Katie R - Blog 8 - Rare Maps Digitisation Project

The National Library of Australia started a Rare Maps Digitisation Project in order to investigate the best process to digitize its collection of rare maps in 1998. This pilot project only involved a small portion of the holdings, but describes the digitization process in incredible detail, as the Australians seem to do quite well.

Collection Principles
Because this is only a pilot project, only 25 maps were chosen to digitize. The library was interested in exploring high quality scans. They chose maps that that would include "range of sizes available; black and white, or colour; physical condition, including any particular problem such as dissected and; mounted, bound into books, mounted on board, tape or other repairs, tears." The Project Report available on the web site details most of the project planning and process.

Object Characteristics
The images in this collection were "captured at 300 dpi using a Phase One digital scanning back with a scanning resolution of 6,000 x 8,400 pixels and a 36 bit internal colour depth." The images are kept as master TIFF files that are then compressed using MrSID software at 22:1 for viewing on the website. The user can view the images with the MrSID plug-in or without, which is really nice since not everyone wants to download the software, free or not. The map images offer a zoom feature, along with the opportunity to change the pixel size.

Metadata
On the front end, the metadata attached to the images is fairly traditional for maps. It includes title, author, publisher, size, and scale (ie, 1:724 000). Additional information on some of the maps that is helpful is the physical description which includes the map supports (paper on linen) and how stored (folded into slipcase). Some maps also include the latitude and longitude covered (E 140° 50' -- E152° 15' / S33° 36' -- S39° 50'). This specific information will be helpful when a software is more common that lets a web user outline an area on a map with a mouse, and the catalog would bring up all maps in that area (for instance, outlining Somalia, and all maps within those latitudes/longitudes would come up). The map cataloger is usually in charge of this information, so not all maps in this project have it.

Because this project was focused more on the high-quality images, I will cut the library some slack in the dismal metadata. But it seems that all aspects of a project should be figured out during this pilot. Since the project is 10 years old, I looked up a few online maps at the library, and it seems basic MARC fields still apply.

Intended Audience
The idea to digitize these rare maps appears to be access-oriented, so anyone anywhere can view the library's rare maps. There are many map aficionados in the world, so perhaps digitizing the rare maps will bring prestige to the collection. This is also helpful to GIS students or researchers.