The Library as Research Partner and Data Creator: The Don Valley Historical Mapping Project

Abstract

The emergence of new academic disciplines that embrace geospatial analysis allow GIS librarians to be involved in collaboration and outreach work that promotes the academic library and the subject and technical expertise of GIS librarians. The Don River Valley Historical Mapping Project (DVHMO) is an example of such a scholarly collaborative project. At the University of Toronto, the map and GIS librarian, Marcel Fortin, collaborated with PhD history student Jennifer Bonnell (currently a history postdoctoral fellow at the University of Guelph) in a historical mapping project that would promote and breathe new life into library resources. By drawing on paper-based, historical geographic resources, such as fire insurance plans, topographic maps, county atlases, and planning and conservation reports, they built several geospatial historical data sets of shorelines, industries, and landownership data. The digital data sets are now available free online, and intended to be used by researchers and curious citizens alike. Through projects like these, GIS librarians develop services that draw on their longstanding expertise of maintaining collections and promoting free and open access to information. At the same time, they demonstrate how librarians can become the architects of new information. They thereby assert the skills of academic librarians as research partners and data creators.