EDINA Digimap 10 years on

1
Seminar by David Medyckyj-Scott Emma Sutton
EDINA Digimap - 10 years on
Dr David Medyckyj-Scott is Manager of the
Research and Geo-data team at EDINA. He has a
varied background taking in cartography,
psychology, spatial data management, software
engineering and Internet service development.
While working for Landcare Research (New
Zealand), David co-developed GUILD-on-the-Web.
Released in January 1996, GUILD one of the first
on-line GIS services accessible via the Web. He
was the driving force behind the EDINA Digimap
service. David has an ongoing interest in GI
portals, gazetteers and web map services. He is
active on various GI committees including the
Scottish Executive's Geography Steering
Group. Emma Sutton coordinates the small support
team for EDINA's geo-services. She has a
background in Geography and GIS and has been
involved with the support for Digimap since it's
launch as a national service in January 2000. 
This has encompassed everything from the
negotiation and re-negotiation of data licences,
to a complete service re-design and an ever
increasing number of demanding users requesting
help.
Abstract n 1996, under the UK electronic
libraries (e-Lib) programme, the EDINA National
Data Centre at the University of Edinburgh was
awarded funding to establish an on-line virtual
map library of Ordnance Survey (GB) maps and
data. Ten years on the resulting service,
Digimap, has some 30,000 users and encompasses
not just OS but also historic, geology and marine
maps and data, and is now a critical part of the
UK research and teaching infrastructure. In this
presentation, as well as describing how Digimap
came about and demonstrating key parts of the
service, we will discuss how the technology by
which Digimap is delivered has changed, the
impact on the academic community of having 'free'
access to maps and data and the issues and
challenges that faced EDINA in delivering this
world class service.
Thursday 1st March 2007 at 4.00pm in Hume
Building Conference Room, Third Floor
Check http//ncg.nuim.ie/ for details For
further information on EDINA see
http//edina.ac.uk/