Geospatial Data from the Map Cabinet: Digitizing British Columbia's Mid-Century Forest Cover

UBC Library | Research Commons | Rare Books and Special Collections

Outline
  1. Introduce the maps
  2. Project origins
  3. The collections
  4. Scanning & metadata
  5. Index map
  6. Georeferencing
  7. In the classroom

Introducing the maps

Project Origins

  • UBC Faculty of Forestry
  • UBC Library Forestry Faculty Liason
  • UBC GIS Librarian
  • UBC Rare Books and Special Collections
  • UBC Digitization Centre

Project Timeline

Project start date
May 2019
Project end date
December 2019

Creative Solutions

  • Funding
  • Student employment
  • Crowdsourcing

Working with physical collection

  • Unique identifier fun
  • Multiple holdings and digitization requirements
  • Metadata creation

Scanning

  • Work performed in Library's Digital Lab by Kevin Hu
  • 149 map images were scanned, as well as informational envelope
  • Images uploaded to Library's Digital Collections

open.library.ubc.ca/collections/ifcsm

Metadata

  • Work completed by UBC iSchool student Frances Chen
  • Used existing catalogue records (MARC)
  • Created new metadata records (DublinCore)

Spatial discovery

  • Maps published on a grid
  • Digital images disconnected with physical counterparts

DublinCore ⇨ OpenIndexMap

  1. Map appropriate metadata fields
  2. Create index grid in GIS
  3. Joined the metadata table to GIS file
Georeference

first step in transforming images into geographic data

Georeferencing party
  • In Library's lab
  • Volunteers worked from shared drive
  • Georeferenced images and info were uploaded to cloud
  • Completed 149 maps in < 2 months

Bringing the maps into the Classroom

  • Rich resource for teaching and learning
  • Example of potential of working with historic materials and using historic data

Special Thanks:

Ira Sutherland, Kevin Hu, Frances Chen, Rob Stibravy, Dr. Jeanine Rhemtulla, Larissa Ringham, Laura Ferris, Eirian Vining, Sally Taylor, Peter James