The Challenges of Generating Digital Map Libraries for Historical Research

Abstract

Internet is and will be the powerful tool which gives way to different online communication options on geographical approaches. Historians and documentary experts need to access remotely to every existing information, that can be compiled in a single place to facilitate the access and comparison. Nevertheless, not many cooperative projects have been set off so far by a group of map libraries to simultaneously and remotely access several historical cartographic funds, also Digital Map Library (DML) supported by the Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) guidelines. The DML of the Canary Islands is a Internet portal with access to a Map Server and a Catalogue containing the historical maps and plans of the Canary Islands. DML services in a local SDI prototype. Visualization and query tools were used from standardized OGC Services.