James Reid, project manager Eddie Boyle, software developer EDINA

Context - EDINA a JISC National Data Centre, –hosted by Edinburgh University Data Library, mission... to enhance productivity of research, learning and teaching in UK higher & further education major provider within the JISC Information Environment –range of bibliographic resources –multimedia and image services –key geo-spatial data and geo-referenced information UKBORDERS ( ) boundary outlines & geo- reference database Digimap (2000 -) online source of Ordnance Survey mapping – development projects - geoXwalk,Go-Geo!,e-MapScholar,Pathfinder... strategic move toward interoperability & shared services role –adoption of appropriate standards (OGC,ISO)

Context - The JISC Information Environment is… variously stated as … –a national digital library... for UK higher and further education –a managed collection of quality assured resources –a distributed resource supporting learning and research in the UK definitely heterogeneous –‘words, numbers, pictures, sound’: including geo-spatial data for use by researchers, students, teachers & support staff based on an underlying functional model – simplified to: search -> obtain -> use -> publish – {discover/locate} {request/access} {view/copy/amend/combine} {publish} now to have location-based searching –requiring geo-referencing of information objects

The geoXwalk project funded under JISC DNER Development Programme –builds on Phase I scoping study –aims to develop a demonstrator gazetteer service suitable for extension to full service. time-frame: start 1 June 2002 for 1 year project partners: EDINA and UK Data Archive aim: to develop a ‘proof of concept’ demonstrator

JISC Information Environment -geoXwalk as ‘shared service’ Portal Content providers End-user Portal Broker/Aggregator Authentication Authorisation Collect’n Desc Service Desc Resolver Inst’n Profile Shared services Portal Provision layer Fusion layer Presentation layer geoXwalk

Geo-referencing: that’s what’s special about the spatial subject content most often referenced by topic … … but much (80%?) can be referenced to specific geographic places broad disciplinary base for more powerful geographic searching –across the social, life & physical sciences as well as the humanities –also from libraries, archives and museums –now from digital libraries, service providers & data providers geo-referencing thus a way of viewing information content: – subject, people, place and time geographic co-ordinates are persistent regardless of name, political boundary or other changes

Why this is difficult... How to search ‘geographically’ given that : e.g. a postcode, a placename and an administrative area are all valid geographies and yet every information system cannot know about all the possible variations of what constitutes a ‘geography’! Problem compounded by inconsistency of use even in the ‘standards’ e.g. placenames evolve, have alternative names Long history in UK of boundary changes and changes in the geographies used to record things e.g. electoral ward boundary changes …

Make variations in definitions of ‘geography’ transparent Provide a means to ‘crosswalk’ geographies i.e. translate one geography into another - hence the name ‘Geographic agnosticism’ The vision How? A digital gazetteer that stores the different geographies and can implicitly resolve the relationships between them Provision as a service to service other services

Gazetteer - A list of geographic features together with their associated spatial location Digital Gazetteer - An electronic list of geographic features together with their associated spatial location (An authority database of places (and features?)) Digital Gazetteer Service - A network-addressable middle-ware server supporting geographic referencing and searching. A shared ‘terminology’ service.

Why not just use hierarchical thesauri? ( part of the ‘Document Tradition’) Comment: one type of simple relationship between entries is exploited entries ordered from very general to very specific (BT, NT) can efficiently determine what a given area contains normally structured to handle alternative names (SY) Xrigid structure, one view only, typically geo-political entities can belong in many hierarchies and new relationships evolve Xnames may not be unique Xcannot deal with spatial proximity / contiguity Xno way to relate to other geographies, e.g. postcodes Xlack of simple hierarchies in UK (and other ‘old’) geographies … United Kingdom………………………… (nation) England …………………………..(country) Devon………………………….. (county) Barton………………………………..

There is underlying complexity, such as Multiple Geographies …

Uses of geoXwalk Digital Gazetteer Service 1. As ‘shared service’, enabling other information services to support full range of spatial searching (query constraints) 1.no need to hold all data (at service) to resolve spatial query 2.uses co-ordinates and (implicit) spatial relationships to ‘cross- walk’ between geographies 3.machine-to-machine (m2m) interaction to ‘shared service’ 2. As reference facility for researchers, libraries & museums –including means to resolve variant names etc. 3. As online facility to assist metadata creators and means to semi-automatically geo-reference existing resources

Reference use Information server Searching (1) Geo-parsing & indexing The geoXwalk Server geoXwalk Use Cases Searching (2) e.g. Where is Aberdour? On what river is Dundee situated? By what alternative names has York been known? List me all places ending with ‘kirk’

Task: Find resource about 'Liverpool docks’ Search using a ‘traditional’ gazetteer might yield: … that means more & better hits …. !!! Using spatial proximity in an active gazetteer, the search can be widened: PlaceCounty/UALiverpool BebbingtonWirral BirkenheadWirral BootleSefton New BrightonWirral SeacombeWirral SeaforthWirral WaterlooSefton co-ordinates allow (near) co-located places to be co-identified.

Supporting service searching: “Photographs of towns along the River Tweed” Place name - River Tweed Feature Type: River Relation: ‘near’ Distance: 1/2 km Target type: towns Places... Peebles Innerleithen Melrose Kelso Coldstream Berwick upon Tweed Image finder server (Images indexed on place names)

Supporting cross searching: geoXwalk in the Common Information Environment Coordinate footprints - Dundee (334995, , , ) Places : Barnhill Broughty Ferry Craigie Douglas And Angus Fintry Lochee Monifieth West Ferry

Supporting cross searching different services geoXwalk Server Content Provider CContent Provider A Content Provider B Coordinate footprints Parish names Place names Portal service Post code: L34 0HS? ‘Find resources for this postcode’ (NB postcode often used to geo-reference survey data files) Knowsley , , BX003

As online facility to assist metadata creation Most of the extant resources in the JISC IE have some form of spatial reference e.g. placename, county name, postcode A ‘geoparser’ has been developed which will assist in the semi-automatic indexing of these resources by using the gazetteer as reference. The results of the geoparsing can be used to update the documents metadata, making it directly geographically searchable.

Need screen shot of parser here <

Developments to Date 1.Creation & population of GB gazetteer database with: 1.Enhanced OS 1:50,000 Placename Gazetteer 2.Digital boundary data (UKBORDERS) 3.Additional Place Name Variants (partial for Scotland and Wales) 4.Derived multi-source data e.g. named woodlands and lakes based on hybrid 1:50K gazetteer and OS products 2.Development of spatial extensions to database to support enhanced geographic search capabilities 3.Development of middleware to support m2m and interactive searching 4.Use of ADL content standard, feature type thesaurus, query protocol Testing of alternative query protocols -ADL/SOAP/Z39.50(?) Development of a geoparser to support semi-automatic indexing

ADL Gazetteer Content Standard Geographic Feature ID Geographic Name Variant Geographic Name (R) Type of Geographic Feature (R) Other Classification Terms (R) Geographic Feature Code (R) Spatial Location (R) Street Address Related Feature (R) Description Geographic Feature Data (R) Link to Related Source of Information (R) Supplemental Note Metadata Information comprehensive description but with small set of core elements temporal aspects of names, footprints, relationships, … document source, spatial accuracy/scale of footprint does permit explicit relationship types!

<gazetteer-service xmlns=" version="1.1"> standard Query for a placename <gazetteer-service xmlns=" xmlns:gml=" version="1.1"> , , , standard Query by feature type and bounding box XML query fragments

Ongoing Work and Issues Merging geo-data from different scales & from different sources –how to accommodate historical data –positional accuracy & expression of confidence? –how to minimise effort in de-duplication of place(s)? places have multiple names, types, and footprints need to be able to identify duplicate entries for the same place Presenting geo-names on different occasions? –many variant ‘proper’ names, what is preferred? what is the ‘name authority body’? - none in the Scotland or the UK preferred name varies with location and use and culture –there are language and character code set issues –‘standard’ codes for postal addresses and other geographies IPR issues in metadata; and hence terms & conditions of use Service performance issues and appropriate protocols

Contact details EDINA, Data Library, University of Edinburgh telephone +44 (0) For information on geoXwalk project: