My half-formed idea is very similar to Anne Whisnant’s (not surprising, as we’re working on similar road-related projects!). I’d love to find a way to create a good, clear online map of the whole 140-mile length of Route 2 in Massachusetts, with the potential for adding either a layer or layers for historic maps or just snippets from those. I’m trying to develop a methodology for studying a highway ethnographically (trickier than it sounds) and would like to have this online venue as a kind of “place” that people can go to spark memories and stories of their own as part of my interviewing process, with materials from those interviews and archival research eventually feeding back into the map. I have no idea how to accomplish this! I’ve been thinking of using Prezi as a starting-place, since that will give me a basis for making discrete presentations from this data as I’m building it (and since I really like Prezi). But I’m not sure how to integrate that with a basic (and loooong) map. Looking forward to exploring this and other ideas with you all next week!
#1 by Anne Whisnant on April 1, 2011 - 2:51 pm
Cathy, it will be great to talk about this! I have seen some exciting things done with Google Maps/Earth API to create the kind of thing you are talking about (not that I know, really, how to do it), but we might look at it together: code.google.com/apis/earth/documentation/examples.html
Also, did you see this site dealing with visual depictions of what was there in the past? posterityproject.blogspot.com/2011/04/whatwasthere-maps-your-journey-to-past.html