Project Update #4 29.SEPT.2015

Partners Progress Meeting

The project held its first progress meeting for partners in Gloucester on 14th September 2015, with 19 in attendance and 14 different partner organisations represented. A lively discussion with lots of good ideas and questions made it a valuable first meeting, so thanks to all who could make it. The next progress meeting will be held on 7th December 2015.

Maps being digitised

It has been great to receive enthusiastic suggestions of maps around the region that might be of use to the project in future, thanks for all your tip-offs. We are adding these to a wish-list of ideas for future projects once the West of England mapping is completed, so do keep your ideas coming.

In the meantime, here is the list of maps we are focusing on digitising within the project for the historic counties of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset:

  • Tithe maps (c.1840s);
  • Enclosure maps (c.18th-19th C, excluding Wiltshire);
  • OS maps (25” 1st, 2nd, 3rd / revised editions c.1880s – 1930s);
  • OS Town Plans (1:500, c.1890s);
  • Goad Fire Insurance plans for Bristol, Bath & Gloucester (late 19th C); and
  • National Grid sheets (c.postwar-1965).

These have been carefully selected to ensure we provide as broad and comprehensive cover of the whole region we can over approx. 5-6 ‘layers’ and c.120 years, and include the most popular map series that are used for research.

South Glos maps go online soon

Our colleagues in South Gloucestershire are in the process of putting a test version of Know Your Place through its paces to check how it is managing the county’s maps and HER data.  You may have started seeing Tithe and OS maps appearing on KYP already and it has been exciting to watch the progress. There’s a bit more volunteer work to be done to get all the maps ready to go online, but all being well, we plan to have the whole of South Gloucestershire mapped online by the end of October.

Volunteer Recruitment & training

We’ve been testing different software options for the first phase of computer-based volunteer work to georeference historic maps. Our preferred solution is one where volunteers can use their own PCs and internet connection to work through a dedicated project website and we are working with South Gloucestershire council’s IT team to get this up and running ready for our next ‘waves’ of volunteer recruitment in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire this Autumn.

As always, do get in touch if you’d like to volunteer for the project, or pass on my contact details to anyone who may be interested in finding out more.

Working Groups

We are keen to make best use of your experience in this project and hope to do this through ‘working groups’ formed around specific issues and with members selected for their particular areas of expertise. We’ve identified a couple of issues we’d like to work on over the next month or two and will be getting in touch to invite potential members to join small groups to work with us around the areas of Volunteering, Data and Historic Environment Records.

Event Date for your Diary! Tuesday 24th November 2015 

As part of Explore Your Archive week, Somerset Archives in Taunton will be running a behind-the-scenes tour of the facilities, including the chance to see digitisation-in-action of historic maps for the Know Your Place project by ICAM. So if you missed out on Heritage Open Day in Gloucester, take a trip to Taunton in November instead!

Anne is working with Somerset Archives and Friends of Somerset Archives to pin down the details, which we’ll circulate soon.

Finally…

Thanks for all your helpful comments, questions and feedback – these really help shape our work.

So much so, that we’re planning to run an online questionnaire shortly to capture these views more comprehensively and use your comments to help keep Know Your Place as user-friendly as possible as it expands across the region.

As soon as the survey is up and running I’ll let you know, and would be grateful if you could complete it and also get as many of your contacts to fill it in as possible. We would like to hear from a range of different people, from experienced KYP-ers to first-time users. The more feedback we can gather at this stage, the better the future Know Your Place will become. Thanks in advance for your help.

Kind regards,

Felicia Davies, Project Officer, Know Your Place – West of England.