Search

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe a project to digitise maps at the Royal Tropical Institute, or Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (KIT), of The Netherlands. KIT has an extensive collection of maps and nautical charts of (sub‐) tropical regions, including general maps and topographical map series, city maps, thematic maps and national atlases. The collection comprises some 27,000 maps and over 1,000 atlases. Almost 12,000 maps are from the former Dutch colonies, Netherlands Indies (Indonesia), Surinam and The Netherlands Antilles.Design/methodology/approachThe paper explains how users have access to the maps via the Library's online catalogue. One of the future goals is combining the KIT collections in order to make it possible to search a map and to find accompanying documents, museum objects and photographs and to add more metadata.FindingsThe paper finds that the digitised collection of maps has been used by various researchers as well as by relief workers in the aftermath of the tsunami in Indonesia.Originality/valueThe innovative part of the project is the ability to search by location and to navigate through serial maps. A link with Google Earth makes it possible to compare an old map with a new satellite image.

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to identify and evaluate the collections within digital libraries and repositories in India available in the public domain.Design/methodology/approachThe digital libraries and repositories were identified through a study of the literature, as well as internet searching and browsing. The resulting digital libraries and repositories were explored to study their collections.FindingsUse of open source software especially for the creation of institutional repositories is found to be common. However, major digital library initiatives such as the Digital Library of India use custom‐made software. The collection size in most digital libraries and repositories is in a few hundreds.Practical implicationsThe paper highlights the state of digital libraries and repositories in India in late 2007.Originality/valueThe paper is the first of its kind that attempts to identify and evaluate digital libraries and repositories in India. It also gives a comprehensive listing of digital libraries and institutional repositories in India available in the public domain.

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate how public libraries in Ireland are using their websites to present local studies collections online.Design/methodology/approachAll the websites of public libraries in Ireland were evaluated against a checklist of 50 criteria by one of the authors. An analytic description was provided of the four highest‐ranking websites and semi‐structured interviews were held with staff in these library authorities.FindingsSeveral interesting trends in Irish local studies and their online presentation were identified. Overall the websites were well‐presented and had a strong sense of branding. Users of these websites typically come from the Irish diaspora in Europe, the US and Australia. Library 2.0 “tools” had been adopted by three of the four authorities investigated, adding value to their websites. Recommendations for future developments are included.Originality/valueThis research should add to the relatively sparse literature available on local authority local studies websites.