Who's saving the files? Towards a new role for local map collections?

R.B. Parry, Department of Geography, University of Reading

This paper presents arguments in support of such a role, and suggests that it should be shared beyond the domain of national libraries to include also smaller collections, such as those in universities and, in the UK context, in county record libraries. Although major national collections, with their legal deposit status, are pre-eminent in archiving and preserving their nations' mapping, university collections have had an important role to play in the tertiary spatial education of students and in research in their host institutions. The future of these collections is perhaps even more threatened than that of major national ones, since they are perceived as being less concerned with the archiving of historical material and more concerned with contemporary data. Yet I shall contend that all map curators have an interest, and perhaps a responsibility, to look to the preservation of contemporary data sets which are now in a more fragile digital form than their hard-copy predecessors. There is a role for collections both small and large, regional and national, to become pro-active in this area.

This paper does no more than to ask a few questions and present a few ideas, based largely on its author's rather parochial, British-based experience and impressions. It would be interesting to learn however whether it creates any resonances with the experiences of LIBER members in other parts of Europe. The author plans to carry out a more extensive trawl of UK university and county record collections, and data providers, in order to investigate whether there is more evidence to underpin the arguments presented here.

Looking back
First, let us look back. A column in the periodical Geotimes recently, reported the comment of a contributor to a National Science Foundation conference that he believed a digital library should only contain material 'born digital'. We live in an age when instant and current are good, and the past may seem of little consequence. Yet we find all too often that the past catches up on us. And here, the map collection, the traditional map collection has often been a help. Two examples from the UK will illustrate this. Firstly, there is contemporary concern about the pollution of groundwater by nitrates: does this come from the application of inorganic fertilizers, or has the release of nitrogen as a result of the plough-up of grassland fifty years ago to feed the nation with cereals been a factor? ('Now, where can I find copies of those old land use map from the Dudley Stamp survey of the 1930s?'). Or another problem: my house is subsiding! ('Are there any old maps which indicate that the developer should have known that this was a former landfill site?'). Both are questions asked - and answered - in the author's university collection.

Meanwhile there has been a tendency to neglect the similar importance of both local and national thematic data sets (including, especially, boundary data to which those thematic sets are mapped) and in particular to neglect what to some may seem expendable data, but which previously, being in paper form, would have been less readily destroyed.

What kind of data?
Because increasingly data are being spatially referenced, GIS and computer mapping systems make it possible to combine data into a limitless number of thematic maps. Therefore it is presumed that a digital archive will be primarily concerned not with the maps themselves, but with preserving the mappable data, and the boundary polygons where these are needed to give the data spatiality.

The report clearly placed the custodial responsibility with the data collectors. But is that sufficient? We have already seen that in the case of postcodes this hasn't been occurring. And we know from past experience that major producers of mapping have not necessary been thorough in maintaining a record collection. This does not mean necessarily that the producers should be relieved of this role. With so much data becoming available, the question also has to be asked: Is it worth preserving?. To which the answer often can only be: Only time will tell!. But there need to be some guidelines and some means of encouraging data providers to consider the value of the data beyond their own specific requirements.

It would be impractical to preserve all material of a statistical nature but it is important that the potential value of all such material is considered as part of the selection process. (Royal Statistical Society, 2002)

In the case of personal data there may be conflict between the requirements of the 1998 UK Data Protection Act (e.g. that data may be kept for no longer that necessary) and the longer term value of the data, though anonymized data may be preserved.

What are the requirements?
Of course, it is one thing to accept donations of data stored on CD-ROM and lock them away in a cupboard and forget about them. To ensure their use when required has cost implications both financially and in staff time. The data sets need to be provided with metadata, and their existence made known, perhaps through the map library's web site or via some centralized source, such as a metadata warehouse. More significant in the long term perhaps, is the need to preserve the data in a format which ensures they can continue to be used. Many major data sets from the early days of GIS and computer mapping have required, or potentially require, a huge input of effort and funding to render them operable with contemporary computer systems. Examples are the Canada Land Information System and the British Domesday project (Digital Domesday Book lasts 15 years, not 1,000 - heading in The Observer, 3 March 2002). Perhaps, though, this will be less of a problem in the future with the development of OpenGIS.

So here are some of the things which would need attention:

• The data need to be adequately catalogued, e.g. to Dublin core standard.
• The metadata need to be shared over the web.
• Spatially encoded data need to be linked to appropriate boundary data sets.
• The data should be available to a wider user group than the local.
• Confidentiality and IPR may need to be protected.
• Custodial responsibility needs to be clear: are the data donated or loaned?
• Permissions for use and legal constraints need to be granted and understood.
• Data need to be technology-proof.

But as in the USA, the preservation of such data does not have to be the exclusive preserve of a centralized archive, particularly where the data apply to a local region.

- a digital geolibrary can consist of a collection of servers, each specializing in materials about its local region. (Goodchild, 1998, p 61)

In the UK context the location might be the county record office, or an academic library such as a university map library. The county record office seems an obvious candidate, since its remit is to archive local material, and its clientele have local interests. But first enquiries indicate that little progress has been made in this area.

Perhaps a better contender at present is the academic map library in so far that this, or at least its host institution, has the hardware, expertise and internet links for storing and sharing and using such data. One has to admit though that in terms of use, the principal demand of one's academic clients is not for local mapping, but for national and international data: topographic, geological, soil, climatic, demographic, the traditional mapping themes, continue to be of predominant interest. Some of these are now accessible, free, via the web, or by subscription to online services such as Digimap, UK Borders and the Census. So here too, we are losing a great deal of our function to centralized providers (such as Edina and MIMAS).

However, looking back again, we find that our map library at the University of Reading has over the years been the recipient of donations of local hard-copy material. Often this has been the local component of a national map series but with value-added in some way. The most recent example is of many hundreds of large-scale (1: 2500) OS maps of the local area, a disposal of the Reading Valuation Office because, yes, they had migrated their records to a digital system. These maps were shared out between Berkshire Record Office, the University's map collection and Reading Public Library as a gap-filling exercise. But they were not just OS maps: they had added value. Hand-drawn annotations provided historical property boundary and land valuation information. Reading Public Library was particularly excited about this added information, and it could well be argued that this collection should not have been split up! But at least the records have been preserved.

Such donations have not been actively sought. However, in the future such value-added data will be held in a computer file, where it may be continuously updated, or if not, more easily disposed of when no longer needed by its owners. Ten years ago, the county of Berkshire established a GIS to handle local transport and environmental data. Some 40 data sets on themes ranging from highway networks to wildlife heritage sites, to accident black spots to Second World War pill boxes were mapped to a common reference base. Will that material be retrievable in another ten years? Perhaps then we need to take a more active interest both locally and nationally about what is being collected digitally and whether it is being conserved for the future.

A serious collection … needs to work with various data providers in identifying the form that a data archive might take and what should be held locally. Observation suggests this is not an issue that current data providers are looking closely at. (Forer, 2001, p 200)

Apart from the important function of assisting spatial data users alluded to by Keller and by many of the contributors to The map library in the new millennium, there is therefore scope for map libraries to become specialized in the acquisition and conservation of local, and in some cases national data sets, and then to share them, over the web with other collections. Cooperation is also factored in through persuading local government and commercial organizations to donate data sets that they no longer regard as important for their own purposes. In the past, many collections have benefited from hard copy donations of this type. But is the same thing happening with digital data? Not yet it seems. Perhaps map curators could actively promote a culture which encourages this.

In conclusion
This paper has done little more than raise some questions. But the issue could be important: digital data are too easily lost. If it is important, is anyone doing anything about it - in other European countries besides the UK? Is it something in which major national collections should play a leading role, or should it be left to the data providers? What are the funding and custodial implications? And, finally, the local component: is this an opportunity for local collections to build bridges with local data collectors and to specialize in saving local digital data?