Post 9: Environmental Scan of Historic Google Maps Projects
When developing a digital project, it is important to survey the existing landscape by conducting what Dr. Sheila Brennan, a digital historian at the National Endowment for the Humanities, calls an "environmental scan," or "a literature review that demonstrates your knowledge of existing projects and the field's reaction to those efforts." For my project, I will be using Google Maps to develop a map that will document and guide users through the history of domestic and community spaces in Eatonville, Florida, so I began my scan by seeking out historic mapping projects that utilize Google Maps.
It was difficult to find many robust, active projects that use Google Maps to document historic locations, and even more difficult to find scholarly projects. Most of the projects I found were either skeletal or abandoned efforts taken on by small municipalities. Two examples of these are maps developed by the town of Princeton, Wisconsin (https://www.cityofprincetonwi.com/?SEC=7AA5A9E0-19D0-4E50-AD92-3C4D92D4C456) and Roseville, California (https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1LGq6d_YTMiBlii0B0k2NhUlrhXc&hl=en).
Roseville's mapping project appears to have been abandoned, as many of the links are broken, and there is no longer any reference to it on the town's main website. However, I did learn from this project that it is possible to develop a linear path between points on Google Maps in order to create a guided walking tour. This project also integrated MP3 files with audio description into each point on the map. Unfortunately, the MP3 files are now broken links, as it appears that the files are no longer hosted on the town's website.
Princeton's mapping project is less complex, but is still extant on the Princeton town website. It uses one photo and a brief text description to map "45 locations throughout town which have either plaques erected on buildings or are free standing at the historical location." Despite its simplicity, the map has garnered 6,199 views, which seems very successful for a small municipality!
"What Was There" (http://www.whatwasthere.com/) is an interesting project that allows users to upload historic photographs and information about locations throughout the US, using Google Maps. This appears to be a commercial product, developed by a group called "Enlighten Ventures, LLC," but I did not find advertisements, subscriptions, or any ways that the developers tried to monetize the project. Enlighten, LLC describes its goal for the project as to "provide a platform where anyone can easily upload a photograph with two straightforward tags to provide context: Location and Year. If enough people upload enough photographs in enough places, together we will weave together a photographic history of the world (or at least any place covered by Google Maps)."
Should I take the "ghost town" atmosphere of historic mapping projects using Google Maps (particularly for scholarly projects) as an indicator that Google Maps is not the best platform for my project? I had initially chosen it because of its user-friendliness (both for users and for the less-technically-savvy project developer) and because it seemed unlikely that Google would discontinue such an ubiquitous product. For example, I was leery of using Google Earth, given the tales of woe we have discussed in class about digital history projects that were developed using aspects of the program that Google has since discontinued. Still, I admit that my environmental scan has left me concerned that I may have been overly cautious in selecting a platform.
It was difficult to find many robust, active projects that use Google Maps to document historic locations, and even more difficult to find scholarly projects. Most of the projects I found were either skeletal or abandoned efforts taken on by small municipalities. Two examples of these are maps developed by the town of Princeton, Wisconsin (https://www.cityofprincetonwi.com/?SEC=7AA5A9E0-19D0-4E50-AD92-3C4D92D4C456) and Roseville, California (https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1LGq6d_YTMiBlii0B0k2NhUlrhXc&hl=en).
Roseville's mapping project appears to have been abandoned, as many of the links are broken, and there is no longer any reference to it on the town's main website. However, I did learn from this project that it is possible to develop a linear path between points on Google Maps in order to create a guided walking tour. This project also integrated MP3 files with audio description into each point on the map. Unfortunately, the MP3 files are now broken links, as it appears that the files are no longer hosted on the town's website.
Princeton's mapping project is less complex, but is still extant on the Princeton town website. It uses one photo and a brief text description to map "45 locations throughout town which have either plaques erected on buildings or are free standing at the historical location." Despite its simplicity, the map has garnered 6,199 views, which seems very successful for a small municipality!
"What Was There" (http://www.whatwasthere.com/) is an interesting project that allows users to upload historic photographs and information about locations throughout the US, using Google Maps. This appears to be a commercial product, developed by a group called "Enlighten Ventures, LLC," but I did not find advertisements, subscriptions, or any ways that the developers tried to monetize the project. Enlighten, LLC describes its goal for the project as to "provide a platform where anyone can easily upload a photograph with two straightforward tags to provide context: Location and Year. If enough people upload enough photographs in enough places, together we will weave together a photographic history of the world (or at least any place covered by Google Maps)."
Should I take the "ghost town" atmosphere of historic mapping projects using Google Maps (particularly for scholarly projects) as an indicator that Google Maps is not the best platform for my project? I had initially chosen it because of its user-friendliness (both for users and for the less-technically-savvy project developer) and because it seemed unlikely that Google would discontinue such an ubiquitous product. For example, I was leery of using Google Earth, given the tales of woe we have discussed in class about digital history projects that were developed using aspects of the program that Google has since discontinued. Still, I admit that my environmental scan has left me concerned that I may have been overly cautious in selecting a platform.
Comments
Post a Comment