OldInsuranceMaps.net News

I'm finally ready to send out an update about oldinsurancemaps.net... it's been many months so I apologize for that, but I promise it's worth the wait! Before going further, a few quick points:

• I added a map viewer for each city: oldinsurancemaps.net/viewer/baton-rouge-la (other cities follow this same url pattern)
• New, more robust, documentation, FAQ, and blog site: about.oldinsurancemaps.net
• This is now a proper newsletter that you can subscribe/unsubscribe to (if you have an account on the site you are subscribed but can still unsubscribe and retain your account).
• Over the next month I am trying to figure out my next steps with this project, so I'm looking for collaboration, sponsorship, funding, etc. More on this below.

Note: if you have visited the site recently, please hard refresh your browser on these pages to clear your cache (how to do this)

Degree completed

If you recall, this whole project was for my MS thesis and I'm happy to report, if belatedly, that my defense went well and I graduated last August. Thesis document: "Creating a Public Space for Georeferencing Sanborn Maps: A Louisiana Case Study". For the intrepid: chapter 2: theory and research design, chapter 3: all about Sanborn maps, chapter 4: designing and writing the software, chapter 5: pilot project results (charts and graphs about your participation!), chapter 6: discussion/reflection.

Brief pilot project recap

I owe a lot to all of you who participated in this project, so once again, thank you for your time and interest. I got a number of nice emails along the way which meant a lot. I recently added a participants page with some stats. I'd especially like to highlight the number of different people who loaded volumes, perhaps of their hometown. If this was you, I encourage you to check back on your volume! I'm sure there's progress to see. It's also incredible to see the power users who got really into the whole thing. (There's more to do now if you want!) During a recent conference presentation I made a joke about WallyKitty being handy with a mouse and it went over pretty well.

What I've been doing since then

I had a whole list of things written here, but I decided to put them into a blog post instead: Almost all systems are go. In short, there are some really nice new features on the site, and some structural changes that have made it much more stable and scalable.

So, what's next??

As I mentioned above, it's time to figure out my next steps, because like all fun things, self-funding this project can't last forever. I've been self-employed for many years, and feel ready to try something new but with that said, there are a still so many things I would love to pursue here:

• Set up a sponsorship and/or tasking system for "georeferencing campaigns" to add more content through targeted outreach efforts (there are 35k items in the LOC collection and only 280 here so far, so....)
• Rebrand/redeploy the platform for a new state/region/institution
• Expand the content ingestion to handle any maps from any collection, not just the LOC Sanborns
• Dive further into machine learning and extractive techniques to pull historical information off of the maps (this could drive text search of map content, 3d models, etc.)
• Make it easier for these mosaics to be used in external web maps/GIS software applications and research
• Further engage with local historical societies, schools, chambers of commerce, and similar groups that could use these web maps for research and outreach

If any of these ideas speak to you or your organization (or you have something else in mind), please get in touch! Just reply directly to this email.

Lagniappe

Finally, I have extra space on the server and I'm happy to add at least a few more volumes of whatever cities/years you all want, as a thanks for your participation in this project. Here's a Google Form to keep track of requests. Thanks again, and enjoy!

Please use this email address (hello@oldinsurancemaps.net) instead of my LSU address for future correspondence