The Great Britain Historical GIS Project is pleased to announce that a
demonstration gazetteer, including lists of administrative units and their
relationships computerised from Youngs' "Local Administrative Units", is
now on-line at:
www.gbhgis.org/demo_gaz.htm
This system is already a good deal more than a "computerised Youngs": it
includes material from the National Register of Archives' Manorial
Documents Register and the Scottish Archives Network's gazetteer, and more
details of boundary changes from census reports; there is a linked
descriptive place-name gazetteer holding text from the Imperial Gazetteer
(1870-72) and the first edition of Bartholomew's Gazetteer (1887);
... and if you do not know the names of the historic administrative units
covering a location, you can type in the postcode and get back a list with
dates.
We believe this feature is unique, and it works because the underlying
SPATIAL database includes polygons recording the changing boundaries of the
units. These will soon form the basis for location maps, and as the system
also includes census statistics for the parishes we will be able to offer
thematic maps and graphs. Because the system is database-driven, almost
every reference to another unit is a hyperlink, making the system (we hope)
both more convenient and more consistent than any book. Similarly, you can
search the descriptive gazetteer for places mentioned within the entries,
as well as the head-words.
In one rather large sense, the demonstration site is much less than a
computerised Youngs: the only units you can access more detailed than
counties are on the Isle of Wight. This is deliberate: we do not want
this prototype system to go into general use (and nobody should use the
current ID numbers), and we DO want to recruit a network of people with
relevant knowledge and views to help us develop the system: only they will
get the full run of the developing system, which already includes all
Scottish parishes and will include the whole of Hampshire in the next
week. NB the "prototype" is really of the database; the final website
will be much more graphical, although there will also be an "expert search"
mode.
We need feedback from people with detailed knowledge of particular areas
who can check our content, but we also need people with views on how our
system should be organised to provide a useful authority list, and how it
should be presented on the web. We have set up a new JISCmail list,
[log in to unmask], which we will use for regular announcements (e.g.
more counties being added) and discussion. Membership is closed, partly to
limit spam, but we are happy to include any interested British
archivists. Go to:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/GBHGIS.html
One final caveat: the demonstration system is hosted on a Portsmouth
University computer run centrally, which no one claims runs 24/7 -- so
apologies in advance if the site is down when you try it (but do check the
problem is not at your end -- one local archive has already had problems
because of their own local set-up). The final public site will be run by
the EDINA service of the University of Edinburgh, who DO operate 24/7. It
should be operational by the end of 2003.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Humphrey Southall
====================================
Humphrey Southall
Reader in Geography/Director,
Great Britain Historical GIS Project
Department of Geography, University of Portsmouth
Buckingham Building, Lion Terrace, Portsmouth PO1 3HE
GIS Project Office: (023) 9284 2500
Home office: (020) 8853 0396
Mobile: (07736) 727928
Web site: http://www.gbhgis.org
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