I am not allowed to say anything about the funding for this, but this
is about something we need to do in the near future. I also
apologise to anyone offended by the proposed act of vandalism!
The reports of the Parliamentary Boundary Commissions form part of
the vast body of British Parliamentary Papers, i.e. big fat volumes,
mostly quarto in size. However, unlike most BPP volumes, they of
course include a large number of maps bound in. With the exception
of the very first Boundary Commission, for 1831-2, the maps are
usually much larger than the ordinary pages, so they are inserted
folded. Over the years, there were fewer and fewer ordinary pages,
so by the mid-20th century the report consisted literally of a box
containing a set of folded maps. However, this is about the 1868,
1884 and 1917 reports.
We need to scan a set of these maps both as the first stage of a
project to construct vector boundaries and to create scans as a
resource in their own right. We have had a set of the reports on
long-term and informal loan, and we have just been told by the actual
owners they do not want them back: they are disposing of the rest of
their collection of BPP reports, and are donating to us the ones they
have loaned.
Here comes the vandalism bit: given that there are several other
copies of the reports in more easily accessible locations, and given
that the bindings for our copies are in very poor condition, I am
proposing to have the books taken apart with the aim of creating a
really good set of the maps, both for scanning and for long-term
preservation. The maps are mostly printed on thin and fairly brittle
paper (i.e. high acid), so so long as they are stored as part of the
volumes and have to be un-folded and re-folded each time they are
used, they will be subject to continuing damage. My guess is that
they need to be permanently mounted on some kind of backing sheet.
Has anyone experience of a project like this? Not having to scan the
maps in situ within the books will cut the cost of scanning, giving
us a budget to pay for restoring the maps (while, sadly, butchering
the books). Can anyone suggest possible contractors?
Best wishes,
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: 0796 808 5454
About Britain: http://www.VisionOfBritain.org.uk
About us: http://www.gbhgis.org
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