Hello! The last newsletter I sent out was over half a year ago, so a lot has happened in the meantime (including: I got married!). I'll get to most of the updates here, but hopefully will be able to follow-up sooner than later with more. Before going further, I'd like to welcome the 50+ new folks who have registered since the year started. Looking forward to hearing and seeing what you work on! Which is a good segue to the next point...
Jeff Meyer at OpenHistoricalMap suggested that we make a dedicated category for OldInsuranceMaps.net within the existing OHM forum. This provides a permanent, external location to have discussions and post about what people are working on. So, please don't be shy, let us know what cities you are georeferencing (or have worked on in the past :)). Moreover, do you have a city in mind but haven't been able to georeference it yourself? Use the forum to let us know, maybe someone else would like to work on it with you. All questions and comments welcome!
Piloting a Sanborn Map Georef-a-thon for GIS Day 2023, WAML Information Bulletin, Western Association of Map Libraries. 2024. Josh Sadvari and Michelle Hooper
Scroll through Time with the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, South Richmond News. February 12, 2024. John M. and Riley Champine
Toward a Georeferencing Commons: A Crowdsourcing Case Study and the Creation of OldInsuranceMaps.Net (link for open access version), Journal of Map & Geography Libraries, March 2024. Adam Cox.
So much of this content has been created by staff and students at the URichmond DSL lab. They are doing fantastic work! This must be the largest Sanborn map georeferencing effort that has been undertaken in a public platform, by far.
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Until next time,
Adam