Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis Engages East View Cartographic to Digitize Historical Maps
MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota, USA – July 31, 2007 – East View Cartographic (EVC) recently delivered the latest in a series of digitization projects for Harvard University’s Center for Geographic Analysis. The most recent project involved creating a vector data set derived from over 50 ethno-linguistic maps of the African continent. This project will give teachers, students and researches broader access to these unique and rare materials and decrease the need to access special collections.
EVC has worked with the Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University to develop many of their paper map collections into accurate and accessible digital databases. Projects include feature extraction from standard topographic maps, vectorizing and georeferencing multi-source historical maps into seamless vector data sets for Europe and Africa, and creating a spatially accurate digital representation of a set of Civil War era maps.
For such custom projects EVC creates itemized project schedules that include recommendations on the best way to create consistently high-quality digital data from historical maps which often require unique approaches. EVC’s GIS expertise allows for the creation of seamless vector data sets from unusual source materials, such as maps of the Roman Empire for an undergraduate course, that do not follow a standard grid or share a standard projection and datum. The final results of projects like these are digital databases that provide researchers and students easier access to valuable data that can be used in many more applications university-wide.
About East View
East View was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. East View is comprised of East View Information Services (www.eastview.com), East View Geospatial (www.geospatial.com) and East View Map Link (www.evmaplink.com). East View maintains thousands of supplier/publisher relationships throughout the world for maps and geospatial data and Russian, Arabic and Chinese-produced social and hard science content. East View manages a data center, library and warehouse in Minneapolis where it hosts and stores dozens of foreign language databases, hundreds of thousands of maps and atlases and millions of geospatial, Russian, Chinese and Arabic metadata records. Uncommon Information. Extraordinary Places. East View.
