Page History

Title of Project

Mapping Boston Development in the 20^th Century

Date of template (last revision)

10/20/08

Submitted by: name(s) & contact information

Jennifer Friedman (617-258-5595, jfried@mit.edu) Heather McCann (hmccann@mit.edu),  Lisa Sweeney (lsweeney@mit.edu),  Drew Laughland (laughlan@mit.edu)

Sponsoring Library/Libraries

Rotch Library

Abstract (1-2 sentences)

Rotch Library holds a unique collection of maps related to the redevelopment of Boston in the 20^th century. This project will:
1. ensure that the information contained in these materials is not lost as they deteriorate,
2. change their format to be more compatible with current research tools,
3. add to the breadth of historical geographic information available online by digitizing maps from an era that is not covered by other geospatial websites,
4. make the collection widely accessible to our community.

I.  PROJECT CONCEPT

A.  DESCRIPTION

Goals of project.  including desired end-product for users and MIT Libraries.

The project will make available georeferenced, images of a coherent collection of Boston area maps and plans. The project will focus on the post-World War II redevelopment of the city and its neighborhoods. Students of this process will be able to display these images along with layers of information from current geographic information system (GIS) data to study urban change and the planning process.

Description of content. Subject and significance of content, relationship to scope and other collections of MIT Libraries, whether the content was produced at MIT, and if the content is unique.

Over time, MIT has acquired many maps and plans of Boston created by public planning authorities, largely the Boston Redevelopment Agency (BRA) and its predecessors. The mainstay of the collection is the 308 sheet set of the City of Boston Topographic and Planimetric Survey (T&P).  The T&P was conducted from 1962-1965 to provide a very detailed base map for future city planning. In addition, the collection contains plans for specific neighborhood developments such as South Bay Industrial District (1946), Prudential Center (196?), Columbia Point (1964), Government Center (1964), and South Boston (1969). Most of these items were not widely distributed and are probably unique.

Digitizing and georeferencing these maps will facilitate their use in classes and research projects at MIT as well as making them available to the worldwide urban planning community. They will add a historical dimension to the Boston GIS databases we already own.

Spatial extent of content. Number of pieces / units and growth rates as well as other indicators of scale (e.g. file sizes).

The Rotch Library map inventory indicates that we own at least 700 maps of Boston and vicinity. This project will digitize and georeference the 471 maps of the City of Boston that relate to planning. The T&P series contains 308 map sheets. The additional 163 maps provide historical context and detail plans for specific projects. (Many of the others are either copies of historical maps that  have already been digitized by Harvard, the Laventhal Center, or David Rumsey, or are copyrighted commercial maps.) The collection of 20^th century maps is unlikely to grow further.

The 308 T&P series map sheets are 24 inch by 36 inch, blue-line prints that could be scanned in black and white. The other 163 maps vary in size from 21 inches by 30 inches to 40 inches by 48 inches. Almost all of the 163 will need to be scanned in color. As these will be archival scans, they will need to follow good preservation practices, e.g., 24-bit RGB mode, 300+ ppi, TIFF files  (http://www.archives.gov/preservation/technical/guidelines.html ).

Temporal extent of content. Span of years covered.

1876 to 1991. Most of the maps to be included date from 1946 to 1970. A few earlier and later plans add context to the main theme.

Rights and/or source of content, if known. Planned restrictions if any on distribution or access to digital versions in DOME; if permissions will be needed, have been granted, etc.

We believe all of the content is in the public domain since it was developed by city agencies. We have contacted BRA to confirm this but have not yet received a response (10/16/2008).

B. JUSTIFICATION

Anticipated audience(s) for content.  Include curricular or research needs that will be served; or benefits to audiences beyond MIT.

Several DUSP studios and workshops led by Tunney Lee and Anne Whiston Spirn use Boston as a case study. The Rotch Library contains many development plans and project proposals. Access to the actual maps used by the planners will complement this collection and enrich this experience for students and faculty.

The set of planning maps selected fills a gap in Boston maps available online between historical 19^th century maps and current digital, GIS files. They continue the story told by Nancy Seasholes in her book Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston and bring alive discussions of urban renewal and changing approaches to urban development. These maps provide new images to the scholarly community in studying Boston's rich and well-documented history of urban growth.

Anticipated benefits of digitization. (e.g. search, access, manipulation)

Digitization will greatly improve the accessibility of these maps.  At present, the T&P survey consists of 308 separate sheets, each covering a small portion of the city. Once digitized these sheets would be mosaiced to create a single image of the city. We anticipate DOME would host both the individual images and the whole city mosaic. As these will be georeferenced, they can be layered with the other planning maps in this set and other GIS files. Layering images greatly facilitates integration and analysis of temporal change.

As part of the project, the metadata for each item will be improved for inclusion in DOME, GeoWeb, and, possibly, Barton. At present, most of the items are cataloged only in an inventory maintained in Rotch. Exposure of metadata on Dome and GeoWeb will greatly improve access.

The T&P survey and several other maps are on acidic paper that is quickly yellowing and becoming brittle. They would deteriorate rapidly if they were used more frequently. Digitization will preserve the present state of the information on the deteriorating diazo prints. Thus the digitized paper maps may be used more with less risk to the maps themselves.  Accessibility beyond MIT will be greatly enhanced when others can see the maps in a MIT catalog.

Is original content at risk or obsolete?

Yes. The T&P series and many of the other plans are blue-line (diazo) prints that are inherently unstable. Most already show yellowing due to chemicals embedded in the paper that cause them to deteriorate. In addition, diazo prints off-gas and so should be stored separately from other materials.

C.  FUNDING

Funding: is funding available now, what amounts; what are additional or likely sources of funding?

Funding: . If no funding has been secured, where might funding be found?

D. SPECIFICATIONS

If analog, who manufactured this material?
Quality/condition as of today?
What preparation of the material is needed?

The material is paper maps created primarily by the BRA. Their condition is generally good. some sheets have small tears at the edges and the paper is beginning to become brittle. A normal level of care should be adequate to protect the material. No special preparation is necessary.

If already digitized, technical specifications for digital version; quality/condition as of today; should analog and digital be linked in some way.

N/A

If born digital, technical specifications; quality condition as of today?  What standards/best practices were used?

N/A

E.  METADATA

Does the project come with descriptive metadata?

Many of the maps are cataloged in Barton and so have extensive desriptive metadata. They have also been recorded in an inventory of the Rotch Map Collection.  The inventory is an Excel spreadsheet containing 18 bibliographic description fields and 9 preservation status fields.

Does the project come with technical metadata?

No, to be developed as part of project.

Does the project come with administrative metadata?

No, to be developed as part of project.

Does the project come with preservation metadata?

Rudimentary, to be developed as part of project.

Can the metadata be migrated?

Yes.

Does the metadata conform to best practices?

No, it will require some updating to satisfy Dublin Core or VRA Core standards.

F. ACCESS / USABILITY

Will the content interoperate with our systems?

Yes.  Rotch has recently completed a similar project, scanning, mosaicing, and providing metatdata to load approximately 256 paper maps of Hyderabad, India, in 1915, into DOME and the GIS Lab data repository. The resulting set can be used with both GIS and image viewing software.

Proposed features and delivery requirements

Format

The digitization output should be high resolution TIFF files that comply with digital preservation practice standards for maps (http://www.archives.gov/preservation/technical/guidelines.html ). Daughter files may be created for use in DOME in different size JP2 formats. Georeferencing information can be encoded in the TIFF, which is then known as a GeoTIFF. Georeferencing for JP2 files requires a separate jpw or "world" file to contain the needed information. 

Data

Along with the color image of the map, metadata similar to the Rotch map inventory would need to be captured. This will include fields for: identification number, call number, title, geographic keywords, temporal keywords, theme keywords, scale, publisher, cartographer, size, bounding box coordinates, and other notes.

Access

Users will be able to find the individual sheets of the T&P in DOME as well as a mosaic of the entire survey.  The other planning maps will also be available as individual sheets or in appropriate sets, such as all of the maps related to the Prudential Center Development. Users will also be able to find the maps through a geographic area search or metadata search in  GeoWeb.

Usability

When they are scanned, the maps are useful as images and can be manipulated in standard image viewers and editors. These can be useful for backgrounds or to indicate local spatial relationships. By georeferencing the images, the much richer set of tools in GIS software can be applied.  

Other comments

In the Hyderabad project, maps were geographically placed by adding the latitude and longitude of the rectangle that contains the area mapped (known as a 'bounding box') in the metadata. While this locates the map, it is not automatically readable by GIS software.  For this project, we propose going further and providing the georeferencing information in a form that is accessible to GIS software. This will entail encoding the coordinate information into the image file, in a GeoTIFF, or adding a separate world file, for JP2 files. This may present a novel problem for DOME in that a given image will actually consist of 2 files, the JPW world file and the JP2 image file itself.

II. PROJECT REQUIREMENTS

A. Steps needed to produce product

1. Assess and prepare maps for digitization.
2. Identify digitization vendors, evaluate proposals, and arrange contract.
3. Digitize maps.
4. Georeference images.
5. Update metadata for maps and images.
6. Add map images and metadata to DOME.
7. Mosaic component T&P sheets and add metadata for search into GeoWeb.

B. Feasibility of each step in terms of:
Expertise
Staff time
Equipment, hardware,
software
Space
Funding
Other

1. Assessment will require staff time to make the final selection of maps to digitize, assess their condition, and package them appropriately for delivery to vendor. Librarian I or II, 25 hours.

2. Most of the local vendors of digitization services are well-known to RVC staff. Past projects can provide a template for this contract but staff time will be needed to contact vendors, write up requirements, and negotiate rates. Librarian II and contracting personnel, 15 hours.

3. Funding for a vendor to digitize to our specifications.

4. Funding for a vendor to georeference to our specifications.

5. Cataloging staff will require discussion with CAMS and RVC staff to establish cataloging standards and procedures. Rotch staff will do the actual cataloging entry.  Librarian II or III, 20 hours to establish standards and supervise; Librarian I or student labor to enter metadata, 80 hours.

6. DOME staff will be largely responsible for updating DOME. 12 hours.

7. GIS Lab programmers will mosaic the 308 map sheets of the T&P survey into a single image and load the previously prepared metadata into GeoWeb. Programmers, 40 hours.

C. Can project be carried out in stages?

Yes, the project could be divided into digitizing, metadata, and georeferencing stages. Such a division would entail a certain amount of duplicate effort and wear & tear on the maps as they would need to be handled several times in order to capture the new information.

D.  Does project build on previous or concurrent work

Yes, this project extends the lessons we learned in adding geographic metadata to the 1915 set of Hyderabad maps.

E.  What new capabilities are required

Georeferencing will be new to DOME as well as linking into DOME from an external search engine, GeoWeb.

F.  Could these capabilities benefit other projects

Certainly, georeferencing is an increasingly important element of metadata. While it has obvious application in locating maps, it is also being used to show the location and perspective of photographs and other art. Georeferencing supports geographic searching which can be applied to many fields such as history, political science, and world literature. Once this project establishes the feasibility of georeferencing in DOME, many other images could benefit from the added geographic information.  

G.  Sustainability requirements for: curation, technical support, addition of new content, development of new tools

The set of 20th century Boston planning maps is a static collection so no new material is likely to be added. Only standard DOME backup, file migration, and technical support would be required.

H.  Other requirements