The Library as Research Partner and Data Creator: The Don Valley Historical Mapping Project

The emergence of new academic disciplines that embrace geospatial analysis allow GIS librarians to be involved in collaboration and outreach work that promotes the academic library and the subject and technical expertise of GIS librarians. The Don River Valley Historical Mapping Project (DVHMO) is a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of map & geography libraries Vol. 9; no. 1-2; pp. 157 - 174
Main Authors Fortin, Marcel, Mueller, Janina
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Taylor & Francis Group 01.01.2013
Subjects
Academic libraries
Collaboration
collaborative research
Conservation
data creation
Emergence
future of libraries
Geographic information systems
GIS librarianship
HGIS
History
Libraries
map libraries
Mapping
Satellite navigation systems
Spatial data
spatial history
Topographic maps
Valleys
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Summary:The emergence of new academic disciplines that embrace geospatial analysis allow GIS librarians to be involved in collaboration and outreach work that promotes the academic library and the subject and technical expertise of GIS librarians. The Don River Valley Historical Mapping Project (DVHMO) is an example of such a scholarly collaborative project. At the University of Toronto, the map and GIS librarian, Marcel Fortin, collaborated with PhD history student Jennifer Bonnell (currently a history postdoctoral fellow at the University of Guelph) in a historical mapping project that would promote and breathe new life into library resources. By drawing on paper-based, historical geographic resources, such as fire insurance plans, topographic maps, county atlases, and planning and conservation reports, they built several geospatial historical data sets of shorelines, industries, and landownership data. The digital data sets are now available free online, and intended to be used by researchers and curious citizens alike. Through projects like these, GIS librarians develop services that draw on their longstanding expertise of maintaining collections and promoting free and open access to information. At the same time, they demonstrate how librarians can become the architects of new information. They thereby assert the skills of academic librarians as research partners and data creators.
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ISSN:1542-0353
1542-0361
DOI:10.1080/15420353.2013.767765