is using crowd-sourcing tools so we can all help and benefit from the project  (many people working in consort to make a massive task and project feasible to implement, each party contributing a little, so that the sum of the parts is definitely worth more than an individual’s efforts)  so that we can all benefit from the outputs.
• Any work you do will be credited with your name and the top contributor will get to meet Peter  Baraber, head of Cartography at the British Library and have a chance to explore their favourite maps.

Ideal for all of us with an interest in historical and local maps and a great resource for your history project.

Historical Maps are a major resource, being made much more accessible, with the help of great digitisation projects of this ilk.

• The volumes of maps are enormous and the ‘ beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder. ‘ These maps can really add to your family, local, social or special interest history project.
• Maps paint a picture that it takes a thousand words to write.. .topography, place names, historical events and much more.
• The skills required to make these historic documents are impressive as is the output of the enlightened thinkers who explored and navigated, tracked and transcribed these early maps.
• They toiled  using the knowhow acquired through the study of mathematics and the establishment of scientific methods.
• What motivated such efforts with minimal technology to painstakingly map the physical world? The development of cartography or map making was fueled by politics, the needs of military leaders and the campaigns they embarked upon, determining land-ownership and enabled the sharing of the information acquired by exploration of uncharted territories and in particular the pursuit of valuable new trade routes…

Why not register for updates on this site, in our blogs and Intriguing Resources we will be focusing on both IT and web resources to enhance your historical research and history projects and in particular we are intrigued by all things mapped and combining mapped data with dynamic data visualisations.

Think of Mapping enabled  digitally as the best combination of what a computer and a human being can do, with the computer doing the tedious part and providing wings for the human mind…