The HKUST Ancient Map of China Collection - the next step: from digital images to GIS and datamining

In the early 1990s, the Library of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology began to establish a special collection – Antique Maps of China. With the focus on European maps of China produced between 16th to 19th centuries – this was a unique collection in the region. Today the collection consists of about 100 individual maps and 2 atlases, mainly in western languages, such as Latin, Italian, French, Dutch and English. This collection has samples of almost all maps of China produced by European cartographers from the 16thto 19thcenturies, vividly recording the long history of cross-cultural exchanges between China and the West. In 2003, a print catalog for this collection “China in European Maps – A Library Special Collection” was compiled. This catalog includes concise descriptions highlighting the intrinsic value of individual maps, the translation of map titles into English and Chinese, and indexes. To prepare for publication, all maps were photographed and converted into PDF files, put it online for open access. An interface was designed for searching and retrieval. User could search by name of the map maker, title and geographic regions. Links to the images of these maps were added to the library online catalog. The roll out of this database did attracted more uses on our collection. In 2012, we received a donation supporting digitization of the special collections, including maps, travelogs, rare books, and thread bound books and all maps scanned in high resolution. The digital images are available for online viewing via our Rare & Special e-Zone and a selected number has an accompanying detailed description. In addition to standard indexes, such as map maker, title, and geographic regions, all keywords in the record are searchable. While this has made the HKUST one of the most important and widely accessed collection in East Asia, the present trend of digital cartography requires to go far beyond these achievements; what is now required is to annotate and translate all the information on the map, from place names to lengthier descriptions, link them to Geographic Information System (GIS) and make them searchable for data mining foremost by Chinese scholars interested in the maps but not familiar with the languages used, and also by western scholars not specialized in China studies. The author will discuss a project to annotate the maps by using “Recogito”, a Web-based tool for annotating place references in early geospatial documents, in terms of textual input, access and intended audience.