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This is for the archaeological editors' list (britarch-editing) in
the first instance, but I'm sending it to the map librarians' list
(lis-maps) as well, because they are probably even more familiar with
the problem than we are, and may (if they've time) have sensible
comments to make.

One of my jobs as 'Production Editor' of Archaeologia Aeliana (a local
archaeological and historical journal in the north east of England) is
compiling the index.  One of the things that this entails is entering
place-names with some form of identifier to show where they are.  I
usually use the county, abbreviated, e.g.:

     Prudhoe Castle (Nd)  [= Northumberland]

     Solway Moss (Cu)  [= Cumberland]

     Swalwell (Dm)  [= Co. Durham]

For very small places, I add an intermediate level, e.g.:

     Short Moor Farm (Gunnerton, Nd)

HOWEVER, we're all familiar with the problem: which 'county' does one
use?  The county system has been repeatedly scrambled since the
1960's, and in Wales and Scotland the 1974/5 revisions have themselves
been swept away altogether.  Which county is the Soke of Peterborough
officially in, these days, for instance?  It was Northamptonshire,
then Huntingdon & Peterborough, then Cambridgeshire, and now it's a
Unitary Authority; my information is that Unitary Authorities are in
limbo as far as counties are concerned.  My current rule is that I use
the pre-reorganisation counties, and ignore 'Tyne & Wear' and
'Cleveland' (the latter has now disappeared again, anyway).  Without
going into detail, I know that other journals/indexers face this
problem.  The Post Office seems to have given up counties as a bad job
altogether for postal addresses -- the standard now seems to be a
postal town plus the postcode, and no county-name at all.

I'm wondering whether to abandon counties as well, and use a short
Grid Ref.  100 km squares would be nice and easy -- just the 2
letters, e.g.:

     Duns (NT)

     Sedbergh (SD)

But 100 km x 100 km is probably too big and imprecise.  At the other
extreme, 1 km squares would be nice and precise (and very useful for
obscure places), but it would drive indexers mad looking up *every*
place before they could enter it.  Perhaps a comfortable compromise
would be 10 km squares, with 1 km squares for individual farms and
monuments?  E.g.:

     Duns (NT 75)

     Prudhoe Castle (NZ 06)

     Sedbergh (SD 69)

     Short Moor Farm (NY 8975)

     Solway Moss (NY 36)

     Swalwell (NZ 26)

     Tarporley (SJ 56)

     Whinfell Park (NY 5528)

     Willimoteswick (NY 7763)

A 10 km grid ref ('NZ 06') is longer than a 2-letter code ('Nd'), but
it's usually shorter than 'Lancs.', 'Northants.', etc.  Of course,
sometimes a crucial grid line runs right through the thing you're
trying to describe, but everything has its problems.  (In this case,
you'd just have to use your judgment.)  One advantage is that it
wouldn't matter if your mapshelf wasn't right up to date: any OS map
produced in the last 50 years would probably do.

If there was a recognised way of doing these things (e.g. what is
outlined above) readers and reference librarians could 'get into the
habit' and move easily from index to index, understanding the system.
What do other people think?  Would *you* like to adopt a system like
this?

Roger Fern.

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Roger W. Fern

Production Editor, Archaeologia Aeliana.

(0191) 267-3074   [log in to unmask]
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