Extracting Geospatial Data from Maps

Academic libraries have collected and accumulated large cartographic materials over time. These maps have lots of useful data but are not easily accessible to researchers. Many libraries have started scanning maps and making them accessible online. Some libraries have taken the next step by georeferencing maps. Taking this process even farther, I think the next step libraries could take is to extract data from the georeferenced maps and make those data available to their patrons. Just as making scanned maps and georeferenced maps available to researchers helps their research, extracting the geographic data from maps and making those data available to patrons will open up even more research possibilities. The project I started a few years ago to extract boundaries from historical maps has helped me to develop methodology and workflow for extracting data from maps and creating historical geospatial data in a systematic way. I believe the new methodology and workflow I have developed can be used by other libraries in extracting geographic data from their map collections and then like-minded libraries can work together in creating historical geographic data by distributing the data creation work and sharing the extracted data among the partner libraries