Hello all,
I'm writing to share with you a few updates on the Sanborn map crowsourcing project: https://oldinsurancemaps.net.
This contact list consists of 1) registered participants on the site, and 2) people who have expressed interest but not registered. If you are in the latter category and would like to receive future announcements (there won't be many), please opt-in by replying to this email with "subscribe" (or sign up! 🙂 ).
Briefly:
These sessions are to show you around and give a little demo, open to anyone. I'll try keep the presentation portion under 30 min, and Q&A can follow. Content will be something like
I'll try to get recordings of the introduction and demonstration sessions on YouTube by the end of the week.
Note: I've heard from some special interest groups who would like a presentation and/or concentrated work session for their members in April/May. Please get in touch if your group would be interested in that.
​We have decided to extend the public participation period, largely so you can take advantage of some of the improvements that have been made to the site since it first launched (see below).
After the initial wave of interest, a number of bugs became apparent that needed attention. Fixing them took a minute and has led to a lot of improvements. (An immense thank you to user WallyKitty for so much testing and activity in the first month!)
By now, folks have done a lot of georeferencing and there is just so much content to explore on the site. So, if you signed up and loaded a volume a while ago, make sure to check back on it now because progress has surely been made.
Of the 267 volumes/editions I made available at the outset, 120 have been started, and there are currently 530 (!!) layers in the system. Some of the larger cities are looking really good, for example:
Of course there's plenty to see in the smaller towns too, like I had no idea how much of Plaquemines has been carved away by the river. And if you look closely at Eunice, you'll see the paste-on correction slips that the Sanborn company would mail out to their subscribers (these aren't very common in the LOC collection, as far as I can tell).
If you signed up early on, you'll find some significant upgrades:
Finally, thank you to all of you on this list, your interest is my motivation! Looking forward to seeing what happens over the next couple of months.
Adam