{"id":3793,"date":"2023-09-25T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digilab.rara.ee\/?post_type=blogi&p=3793"},"modified":"2025-01-03T18:13:29","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T15:13:29","slug":"national-library-of-estonia-datasets-on-map","status":"publish","type":"blogi","link":"https:\/\/digilab.rara.ee\/en\/blog\/national-library-of-estonia-datasets-on-map\/","title":{"rendered":"National Library of Estonia Datasets on Map"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Creating maps is a research method helping to highlight questions and connections that might otherwise remain hidden.1<\/a><\/sup> Maps play various roles in the humanities \u2013 the most typical being the depiction of a location or event, but they can also be used to illustrate spatial experiences, create narratives, or serve as independent objects of study.2<\/a><\/sup> Among the datasets in the Digilab are subsets of maps from the Estonian National Bibliography and the DIGAR database. Additionally, spatial data can be linked to other datasets that include geographical locations. This blog post explores the different analyses that can be performed with these datasets and digitized maps.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examples of combining geographic information systems (GIS) with humanities data<\/strong><\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Several pioneering projects that combine geographic information systems (GIS) with humanities data have originated from Stanford University. For instance, the Orbis<\/a> project maps spatial experiences, centering on an interactive map of the road network of Ancient Rome. Another significant Stanford project is Mapping the Republic of Letters<\/a>, which charts early modern era correspondence and gave rise to the web-based visualization tool Palladio<\/a>. The growing accessibility of GIS tools and the abundance of instructional materials have broadened the scope of such projects beyond academia. For example, Native Land Digital<\/a>, a project led by Indigenous representatives in North America, maps Indigenous territories and amplifies the voices of marginalized communities. Many older, similar projects are compiled on the DH GIS Projects<\/a> webpage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar projects can also be found in Estonia. In Tartu, the German Tartu \/ Deutsches Dorpat project<\/a>, created in collaboration between the Tartu City Museum and the University of Tartu's German Studies Department, maps (Baltic) German descriptions of the city. A slightly earlier project by the Tartu City Museum, Places and Stories of \u00dclej\u00f5e<\/a>, charts the stories and memories of people associated with Tartu's \u00dclej\u00f5e district. A recent example from Tallinn is the Tallinn Urban Space Art Map<\/a>, which displays the locations of public art pieces throughout the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Digilab also includes a mapping tool called Books on the Map<\/a>. This tool is based on data from the Estonian National Bibliography, specifically the publication locations and release years of books. The tool is interactive\u2014users can track book publications decade by decade and focus on a region of interest. The map points are linked to records in the ESTER e-catalog. However, this is not the only option for analyzing datasets of the Digilab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mapping the Estonian National Bibliography Maps<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Estonian National Bibliography (ERB) database currently contains data on 13,142 maps, of which 5,142 include information about the northern, southern, eastern, and western extents of the maps. This allows for an analysis of the geographical distribution of the maps within the database. However, such mapping is inherently complex. The rectangular boundaries of maps overlap, especially for larger areas (e.g., world maps), making the results difficult to interpret. Unexpected but logical errors emerged during data processing. For instance, most maps depicting the Soviet Union were found to \"reside\" in North America. This anomaly stemmed from the underlying world map projection used.<\/p>\n\n\n

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