1. A Geo-spatial Perspective or What’s Special about the Spatial? Peter Burnhill Director EDINA, UK National Data Centre University of Edinburgh CoSMiC Terminologies Day, National Library for Scotland, Edinburgh

2. Preamble This is based on two earlier presentations: 1. Workshop on ‘Digital Gazetteers’, made (by AC & JJ) at ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries 2002, Portland, Oregon, USA, 14-18 July 2002 2. ‘New Directions in Metadata’, made (by PB & DMS) at OCLC/SCURL Pre-IFLA Conference, Edinburgh August 2002 So, acknowledgements to: David Medyckyj-Scott, Andy Corbett & James Reid (Research & Geo-data Services, EDINA)

3. Purpose & Overview Set context Internet & Digital Libraries & GIS EDINA & the JISC Information Environment What’s special about the spatial? Referencing & spatial co-ordinates gazetteer models (nominal & active) Progress towards digital gazetteer services geoXwalk & other projects Summary & Conclusions

4. Internet, Digital Libraries & GIS 1.Some Big Issues –Metadata & Interoperability –Naming, Identifiers & Authority Files –Ontologies –Shared services 2.Information Science –Digital Library, as mix of document & computation traditions Michael Buckland, ‘The Landscape Of Information Science’ JASIS Special Issue "JASIS at 50", Wiley 1999. (‘Presidential Address’ ) 3.Subject-matter methodology –Geographic Information Systems deconstructing the Map: both as database & as display device referencing: the cartographic trick ‘surface of sphere to flat paper/screen’

5. EDINA a JISC National Data Centre, 1995 - –part of Edinburgh University Data Library, 1984 - mission... to enhance productivity of research, learning and teaching in UK higher & further education major provider within the JISC Information Environment –range of bibliographic resources –launching sound and picture studio –key geo-spatial data and geo-referenced information UKBORDERS (1994 - ) boundary outlines & geo- reference database Digimap (2000 -) online source of Ordnance Survey mapping strategic move toward interoperability & shared services role –adoption of appropriate standards

6. The JISC Information Environment is… variously stated as … –a national digital library... for UK higher and further education –a managed collection of quality assured resources –a distributed resource supporting learning and research in the UK definitely heterogeneous –‘words, numbers, pictures, sound’: including geo-spatial data for use by researchers, students, teachers & support staff based on an underlying functional model – simplified to: search -> obtain -> use -> publish [digital soup] – {discover/locate} {request/access} {view/copy/amend/combine} {publish} now to have location-based searching –requiring geo-referencing of information objects

7. Q: What’s Special about the Spatial? subject content most often referenced by topic … … but much (80%?) can be referenced to specific geographic places broad disciplinary base for more powerful geographic searching –across the social, life & physical sciences as well as the humanities –also from libraries, archives and museums –now from digital libraries, service providers & data providers geo-referencing is thus a way of viewing information content: – subject, people, place and time A: Geo-referencing, that’s what

8. Geo-spatial data “data that have some form of spatial or geo- graphic reference that enables them to be located in two- or three-dimensional space” Statistical Account of Scotland NUMBER XIII. PARISH OF CULLEN. (COUNTY OF BANFF, SYNOD OF ABERDEEN, PRESBYTERY OF FORDYCE.) By the Rev. Mr. ROBERT GRANT. Royalty, Extent, Climate, etc. CULLEN, as appears from old charters, was originally called Inverculan, because it stands upon the bank of the Burn of Cullen, which, at the N. end of the town, falls into the sea: but now it is known by the name of Cullen on- ly. Cullen is a royal burgh, formerly a constabulary, of which the Earl of Findlater was hereditary constable. The set, as it is called, of the council, consists of 19, in which num- ber are included the Earl of Findlater, hereditary preses, 3 bailies, a treasurer, a dean-of-guild, and 13 counsellors. The parish extends from the sea fouthward, about 2 English miles in length. So, what is geo-referencing? What are geo-data?

9. Barrow Street Barrow upon Soar Barrow upon Trent Barrowby Barrowden Barrowford Barry Barsby Barthlow Barton (8) Barton Bendish Barrow Street Barrow upon Soar Barrow upon Trent Barrowby Barrowden Barrowford Barry Barsby Barthlow Barton (8) Barton Bendish Models of Gazetteer(1): Place Name Vocabularies simple list of place names has many problems e.g. non-uniqueness common form is {name, location} "index" in atlas or "geographical dictionary" ‘location’ field often has name of larger area that ‘contains’ the place but even then the name may still not be unique Barton, Cambs Barton, Ches. Barton, Devon, Barton, Glos, Barton, Lancs (2) Barton, N. Yorks Barton, Warks Barton, Cambs Barton, Ches. Barton, Devon, Barton, Glos, Barton, Lancs (2) Barton, N. Yorks Barton, Warks ‘The Nominal Gazetteer’

10. Example: Hierarchical Thesaurus ( part of the ‘Document Tradition’) Comment: one type of simple relationship between entries is exploited entries ordered from very general to very specific (BT, NT) can efficiently determine what a given area contains normally structured to handle alternative names (SY) Xrigid structure, one view only, typically geo-political entities can belong in many hierarchies and new relationships evolve Xnames may still not be unique Xcannot deal with spatial proximity / contiguity Fatal Flaw: no one single, simple hierarchy in Scotland no way to relate to other, multiple (e.g. postcode) and ‘old’ geographies … United Kingdom………………………… (nation) England …………………………..(country) Devon………………………….. (county) Barton………………………………..

11. Boundaries in Fife, Scotland

12. Multiple Geographies: the underlying complexity Taken from UKBORDERS, that illustrated the differing way in which the geography of human is expressed: Postal geography of residence Electoral, and previously ecclesiastical geography Add to that, Common place name Map-maker’s geography, eg latitude/longitude or the National Grid In passing note that –the geographic basis of the 3 population censuses in 1991 differed: (and this was not (just) territorial rivalry) England and Wales used administrative geography (eg wards) Scotland was based on unit postcodes Northern Ireland used their National Grid and Townlands ** the potential user may have a different geography in her head than that used for the metadata This can only be resolved with geo-referencing …

13. Pause, to ponder the puzzle of place … 1. places can be defined in space (as an ‘area’, not a single ‘point’) –a named feature, e.g. Lake Geneva –a space taken for human settlement, e.g. Edinburgh and those areas change over time, can be fuzzy, or even poetic 2. names of places are not unique, nor persistent, and have considerable cultural ‘baggage’ – a given place can have more than one proper name different languages alternative contemporary and historic names, even within a given language Auchterderran, Fife, Scotland has 21 alternative names or name spellings e.g. Auchterderay, Ochtirderay, Urchan, Hurkyndorath  Paradox: geography is global, but naming is local  Nevertheless, geo-referencing means more, requires more, than a controlled vocabulary of (place) names

14. Getting geographic (1): Being coordinated how should we geo-reference? –with a co-ordinate system that can be related to a specific position or location on the earth's surface geographic co-ordinates allow places to be represented by the appropriate footprint –settlements, lakes as areas; roads, rivers as lines; stations as point and offer persistence, regardless of name, political boundary or other changes and a consistent framework for spatial queries geographic co-ordinates allow proximate places, those close to one another, to be identified –appropriate geo-referencing thus ‘enriches’ textual description as ever, not everyone uses the same standard spatial coding scheme –systems that relate to geo-graphic (Cartesian) coordinates are the preferred metadata of choice, providing opportunity for ‘cross-walk’

15. Barrow Street Barrow upon Soar Barrow upon Trent Barrowby Barrowden Barrowford Barry Barsby Barthlow Barton (8) Barton Bendish Barrow Street Barrow upon Soar Barrow upon Trent Barrowby Barrowden Barrowford Barry Barsby Barthlow Barton (8) Barton Bendish Getting geographic (2): Models of Gazetteers(2) Simple use of a geo-spatial reference in the location field: the National Grid Barton (540620, 255780) Barton (344880, 354210) Barton (410080, 225320) Barton (351580, 437670) Barton (335223, 409318) Barton (423170, 508880) Barton (290950, 67220) Barton (410849, 251111) Barton (540620, 255780) Barton (344880, 354210) Barton (410080, 225320) Barton (351580, 437670) Barton (335223, 409318) Barton (423170, 508880) Barton (290950, 67220) Barton (410849, 251111) Towards ‘The Active Gazetteer’

16. Task: Find resource about 'Liverpool docks’ Search using a nominal gazetteer might yield: Using spatial proximity in an active gazetteer, the search can be widened: PlaceCounty/UALiverpool BebbingtonWirral BirkenheadWirral BootleSefton New BrightonWirral SeacombeWirral SeaforthWirral WaterlooSefton … that means more & better hits …. !!! co-ordinates allow (near) co-located places to be co-identified.

17. Gazetteer - A list of geographic features together with their associated spatial location  Digital Gazetteer - An electronic list of geographic features together with their associated spatial location An authority database of places (and features?) An ‘Active Gazetteer”  Digital Gazetteer Service - A network-addressable middle- ware server supporting geographic referencing and searching. A shared ‘terminology’ service. ‘Active’ Digital Gazetteer Services

18. International Digital Gazetteer Initiatives extant digital gazetteer services USGS Geographic Name Information Systems Canadian Geographical Names Data Base GEOnet Names Server (NIMA) Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Columbia Gazetteer of the World Online projects from which digital gazetteer services might spring Open GIS Consortium Geospatial Fusion Services Testbed Geocoder, Gazetteer and Geoparser services Alexandria Digital Library Gazetteer Development * Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative - ECAI * geoXwalk, JISC-funded collaborative project * * Presentation to Workshop on ‘Digital Gazetteers’ at ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries 2002, Portland, Oregon, USA, 14-18 July 2001

19. The geoXwalk project funded under JISC DNER Development Programme –builds on scoping study –aims to develop a demonstrator gazetteer service suitable for extension to full service. time-frame: 1 June 2002 - 31 May 2003 project partners: EDINA and History Data Service similar to the ADL approach (Linda Hill et al) –reviews the ADL Gazetteer Content Standard –builds on, and adapts ADL geographic feature ‘ontology’ ‘near-contemporary’ geography focus, linking back into history geo-X-walk demonstrator due in 2003

20. Reference use Information server Searching Geo-parsing & indexing The geoXwalk Server X-walk as digital gazetteer service: use cases

21. JISC Information Environment Portal Content providers End-user Portal Broker/Aggregator Authentication Authorisation Collect’n Desc Service Desc Resolver Inst’n Profile Shared services Portal Provision layer Fusion layer Presentation layer geoXwalk

22. Uses of ‘geo-X-walk’ Digital Gazetteer Service 1. As ‘shared service’, enabling other information services to support full range of spatial searching (query constraints) no need to hold all data (at service) to resolve spatial query uses co-ordinates and (implicit) spatial relationships to ‘cross-walk’ between geographies machine-to-machine (m2m) interaction to ‘shared service’ 2. As reference facility for researchers, libraries & museums including means to resolve variant names etc. 3. As online facility to assist metadata creators

23. Helping to make simple searching more effective Find me documents on the 'Liverpool docks’ Search terms: subject = “docks”, place = “liverpool” Using spatial proximity place search terms become Liverpool Bebbington Birkenhead Bootle New Brighton Seacombe Seaforth Waterloo

24. Supporting cross searching different services geoXwalk Server Content Provider CContent Provider A Content Provider B Coordinate footprints Parish names Place names Portal service Post code: L34 0HS? ‘Find resources for this postcode’ (NB postcode often used to geo-reference survey data files) Knowsley 340900,392300 - 347217, 397660 BX003

25. Supporting reference: the “where is?” type of question What is at grid ref. NY 305 573 ? Where is Aberdour? What is the largest town in Aberdeenshire? List me all places ending with ‘kirk’ What parishes fall within the Loch Lomond National Park? On what river is Dundee situated? Which Roman roads pass through Scotland? By what alternative names has Edinburgh been known? + research use to resolve variant names etc.

26. As online facility to assist metadata creators (1) Traditional use of ‘controlled vocabulary’ for ‘found’ place names but, to be ‘found’, metadata records on objects must have appropriate geo-referencing This is achieved using an ‘analytical’ (geo-coded) gazetteer e.g. BLGO a facility devised by EDINA for the British Library for use in its NOF-funded ‘A Sense of Place’ activity – uses 1:50 000 Gazetteer licensed from Ordnance Survey – presently ‘in test’ at the British Library by over 20 archival staff

28. As online facility to assist metadata creators (2) The task of indexing place names in documents Place Names within the digitised pages of the Statistical Accounts of Scotland (1790 & 1840s) can be recognised semi-automatically. [ http://edina.ac.uk/statacc/ ] We call this geo-parsing...

29. As online facility to assist metadata creators (2) Need screen shot of parser here

30. Some Success, but also ‘Current Challenges’ 1.Merging geo-names from different scales & from different sources 1.when place names differ, should all names be regarded as proper! –do we trust positional accuracy & how do we express confidence? –how to minimise effort in de-duplication of place(s) ? places have multiple names, types, and footprints need to be able to identify duplicate entries for the same place 2.Presenting geo-names on different occasions? –many variant ‘proper’ names, what is preferred? what is the ‘name authority body’? - none in the Scotland or the UK preferred name varies with location and use and culture –there are language and character code set issues –standard codes for postal addresses and other geographies 3.There is IPR in metadata; and hence terms & conditions of use 4.There are always service performance issues

31. Summary Conclusions 1.geographic referencing is needed in the digital library for indexing information objects & for finding out what is where 2.names as words are not enough places need their co-ordinate numbers 3.‘active’ digital gazetteer services can add value a few initiatives internationally, now beginning to collaborate common data model, protocols, sharing data & interoperability licensing and copyright are serious issues particularly if want wider, global access a variety of interesting technical challenges to tackle 4.EDINA has developed digital gazetteer services for Scotland  global answer is geo-referencing by co-ordinates  but to ‘act global’ we must also ‘think local’ …  local to object, to location, to geographic vocabulary of user Active Gazetteers offer more than Nominal Gazetters

33. Contact details Authors contactable at: p.burnhill@ed.ac.ukp.burnhill@ed.ac.uk and d.medyckyj-scott@ed.ac.ukd.medyckyj-scott@ed.ac.uk For EDINA services contact: http://edina.ac.uk EDINA, Data Library, University of Edinburgh edina@ed.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0)131 650 3302 For information on geoXwalk project: Dr David Medyckyj-Scott, Project Director Cressida Chappel, Head of History Data Service (cress@essex.ac.uk)

34.  Gazetteer - A list of geographic features together with their associated spatial location Digital Gazetteer Digital Gazetteer Service Some Definitions

35. Review of ADL Gazetteer Content Standard Geographic Feature ID Geographic Name Variant Geographic Name (R) Type of Geographic Feature (R) Other Classification Terms (R) Geographic Feature Code (R) Spatial Location (R) Street Address Related Feature (R) Description Geographic Feature Data (R) Link to Related Source of Information (R) Supplemental Note Metadata Information http://www.alexandria.ucsb.edu/gazetteer 1.each feature is self-contained making model very flexible 2.comprehensive description but with small set of core elements 3.temporal aspects of names, footprints, relationships, … 4.documents source, spatial accuracy/scale of footprint 5.permits explicit relationship types!

36. Beyond ‘Settlement’ Place Names to Ontologies: Geographic Feature Types incorporate dictionary of terms defining each feature type thus, support queries such as –“What schools exists in Leeds and where are they?” –“Show lakes in Cornwall” hierarchy of feature types preferred propose to adopt the ADL Feature Type Thesaurus some problems… but ADL acknowledge these adapting thesaurus for UK –US & UK use words differently hydrographic features. aquifers. bays.. fjords. channels. deltas. drainage basins. estuaries. floodplains. streams.. rivers... bends (river)... rapids... waterfalls