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Apologies for cross-posting Hello, My name is Nat Evans, and I am at present at the initial stages of carrying out research for the 'Geo-Crosswalk Project', a project, which I hope, will be of interest to you. Before I get to the crux of this e-mail I should provide a brief outline of what the project aims to achieve... The 'Geo-Crosswalk Project' is a collaborative project (between EDINA, the History Data Service and the Data Archive, with MIMAS and the Archaeology Data Service) investigating the feasibility of developing and providing an online, Z39.50 compliant, British and Irish gazetteer service, which would play a crucial role supporting geographic searching within the UK Higher Education community (and associated services). A gazetteer service would assist metadata creators by providing a means of converting geographic names to a standard spatial coding scheme. It would parse metadata records to identify geographic names (current and historical) and convert them into geographic 'footprints' (i.e. co-ordinates representing the location of a named place) expressed in a standard spatial coding scheme such as latitude and longitude or the Ordnance Survey National Grid. A gazetteer service would also make it possible for information retrieval systems to support a full range of geographic search options. It would provide a mechanism by which information retrieval systems could translate the spatial element of any query into the native spatial coding scheme. There will be a vast range of questions that can be asked of the gazetteer, with the only limit being what data is accessible and how it will be accessed. Following are some examples of the type of questions this service would be able to provide answers to: * Where were locksmith shops located in late 19th century Cardiff? * Within which county is Colchester? * What are the national grid co-ordinates for the Roman town of Isca Dumnoniorum ? * By what alternative names is Sgurr na Ciche in Knoydart known? * Which rivers run through Northumberland National Park? * Here is a list of current parishes in Western Scotland, tell me the equivalent Civil Parishes in 1850. * What police force areas cover SW England? * Through which counties does the M1 pass? * Here is a piece of text. Find any place names mentioned in the text. * What were the crime rates in the Easterhouse estate during the 1960's? * Which ferries go to the Ardnamurchan peninsula? * What was Cirencester known as during the Roman period, and what was its extent? * What is the distribution of school exclusion rates within the postal districts of Tyne and Wear? My role within this project is to undertake a preliminary investigation to fully identify the nature, extent and needs of the user community and then to identify suitable data sources for populating a British and Irish gazetteer. Primarily this has been defined as organisations that hold georeferenced data sets (i.e. datasets with a geo-spatial reference such as an Ordnance Survey National Grid reference, a postal address, a place name, et cetera). This encompasses a very broad spectrum of available data, as it has been estimated that as much as 80% of data collected in Britain today is georeferenced! I would therefore be interested to hear from anyone who feels that they may be a potential constituent of the user community in terms of how they envisage using this sort of gazetteer service and what sort of functionality they would expect it to have (e.g. data storage issues, usability, performance, security, et cetera). I would also be interested to hear from potential end-users in terms of the functionality they would expect from such a gazetteer service. Finally any suggestions as to suitable data sources for populating the gazetteer would be gratefully received. Please could you reply off-list, unless of course you wish to begin a thread discussing the uses of gazetteers. I look forward to receiving your replies and hearing your comments. Thanks, Nat Evans ******************************************************************* Geographic Information Officer (Geo-Crosswalk Project) The Data Archive University of Essex Colchester CO4 3SQ United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1206 873934 e-mail: [log in to unmask] http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/ http://hds.essex.ac.uk/ ******************************************************************* %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%