Digital cartographic data in the Utrecht University Library : archiving and accessibility

Ligue des Bibliothèques Europeénnes de Recherche, Groupe des Cartothécaires de LIBER

TRANSLATE ENGLISH to Français, Deutsch, Italiano, Português, Español!

Marco van Egmond, Utrecht University Library

© LIBER and author

Here you see a Fokke and Sukke cartoon, a comic strip about a duck and a canary, which has gained enormous popularity in the Netherlands. In this cartoon both animals are dressed like two diligent medieval monks who have been "in the trade" for over forty years. One says: This art of printing… definitely not here to stay!' to which the other replies: 'Indeed, people will always be wanting to read handwritten books!'
Of course this is a somewhat sarcastic reference to the current discussion about the transition from the analogue to the digital era. A discussion which is also going on within the cartographic world.

Cartographic documents are nowadays increasingly published in digital format: on CDs and DVDs, on the Internet, in GIS, and by digitizing analogue maps and atlases.

That is why five years ago a beginning was made with setting up a large collection of digital maps for education and research purposes at the Utrecht University Faculty of Geosciences. This 'virtual' map collection is growing every day. The archiving and accessibility of these almost exponentially expanding digital data are a challenge to the map librarian. What is the role of the map librarian and his collection in these developments? Or would it be better if he ignored these digital cartographic data?
This paper will deal with the current response of the Utrecht University map library to these new developments. It may well be possible that some institutes are more advanced in particular areas and I may be stating the obvious. Nevertheless I think that the discussion about storing, cataloguing and making digital map material accessible is still an actual one and I hope to make a small contribution to the debate about this topic.

In this lecture I will examine in the first place the various forms of digital cartographic data which are being collected in Utrecht. Then I will deal with the way in which these data are currently archived and made available to third parties, for instance in the map library. Finally I will make some recommendations to deal more efficiently with collecting, cataloguing and making these digital maps available in the future. Also the changing role of the map librarian and the traditional map collection will be discussed.

1. Various forms of digital cartographic data
As said, digital cartographic documents are mainly published on CDs and DVDs, on the Internet, in GIS, and by digitizing analogue maps and atlases. All these kinds of data are actively collected within the Utrecht University Faculty of Geosciences and in this way also fit in with the collection profile of the Utrecht University Library Map Collection. Floppy disks, CDs, and DVDs

One of the earliest forms of digital map material is the floppy disk, later followed by CDs and DVDs. I do not have to tell you how difficult it can be to consult the information on these information carriers, especially the older versions. However, in Utrecht we use a relatively simple method to read 'out-of-date' non-current floppy disks, CDs and DVDs. I will return to this subject later in my lecture.

Maps from the Internet

Through the Internet, maps are now widely available to the public. Also the quality and resolution of these maps are rapidly improving. In the old days, a map librarian had to actively search for these items, nowadays, the items come to him. What's more: a massive, ever growing number of maps is there for the taking. We only have to think of the many government services on national, provincial and municipal levels where everybody can take a look at, and almost always download, free geo information on various subjects. Fine examples in the Netherlands are the Zorgatlas (Health care atlas) of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and the cultural-historical databases and risk maps of the Dutch provinces.

How does a map librarian cope with this steadily growing bulk of digital map material on the Internet? For a long time every one of us made grateful use of Oddens' Bookmarks, a website developed in Utrecht.
Since 1996, this Internet portal for cartographic information gave an overview, by means of classified links, of what could be found on the Internet in the field of cartographic material and related subjects. Since the person who devised and ran the website has retired, Oddens' Bookmarks has led a somewhat slumbering existence. But not to worry, nowadays cartographic information can easily be found through search applications such as Google Images and Google Earth for instance.
And as far as the old maps are concerned: we have Tony Campbell's splendid site: Map History/History of Cartography: THE Gateway to the Subject.
And in the near future, we can look forward to the results of Digmap, the European project.
And in a still larger context I am expecting the development of a Google Maps in the world of 'harvesting' geo information, similar to the ambitious Google Books.

A collection of links to cartographic information on the Internet has some disadvantages. In spite of a link checker, dead links occur due to URL changes. But a larger drawback is the volatile character of the data found on the Internet. What was found on the World Wide Web yesterday, can be removed from the site by the administrator today. To avoid these problems a GIS staff member of the Faculty of Geosciences started downloading vast cartographic databases and files from the Internet some years ago. Using automatic protocols, these files are imported around the clock. By now a substantial quantity of digital map material has been collected in this way, and indeed it turns out that some data can no longer be found on the Internet or have been locked up behind pay sites. The files are 'ready-to-use' and used in the GIS education and research of the faculty and for this purpose are mostly georeferenced.

Digitized analogue maps

Another noticeable category of digital maps collected in Utrecht is the category of digitized analogue maps. I am not referring here to the older map material, but specifically to the more recent map material which is usually copyrighted. By now, thousands of high resolution scans have been made of modern maps and map series for study purposes. Because of the copyrights, these scans cannot be made available to third parties by means of the library's current web applications. That is why a decision was made to use a server which can only be approached under supervision from particular places on the campus.

Other forms of digital cartographic data

Finally, in my list of digital map material to be collected, I must not forget to mention the relevant digital topographical and thematic databases of large data suppliers such as the Topographical Survey (Topografische Dienst). More and more, these suppliers offer digital map data. The data, often for subscribers only, are still expensive. Moreover, copyrights as well as campus licences have to be taken into account.

2. Preservation and accessibility of the data
I have by now mentioned all kinds of digital maps which we have collected in Utrecht. A good map librarian, or rather 'information manager' obviously wants to make a good job of managing and cataloguing these data. At the Utrecht University Faculty of Geosciences, all the above-mentioned digital cartographic data, for education and research purposes, are collected on a special server.
This means that the digital information is centrally stored, but can be approached and managed from a distance from several study and work places. Regular backups are made of these files on the server, securing their permanence and safety. Via a connection with the server, the cartographic data can be consulted by visitors of the map library after which they can easily get a copy of an image. This copy can be used for non-commercial purposes only.

Floppy disks, CD ROMs and DVDs deserve our special attention. It is obvious that these information carriers are easily damaged, wear out quickly and suffer from outdated system requirements. And so they run the risk of being labelled 'unreadable'. There are ways, however, to preserve the data on these information carriers and keep them readable. In Utrecht, the old floppy disks dating from the nineties of the last century are converted to VFD files and put on the file server. The CD ROMs and DVDs are converted to ISO files and put on the file server as well. The filename contains a regionally composed call number and a unique barcode, so that the selected information carrier can be quickly retrieved from the server. The VFD files and ISO files can be read on any PC by means of software applications such as Virtual Daemon Manager.
With the help of programs such as Virtual PC and Vmware, multiple operating systems can be copied on one physical computer. Here you see a virtual floppy disk from the early nineties running on a modern computer, but taken from the server and operating in an old DOS-environment. In this way, files with outdated system requirements can still be consulted. In short: the conversion of old information carriers has two important advantages. On the one hand: the content of the information carrier is permanently stored and on the other hand the content remains readable.
In the past few years, the Utrecht map collection has collected several hundreds of floppy disks and CDs/DVDs: a convenient number if we are talking about cataloguing these documents in the web catalogue. But quite another story are the digital files which have been collected from the Internet, or have been digitized, bought or acquired in other ways. The number of available digital cartographic data, which have been collected in the past five years, has already surpassed the number of analogue maps and atlases in the map library, collected in the past century! We are talking about more than 200,000 electronic files! And even the analogue collection is only catalogued for two-thirds of the collection! Lack of staff discourages the cataloguing of the digital data in the same thorough way as is being done in the case of analogue cartographic documents. That is why, as a preliminary alternative, a choice has been made in favour of a basic cataloguing system of the digital material available on the file server. A simple geographic and thematic file structure offers a quick insight in the rapidly growing mass of cartographic data.
The hierarchic structure is as follows: continent, land, theme. This looks like a too simple structure at first, but in practice it functions properly. The origins of the files naturally result in a great variety of file formats. With the help of software specialized in managing spatial data such as ArcGIS, most of these formats do not cause any problems in relation to consulting the content.

3. Future developments and solutions
This is how matters stand with collecting digital cartographic data in Utrecht. But how to proceed from here? It may be clear that the activities developed in Utrecht are a locally grown initiative. I am aware of the fact that elsewhere in the Netherlands and also abroad, initiatives have been or are being developed in this field too.
Limiting ourselves to the Netherlands, we may think of the Delft Geoloket project and the Wageningen Geodesk. There are also supralocal activities, for instance the still running Geoloketten project which aims at an open infrastructure for exchanging geo information by connecting several Geoloketten in one network. Geodesk, by the way, is one of these geoloketten. With a little imagination one could say that Utrecht is also developing a geoloket. Looking at its size and diversity, in my view the Utrecht collection is an asset within the world of geo information. That is why joining a future network of Geoloketten seems to me a good thing in the long run. On the one hand, a wealth of geo information can be obtained from each other, and on the other hand better possibilities may be developed to adequately catalogue all the material.
Because here lies the map librarian's major problem: how is he ever going to catalogue this enormous bulk of digital data for his users: students, researchers, professionals, the general public? As said before: in Utrecht we have by now more than 200,000 digital maps on the file server. With a cataloguer working only two days a week, we don't even manage to catalogue the acquisitions for the analogue collection. Although some scanned analogue maps are already catalogued, describing the digital map material document by document and at local level is a hopeless task. Detailed cataloguing of these data in library catalogues will therefore certainly demand a national or even supranational effort.

The great advantage of digital files is that they are not bound to a physical place and that they are easily interchangeable. By turning it into a virtual collection to be used by more institutes, cataloguing could become a shared effort. This not only applies to the Utrecht digital map collections, but also to all general digital geo information.
In an ideal situation, there should be a national or international agency managing such data at a central level with the participating institutes taking care of cataloguing at a decentralized level. An example of such cooperation in data managing is the GOKaRT project in Germany.
In the Netherlands, the governmental and provincial authorities cooperate in the field of promoting centralized cataloguing of geographical and cartographic data by means of Document Management Systemen (DMS) and linking innovative IT systems. However, access to these data is only reserved for their own government officials. And where that is not the case, using these data requires a high level of technical knowledge as well as a fat purse. To promote access to these data and other forms of spatial data for the more general public, we have the DANS foundation (Data Archiving and Networked Services) in the Netherlands since 2005. DANS aims at central storage and permanent access to research data in the arts subjects and social sciences, including digital geodata. Through DANS, the Dutch university map librarians try to bring about a coherent and especially affordable package of digital cartographic (government) data, which they can make available to their users. Cataloguing such data could then be a joint effort. Universities, libraries and other institutes interested in digital cartographic data could make licensed use of the databases present and borrow or add any metadata, similar to what is happening at Edina, the UK national academic data centre. Within such participating institutes, map libraries in particular could be places where supply and demand come together. Finally with this last observation the changing role of the map librarian and map collection emerges. Indeed, the map librarian becomes more and more an information manager, as has been argued earlier this week. Map collections increasingly become junctions in the cartographic information supply where the offered data are managed externally and no longer on site. On the other hand a map collection can be a supplier of data, for instance by supplying scans from their own analogue collection.

I am of the opinion that digital cartographic data are here to stay and that their collecting and archiving belong to the tasks of a map library. But we must not forget to catalogue these data for our users. At local level in Utrecht at the moment, concessions must be made to detailed cataloguing. In addition to the current basic cataloguing, cataloguing of collections by means of EADs or other different umbrella descriptions may be possible. Or a well-considered selection of the material based on the collection profile must be made. To arrive at a really detailed cataloguing, national or even international cooperation in the field of centrally managing databases and exchanging metadata seems to be the only solution for now.

Back to GdC Homepage