Enhancing Catalog Searching with Geospatial Technology

March 2012 Update

  • The license was acquired and the software was installed for the Metacarta georeferencing tool.
  • A list of Harvard’s geospatial experts and other project stakeholders has been compiled to begin to discuss system architectural design.
  • Initial collections for georeferencing have been identified and will include a selection of records from: the Map Collection, the Thomas Hollis collection of Houghton Library, and the Judaica Collection.
  • Met with DPLA representatives to plan testing of DPLA metadata and potential ways of integrating a geospatial search user interface with the DPLA platform.  Obtained a set of DPLA metadata records to analyze and test.

November 2011 Report

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September 2011 Update

A demo environment and screen cast are now available for a small set of HOLLIS records.

We hope that visitors to the site will provide us with feedback by filling out the on-line form or take the user survey.

We completed geocoding of approximately 1,700 records from the HOLLIS catalog obtained using the PRESTO API. These records have been associated with geographic information through analysis of metadata such as subject headings. Using that data we were able to provide a proof of concept interactive mapping web page. On September 23, with the help of OSC, we released the page, which includes an FAQ, screen shots of possible use case scenarios, documentation on the project and the actual data extracted from HOLLIS. We also created a screen cast that explains the goals and objectives of the project along with 2 use case scenarios. Two web pages allowing users to interact with the HOLLIS data in a map interface are provided too. We have also demonstrated the proof of concept to various groups at Harvard, and received a lot of positive feedback that we’re using to determine next steps for migrating the test site to a small operational system.

Download the proposal:

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