Historical maps now digitized for greater accessibility

The slightly yellowing paper covers more than half her desk. Some edges are torn, others slightly folded. But the colors are clear.

The livery stable is colored in a rosy pink. The cobbler is a bright yellow. The tin shop is a mossy green.

A black stamp in the upper-right corner reads “Population 1900. Frankton, Madison Co. Ind. Sept. 1895.”

This century-old map, in addition to some 10,000 others, has recently been made available for public viewing and downloading through a joint project between IU and Historical Information Gatherers.

Digital versions of the colored maps are now accessible via the Indiana Spatial Data Portal, which is open to the general public.

Before Historical Information Gatherers digitally scanned the maps, anyone seeking the maps would have needed to travel to Bloomington to access the full-color physical copies, said Lou Malcomb, head of government information and Kent Cooper services at the Herman B Wells Library.

“We can now preserve the artifacts and make the information readily portable,” Malcomb said. “This will make things a hundred times more easy.”

IU’s physical collection of maps was created by the Sanborn Map Company between 1883 and 1966, though the ISDP currently only contains digitized maps through the year 1923.

IU’s maps, which cover more than 300 cites in Indiana, were originally used to determine insurance liability after fires.

Now, they serve as glimpses into the rise of cities across the state.
The maps show the layout of towns, including buildings, railroads, streets, piping and natural waterways.

Such information is clearly useful for a historian but could also be used by genealogists, urban planners, environmental and civil engineers, antique enthusiasts and ethnographers, Malcomb said.

“This is a lot of industrial American history in these maps,” Malcomb said. “It was a critical period of development in the industrialization of Indiana. It just was an interesting time period in general.”

The digital archiving process was made possible by a grant from IndianaView, an association committed to promoting the sharing of public-domain image data, according to its website.

Anna Radue, IU database and geographic information systems specialist, applied for the grant and, after receiving it, was able to process the thousands of files.

The most difficult aspect, she said, was creating a geographical footprint for each file so it can be located on a searchable map, Radue said.

IU’s network will power the ISDP system, and University Information Technology Services will maintain the database as needed.

“By making the color imagery at no cost, it’s just part of a modern information infrastructure for the state,” Radue said.

“People that are looking at historical documents will find this very interesting. We’ve just tried to make this information accessible for the general public.”

While the paper maps have been available on campus for a number of years, students don’t always take advantage of this particular resource, Malcomb said.

“I’m hoping that students will use them because there’s great historical value in these maps if they take their time to look over them,” she said.

Now, perhaps, they will.