British Library – British Library’s Georeferencer service

Several years ago, the British Library placed one million images on Flickr as part of their attempt to encourage people to engage more with their collections. The above image is just one of those, it’s from the book ‘A Guide to Cambridge’ by Sir George Murray Humphry which was published in 1883.

I rather like maps, they can be fascinating in terms of what history they show, or in a modern sense, they can inspire new travel ideas and expeditions. Having written that, I don’t use maps for navigation, I’m sold on devices which use GPS and that can show you exactly where you are on the map with a helpful blue dot.

Anyway, the reason I mention all of this is that I noticed that the British Library have a service called the Georeferencer Service, which places the old map on top of a modern map. So, the map above is transformed at http://britishlibrary.georeferencer.com/id/11164993723. It’s not the only way to achieve this, but it’s managed well and I hope that the British Library are able to add more maps to this in the future. Individuals can assist the British Library with their efforts and there’s more information on this at https://www.bl.uk/projects/georeferencer.