----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Francis Herbet" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Air Photo Maps, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2013 1:41:30 PM
Subject: FW: News release: The longitude problem - 300-year-old archive opened to the world
-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for issues related to map & spatial data librarianship
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Anne Taylor
Sent: 18 July 2013 15:34
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: News release: The longitude problem - 300-year-old archive opened
to the world
Dear colleagues
The official launch of this exciting new addition to the Cambridge Digital
Library is this evening but the images are available to view online now.
There have also been articles in the press such as at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-h-word/2013/jul/18/navigating-science-board-longitude-archive
(if that link breaks, try: http://tinyurl.com/potxqrd )
Plenty of interest to cartographers, historians, map librarians, and more!
Anne
News Release
18 July 2013
The longitude problem: 300-year-old archive opened to the world
It was the conundrum that baffled some of the greatest and most eccentric
experts of the 18th century - and captivated the British public during an
era of unprecedented scientific and technical transformation.
Now, for the first time, the full story of attempts to solve the longitude
problem - unravelling the lone genius myth popularised in film and
literature - will be made freely available to everyone via Cambridge
University’s Digital Library.
Launched today, the complete archive of the Board of Longitude, held by
Cambridge University Library and associated National Maritime Museum
collections, will take their place alongside the works of Charles Darwin and
Isaac Newton on the Cambridge Digital Library
site<http://e.jisc.ac.uk/QHI-1PP7H-5ZWFGM-OZMZJ-1/c.aspx>.
Treasures of the Longitude archive, available to view in high-resolution for
the first time, include accounts of bitter rivalries, wild proposals and
first encounters between Europeans and Pacific peoples. This includes
logbooks of Captain Cook’s voyages of discovery, the naming of Australia and
even a letter from Captain Bligh of HMS Bounty, who writes to apologise for
the loss of a timekeeper after his ship was ‘pirated from my command’.
The university’s Digital Library project was launched in June 2010 following
a £1.5m gift from the Polonsky Foundation.
University librarian Anne Jarvis said:
“With the digitisation of this incredible collection, we have taken another
important step towards realising our shared ambition of creating a digital
library for the world.”
The Board of Longitude collection is the largest project undertaken to date
by the Cambridge Digital Library team, comprising more than 65,000 images.
Funded by Jisc, a charity which provides digital services for UK education
and research, the collection has been developed in partnership with a wider
five-year research project by Cambridge’s department of history and
philosophy of science and Greenwich’s National Maritime Museum.
In July 1714 an act of parliament established a £20,000 prize, worth about
£1.5 million today, for the discovery of longitude at sea: determining a
ship’s position east and west from a fixed meridian line.
Cambridge historian Professor Simon Schaffer said:
“The problem of longitude could be a lethal one. The act of parliament
established the Board of Longitude – think the X Factor, only much more
money and much more important – that would reward anyone who could solve the
problem of longitude.
“The longitude story is a spectacular example of expert disagreement and
public participation. As well as attracting the greatest scientific minds of
the day, the board enticed people who belong to one of the most important
traditions in British society; the extreme eccentric.”
The hugely significant archive preserves detailed minutes from the first
recorded meeting in 1737 right through to the Board of Longitude’s
dissolution in 1828.
Royal Museums Greenwich’s Dr Richard Dunn said the archive proves that John
Harrison, while a towering figure in the story, is not the start and end
point for all things longitude.
"The archive places the familiar story of Harrison in its richer context. He
was a crucial figure but the story is much broader. It takes in the
development of astronomy, exploration and technological innovation and
creativity during the period of the Industrial Revolution, the work of the
first government body devoted to scientific matters, and public reactions to
a challenge many considered hopeless.”
As the schemes for longitude needed to be tested on long voyages, the
archive includes much detail on Britain’s maritime interests, explorations
and encounters with other cultures. It also played a major role in plans for
voyages by James Cook and successors into the Pacific in the 1770s - and
into the Arctic in the opening decades of the 19th century. The archive
includes four eyewitness accounts of Cook’s Second Voyage and contains the
first Western maps and descriptions of many Pacific places and peoples.
The Board’s work continued long after longitude was effectively solved and
its many interests and long duration makes the archive a hugely important
primary source on the development of science and technology in the 18th and
early 19th centuries. It also provides valuable insight into the social
history of the era with thousands of names featuring in its files; from
Isaac Newton, to eccentric inventors who berated the Board for not following
up on their ideas.
Indeed, the archive contains two volumes of ‘impractical’ schemes submitted
in the hope of finding a reward. They were later bound and prefaced with
title pages such as ‘wild proposals resulting from dreams’. They came via a
diverse cross-section of society, from prisoners seeking release in return
for their ‘solutions’ to citizens like Mr William Lester, who proposed solar
experiments to find longitude that involved igniting points on a globe with
a lens. The board underlined his statement that if the globe is correct and
properly adjusted ‘you will set fire to London’.
Peter Findlay<http://e.jisc.ac.uk/QHI-1PP7H-5ZWFGM-OZMZK-1/c.aspx>,
programme manager, Jisc, said:
“The Longitude collection has much to tell us about the effects of
scientific discovery on society and many of its themes and concerns are
still relevant today. The collaboration between Cambridge University Library
and the National Maritime Museum - and the close interaction with the AHRC’s
research project – exemplifies the researcher-led rich data approach Jisc
takes to content creation. While this digital collection supports a major
current research project, it also lays a foundation for future research and
teaching.”
Ends
Contact details
The Jisc press team can be reached
[log in to unmask]<http://e.jisc.ac.uk/QHI-1PP7H-5ZWFGM-OZM8S-1/c.aspx> or
by calling 0117 331 0658
Notes to editors
Jisc
Jisc is an independent education charity, owned by the Association of
Colleges (AoC), GuildHE and Universities UK (UUK). It provides UK higher
edu-cation, further education and skills sectors support on the use of
digital tech-nologies. It provides advice, guidance and access to online
collections through Jisc Collections and Janet Limited, which provides an
academic telecommunications network infrastructure and digital content
services for over 19 million users across the UK.
Jisc’s vision is to make the UK the most digitally advanced education and
research nation in the world. It does this by enabling the education sector
in the UK to perform at the forefront of international practice by
exploiting fully the possibilities of modern digital empowerment, content
and connectivity.
Find out more
atwww.jisc.ac.uk<http://e.jisc.ac.uk/QHI-1PP7H-5ZWFGM-OZM8G-1/c.aspx>.
--
Anne Taylor
Head of Map Department, Cambridge University Library, West Road, Cambridge
CB3 9DR
Tel: [44]-01223-333041; Fax: [44]-01223-333160; email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/deptserv/maps/
|
