Commons:Wikimaps/Wikimaps Nordic

Wikimaps Nordic is an initiative inviting Nordic memory institutions to work together with local Wikimedia chapters on the Wikimaps project. The Nordic area has a lot in common in regard to maps: The Nordic maps are dispersed in archives around the Nordic countries. Also, the Baltic Sea is a geographic feature connecting many of the countries.

Ideas for activities

• Identifying out-of-copyright maps to be uploaded in the Commons
• Arranging events together for uploading, georeferencing, or a map hackathon
• Arranging cartographic archive visits for the audience or map scanning for map collectors
• Developing joint projects using geodata and reusing historical maps
• Developing ways in which (map) GLAM professionals can assist the amateurs within Wikipedia
• Looking after the participating institutions' presence in Wikimedia

Participants

• Wikimedia Suomi
• Wikimedia Sverige
• Wikimedia Danmark
• Wikimedia Eesti
• Wikimedia Norge
• OpenStreetMap Estonia, Finland

Participating institutions

+ a network of ~20 institutions and representatives from the Nordic countries. We hope to be able to list the participants with their consent shortly.

How is your institution's presence in Wikimedia Commons?

Does your institution have an {{Institution}} template? It is a small infobox that is placed alongside with files from your institution. It provides a great backlink from Wikimedia Commons to your institution pages. The masses from the world's 5th biggest website are directed towards your homepage!

Here ➼ you will find the list of Institution templates.

If you cannot find yours, you can make one by pointing your browser to the following address: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Institution:yourinstitutionname. Please remember to replace "yourinstitutionname" with the name of your institution in the browser address bar after the page has loaded.

Place your template on this page by adding {{Institution:yourinstitutionname}} above and add some more information about your institution. Ask your local Wikimedia Chapter for help, if you run into trouble!

Country reports

Finland

• Country contacts: Susanna Ånäs (coordinator)
• Wikimaps Nordic kickoff. Participants from Wikimedia Suomi and local institutions.

Sweden

• Country contacts: André Costa (coordinator) and Jan Ainali (Administrator)
• Wikimaps Nordic kickoff. Participants: André Costa and Jan Ainali.
• Participating in the Hangouts: André Costa
• Local project: Umeå.
• Participating in Wikimaps tasks: Template:Map, Wikimaps Gadget

Report

For Sweden we have been gathering maps of Umeå in this category [1] on Commons. Although there are not that many maps (~19 files) there are a few highlights.

• We got the Swedish Land Survey to release three map sheets from the 1959 map which is still under copyright.
• In addition to these three sheets we also have three city plans from 1881 (before the fire), 1899 and 1937 which should work as a good basis for vectorisation.
• We got the Swedish Land Survey to give us a clear statement that there digitised versions of out of copyright maps are ok to use as long as they are attributed as the source.
• Some of the files are djvu files which in actuality contain maps split up into two sheets or several distinct maps bringing the actual number of maps up to about 25.

Next: We are now looking for volunteers to help us with rectifying the maps and starting to vectorise them in OHM. For this there are still a few questions though:

• How is the process of activating stitching and masking in the Warper coming along?
• How should the vectorised objects be tagged to make it clear:
  • a) Which map they are based
  • b) Which date they are valid for (remembering that a single map does not give a start/end date but only a "it existed at this single point in time" date.

In addition to the Umeå maps I also have the database and gis files for the historical administrative borders of Sweden for which I'm looking for a more experienced OSM:er to help with/perform an import to OHM. There is also a partially overlapping large collection of KML-files at [2] where many are for historical administrative units of Sweden.

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Old_maps_of_Ume%C3%A5
[2] https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:KML/

Norway

• Country contacts: Harald Groven (coordinator, on leave) and Erlend Bjørtvedt (Administrator)
• Wikimaps Nordic kickoff. Participants Jon Harald Søby
• Participating in the Hangouts: John Erling Blad / Kulturrådet

Report

• Two batches of maps from Oslo byarkiv in process. The maps cover the city from about 1794 to about WW1. Looks good but the files as they are is to big for Commons to handle, ranging from about 30MB to slightly below 200MB. We will await some patches so Commons handle the scaling properly. The remaing problem would then be the upload limit.
• One set of maps from National Library of Norway (Nasjonalbiblioteket) from the war between Sweden and Norway that ended with the killing of the Swedish king w:no:Karl XII. The maps are sketches and not real maps. The plan is to include them, but at a better quality than the ones on the webserver.
• Huge number of maps made available by Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority (Statens kartverk). Those maps covers large areas of Norway from different time periods. The webserver has the full resolution images. Will be uploaded, but there is no plan for complete rectification of all of them.

Denmark

• Country contacts: Ole Palnatoke Andersen.
• Wikimaps Nordic kickoff. Participants Henrik Sørensen and Michael Andersen.

Estonia

• Country contact Wikimedia Estonia Board
• Wikimaps Nordic kickoff. Participants Raul Veede and Vahur Puik.
• Local project: Tartu. Continuing with activities started in the SotMBaltics workshop.
• Participating in the Hangouts: Vahur Puik and Raul Veede

See also

• Wikimaps Nordic Info
• /Pilot