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From:
"Angie Cope, American Geographical Society Library, UW Milwaukee" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship
Date:
Wed, 15 Jan 2014 12:54:42 -0600
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------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Re: The decline and fall of the descriptive gazetteer
Date:   Wed, 15 Jan 2014 12:37:46 -0500
From:   Joel Kovarsky <[log in to unmask]>
To:     Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship
<[log in to unmask]>



I am assuming your focus is on Western European gazetteers, and perhaps
more focused on those British. Their history in China may be older:
<http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2719404?uid=3739936&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103277674257>
and
<http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=17066178&show=abstract>
. Given my lack of linguistic skill, I have no idea how these
structurally compare to later western counterparts, although looking at
that paper it appears they tended to be quite regional.

Given your ongoing and extensive involvement with this subject, it would
not surprise me if you already knew this.


                 Joel Kovarsky

On 1/15/2014 12:15 PM, Angie Cope, American Geographical Society
Library, UW Milwaukee wrote:
>
> forwarded by Angie
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject:      The decline and fall of the descriptive gazetteer
> Date:         Wed, 15 Jan 2014 16:27:32 +0000
> From:         humphrey <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To:     A forum for issues related to map & spatial data
> librarianship <[log in to unmask]>
> To:   [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
> As some members of this list will know, I am co-editing a book about
> gazetteers, especially future digital gazetteers; but also authoring
> an introductory chapter which looks at the history of gazetteers, a
> surprisingly little explored topic.
>
> Our general point is that, although most people’s idea of a gazetteer
> is simply a list of geographical names each with some kind of
> coordinate and sometime with a simple “feature type”, like
> “settlement” or “mountain”, there is an earlier history of gazetteers
> which provide lengthy descriptions of each place/feature.
>
> We have computerised several of these for our web site, A Vision of
> Britain through Time, and are currently working on tidying up the
> seven-volume "/Gazetteer of the World, or Dictionary of Geographical
> Knowledge,/published by Fullarton's of Edinburgh in 1856; this has
> already been digitised within Google Books, but we are turning it into
> clean database content. We estimate it contains around 80,000 entries
> and 7m words, so the average entry is a couple of sentences, and many
> go on for several pages. Similarly, this “entry” for Edinburgh in
> Groome’s /Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland/ (1882-4) contains over
> 100,000 words:
>
> http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/108700
>
> SUCH BOOKS ARE NOT SO MUCH PLACE DICTIONARIES AS PLACE ENCYCLOPAEDIAS.
> I HAVE BEEN EXPLORING THEIR EARLY HISTORY, BUT THIS POSTING IS TO ASK
> ABOUT THEIR LATER HISTORY, AFTER 1900.
>
> My basic narrative at the moment is that descriptive gazetteers, as
> distinct from itineraries, first appear in the mid to late seventeenth
> century, and the lengthiest examples come from the second half of the
> nineteenth century — but they then pretty much stop — when I have
> looked at the shelves of gazetteers in various libraries I have mainly
> seen books from the 19th century, occasionally earlier.
>
> The exceptions seem to be:
>
> — There are of course lots of atlases which also include a gazetteer
> at the back (but this is about books which are primarily text)
>
> — Bartholomew have kept publishing revised editions of their Gazetteer
> of the British Isles (but that has relatively short entries, so more a
> place dictionary than an encyclopaedia).
>
> — Various guides aimed mainly at tourists are organised as sets of
> alphabetically arranged entries about places, with descriptions; for
> example, various Shell Guides. However, map libraries are less likely
> to hold these.
>
> IS THIS A FAIR NARRATIVE? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BIG DESCRIPTIVE
> GAZETTEERS AFTER 1900?
>
> One suggestion is that they were supplanted by broader encyclopaedias,
> a substantial fraction of whose headwords are typically toponyms. I
> have sometimes suggested that the world’s biggest and most widely used
> digital gazetteer is now Wikipedia; I once sampled 100 randomly
> selected Wikipedia articles, and about 30% had an associated global
> coordinate.
>
> I WOULD BE VERY GRATEFUL FOR ANY THOUGHTS ANYONE HAS. I continue to
> find it bizarre that so much has been written about the history of
> maps and so little about the history of gazetteers and itineraries.
>
> With thanks,
>
> Humphrey Southall
>
> Reader in Geography/
> Director, GB Historical GIS
> University of Portsmouth
> Geography Dept, Buckingham Bldg,
> Lion Terrace, Portsmouth PO1 3HE, UK
> www.gbhgis.org <http://www.gbhgis.org/> & www.visionofbritain.org.uk
> <http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/>
>
>

--
Joel Kovarsky
The Prime Meridian
1839 Clay Dr., Crozet, VA 22932 USA
Phone: 434-823-5696
Email:[log in to unmask]
Website:http://www.theprimemeridian.com





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