Dear all,

The Great Britain Historical GIS Project has already assembled a very large
statistical database, from the census and other sources, concerning the
counties, districts and parishes of Britain, linked to a Geographical
Information System containing the CHANGING boundaries of parishes over the
last century and a half.  For more information, see:

		http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/gbhgis

We are now seeking further funding both to make this resource more
generally available, over the Internet, and to enhance it to make it a more
useful resource for schools and public library users, as distinct from
academics.  One very specific aim is help schoolchildren throughout the
country in preparing the local history project required under the National
Curriculum (History Key Stage 2):

"A study investigating how an aspect in the local area has changed over a
long period of time, or how the locality was affected by a significant
national or local event or development or by the work of a significant
individual', using information on 'education; population movement; houses
and housing; religious practices; treatment of the poor and care of the
sick …"

The enhancements will include adding more statistical information, making
our coverage of the published census reports comprehensive, but we also
want to add a more systematic gazetteer, based partly on Youngs LOCAL
ADMINISTRATIVE UNITS (which we have permission to computerise), and also a
greater variety of existing information describing what places were like.

We are already planning to computerise _The Imperial Gazetteer of England
and Wales_ (6 volumes, A Fullarton and Co, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London,
Dublin and New York, 1870-2) but want to add travellers' account of
journeys around Britain.  We are looking for accounts which:

==> Are out of copyright! (i.e. author died over 70 years ago, and the
account was published more than 70 years ago)

==> Can be computerised using automated equipment -- which means they must
be printed, and copies should not be too hard to obtain.  Incidentally, if
anyone knows of relevant texts which have already been computerised and are
in the public domain, we would obviously be pleased to hear about them.

==> Can be divided up into clear sections each of which relates to a
particular place.  Having worked extensively with working-class
autobiographies, I know that accounts of journeys can be surprisingly vague
about locations and chronology:  we need texts which can be read either as
interesting sequential narratives or, in chunks, as one of a series of
writers commenting on the same place:  the final computer system will be
designed to present the texts in either way, and to allow users to begin by
EITHER reading a tour as a narrative, "stopping off" to find out more about
some of the places visited, OR to start with a place and see what different
people had to say about it. 

==> Tell us at least as much about the places visited as about the author
(a flexible criterion, but some authors certainly fail it!).
Autobiographies, or selected sections of them, could be included but the
emphasis is on tours, not lives.

==> Cover a reasonably large part of Britain.  We are NOT limiting
ourselves to writers who systematically covered the whole country, but the
plan is that the system as a whole should provide SOME information about
just about everywhere.

==> Are not necessarily well known.  For example, I hope to draw on some
work I did on travelling political agitators who left extremely detailed
accounts of short periods.  This said, we certainly intend to include some
really well known ones, like D---e and C----tt.  The reason they are not
named here is that this mailing is intended partly as a popularity poll,
and we want to hear people's views on the strengths and weaknesses of the
well-known authors as well as suggestions of obscure ones.

A summary of replies will be posted to this list. NB this is being sent out
in mid-August, but please reply even if you do not receive this until late
September -- we have a specific practical reason for wanting replies by
30th September 2000. NNB as things stand, this is no longer a pipe dream,
and the project should lead to a very valuable Internet resource, not least
for members of this list.  This is your chance to shape that resource.

Please post replies to me, Paul Ell ([log in to unmask]).

Best wishes,

Paul
Listowner

______________________________________________________________
Dr Paul S. Ell
Director
The Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis
School of Sociology and Social Policy
The Queen's University of Belfast
Belfast
BT7 1NN

E-mail: [log in to unmask]
WWW: www.qub.ac.uk/cdda/
Discussion list: www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/history-digitisation
Phone: +44 (0)28  90273408
FAX: +44 (0)28 90273943
______________________________________________________________




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