eHarta – a geo-spatial.org collaborative project

Today, for the first time, we draw the attention of our community to a substantial project, one that will unfold for many years to come. Following the general rule of every action we take, the beneficiary will be you, the members of the geospatial community. For sometime now, a part of us have invested time and resources in identifying and digitally preserving (through scanning and photographing) cartographic materials of a great historical value (series of maps, atlases). This was a passion driven action, convinced as we were of the immense importance of these old maps that tell the story of how territories became what we see today. We wish to freely publish these materials, as stand-alone georeferenced files as well as through web mapping services (WMS, WMS-C). The work though requires great effort. Therefore, to shorten the time needed for this information to reach you, we invite you to join us in our quest. The help of the community can take one or more of these shapes : processing (rotation, cutting, contrast improvement etc), documenting (metadata creation), georeferencing and digitization. In order to organize these activities, we plan to develop a series of tools, based on Open Source software solutions. These instruments will allow the synchronization of everyone’s efforts, efficient time-spending and, why not, will ensure a complete transparency of the project.

The only and not to be taken lightly condition is responsibility of one’s actions. In exchange, we guaranty public acknowledgement of every single contribution as well as the fact that all the materials one will have worked on will be freely published on geo-spatial.org.

For any inquires regarding the project, please feel free to contact us at contact [at] geo-spatial.org. All those of you who are interested of the development of eHarta project are encouraged to subscribe to our discussion list.