%I e-Perimetron %L upm4367 %V 4, Iss %B CD-ROM Proceedings of Third International Workshop Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage %A Bruno Martins %A H. Manguinhas %A José Borbinha %A Willington Libardo Siabato Vaca %D 2009 %X In the context of digital map libraries, resources are usually described according to metadata records that define the relevant subject, location, time-span, format and keywords. On what concerns locations and time-spans, metadata records are often incomplete or they provide information in a way that is not machine-understandable (e.g. textual descriptions). This paper presents techniques for extracting geotemporal information from text, using relatively simple text mining methods that leverage on a Web gazetteer service. The idea is to go from human-made geotemporal referencing (i.e. using place and period names in textual expressions) into geo-spatial coordinates and time-spans. A prototype system, implementing the proposed methods, is described in detail. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed approaches. %C Grecia %T A geo-temporal information extraction service for processing descriptive metadata in digital libraries