Charting the Nation is a collaborative digital imaging and cataloguing project funded by the Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP), with additional support from the Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network (SCRAN) and the National Library of Scotland. The primary aim of the project is to provide on-line access to maps of Scotland and their associated archives dating from 1550 to 1740.
Managed from the Department of Geography of the University of Edinburgh, the project involves a core consortium of nine other higher education and national institutions within the United Kingdom:
In addition, many other UK and European institutions and private owners have contributed items.
The importance of Charting the Nation rests in the significance of historic maps and related textual archival material for research and education in several disciplines including historical geography, cartographic history, architectural history, environmental history, and, even, for research on the evolution of ideas about the shape of the nation itself.
Many of the map and other archival sources relating to the cartographic history of Scotland are fragile, unique, and rare. As a result, holding institutions have not been able to make them as widely available to researchers as they might wish. An additional problem for researchers has been the wide dispersion of the maps throughout Scotland, the UK and beyond, and the fact that related textual archives may be located in different institutions hundreds of miles distant. This new project brings all these related materials together in an innovative and accessible way.
The project employs a professional studio digital camera (Phase One® PowerPhase) to capture images of both manuscript and printed maps and plans, together with their associated texts. Such texts include, for example, mapmaker’s correspondence, Atlas texts, manuscript chorographical studies, and place-name lists. These high quality digital images are now available to researchers on an innovative web site employing sophisticated Insight® software by Luna Imaging Inc. to manage, access and use the collection over the web for research and teaching.
Images have been catalogued to either MARC21/AACR2 or ISAD(G) standards, depending on the nature of the materials and the requirement of the holding institution. A custom-designed Microsoft Access 2000 database holds Dublin Core compatible subsets of this cataloguing data, and is employed to derive the back-end of the image server of the website. Copies of the digital images produced are have also been supplied to the institutions and private individuals holding the original materials to use for their own purposes. Copyright on all images rests with the holding institutions/owners.
Project Manager
Professor Charles WJ WithersTel: 0131-650-2559
E-mail: cwjw@geo.ed.ac.uk
Project Administrator
Dr Andrew GroutTel: 0131-650-9508
E-mail: agg@geo.ed.ac.uk
Department of Geography
University of Edinburgh
Drummond Street
Edinburgh
EH8 9XP
http://images.lib.ed.ac.uk/chartingthenation/
Content: Gill Davenport
Last updated 2 July 2002