Machines Reading Maps: The Future of Historical Cartography as Data
–Stanford, USA
What is Machines Reading Maps?
Over the course of the last year, Machines Reading Maps (MRM) has worked with the David Rumsey Map Collection and its partner Luna Imaging to make maps searchable by their text content, creating the possibility for humanities research that uses text on maps as a primary source and transforming map collection discovery. MRM began in 2021 as a collaborative project with researchers and librarians at the University of Southern California Digital Library, the University of Minnesota, The Alan Turing Institute, as well as heritage partners at the British Library, the Library of Congress, and the National Library of Scotland.
Why Machines Reading Maps?
Maps constitute a significant body of global cultural heritage, and they are being scanned at a rapid pace across the Gallery, Library, Archives and Museums (GLAM) community. However, most critical investigation of maps continues on a small scale, through close readings of a few maps. Individual maps communicate through visual grammars, supplemented by text. The text found on maps, particularly in aggregate, is a nearly untapped source about the construction of knowledge about place.
While we speak colloquially about reading maps, MRM concretely addresses how to make text on maps an accessible resource. Spatial searching will no longer be limited to metadata fields like place of publication, or general subject, but instead will allow queries based upon the labeled, spatial content of maps.