[Geowanking] GB Historic Counties polygons

[Tim Bowden]

On Mon, 2008-01-07 at 14:43 +0000, Barry Hunter wrote:
> On 07/01/2008, Tim Bowden <tim.bowden at westnet.com.au> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 2008-01-07 at 07:54 +0000, Andrew Larcombe wrote:
> > > On 7 Jan 2008, at 04:21, Tim Bowden wrote:
> > >
> > > > Thanks.  Looks like I can probably get what I need from their wms.
> > >
> > >
> > > FWIW, it looks like their wms server comes out of edina who are the
> > > suppliers of the academic datasets as mentioned originally.
> >
> > Yes.  According to the visionofbritain.org.uk web site about page: "This
> > web site was created by the Great Britain Historical GIS Project".  From
> > what I could gather from reading both sites, it appears they have may
> > have been created from separate funding projects though.  It would seem
> > the historiccountiestrust.co.uk effort at digitising the county
> > boundaries is duplicating what almost certainly already exists in the
> > gbhg effort, but hasn't been made public because nobody funded them to
> > make it public.
> >
> 
> The more I look at visionofbritain the more data I realise is hidden
> away in there (I didnt realise they had boundary data)
> 

There's lots there.  Two hundred years of census data, boundaries for
almost all of the census areas over that time, scans of countless maps.

> Now heres an off the wall idea (maybe ;), could WE fund them to make it public.
> 

I'm sure it's worth pursuing.  Given the work was publicly funded, I
imagine the costs *shouldn't* be too much beyond the cost of provision.
There is a note on both sites that if you're not academic don't bother
asking for the data, unless you're interested in a commercial
arrangement.  Perhaps they have visions of reaping huge dividends from
their publicly funded work.

> By that I mean ask them what would it cost to put the data in some
> accessible form (possibly just as simple as a FTP server), then setup
> a Coin Jar, so that people interested in the data could contribute
> toward that jar. I've seen a similar project to liberate USGS maps.
> 
> Certainly I would be willing to contribute something towards it, and
> I'm sure others would too. Should I approach them? (I have a few
> contacts from previous dealings)
> 

Certainly worth a shot, but I suspect there's a decent dose of academic
politics to be dealt with before it pays off.  Call me a sceptic, but I
can't see them giving up something of unique value too easily.  It'll be
a long road methinks.  I suspect the nascent UK chapter of OSGeo would
also like to get involved in such an effort.

> (Of course it could simply be they didnt realise the data would be
> useful to others?)
> 

Oh, I'm sure they have a well tuned sense of just how useful it is.

Tim Bowden