Historic Map Explorer - we're going to lose it

[bugbear]

Some of you may have used the wonderful historic map explorer

http://www.historic-maps.norfolk.gov.uk/mapexplorer/

which allows you to view several historic map sets overlaid on a modern OS
map. It's brilliant!

It also runs under Adobe flash. Herewith a two part email exchange with
the Norfolk Record Office.

Most browsers are phasing out support for Adobe Flash, since it
is a security risk.

http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/computing/software/could-it-be-the-end-of-the-road-for-adobe-flash-find-out-about-the-security-risks-and-what-you-should-do-about-it-11364012393659

Do you have plans in hand to migrate your (wonderful!!!) map data
to a new viewer?


Dear Mr <REDACTED>,

The Historic Maps Explorer website was established by Norfolk County Council's former Cultural Services Department  to display maps and aerial photographs held by Libraries, Museums, and the Record Office in Norfolk. The website was supported by Cultural Services' ICT. Several years ago Cultural Services was subsumed within a new Community Services Department, which encompasses many other functions of the Council, and we no longer have dedicated ICT support for this joint project, so I am afraid there are no plans as far as I know to migrate the data to a new viewer.

With best wishes,

<REDACTED>

<REDACTED>, Senior Archivist
Norfolk Record Office, The Archive Centre, Martineau Lane, Norwich, Norfolk, NR1 2DQ

Time for a bit of campaigning? It's incredibly wasteful; most of the work would have been to do with getting all the old data scanned and GPS correlated.

It's clear that software other than Adobe Flash can do this, because of the NLS site, which does the same scroll/zoom/layering thing.

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#

   BugBear

[Ruskie]

I haven't seen that map explorer before bugbear, so am unsure of how it compares, but the NLS maps may go some way to filling in the gap.

There are various ways to search, including side by side (compare old with new maps):
http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sidebyside.cfm#zoom=14&lat=52.6332&lon=1.2958&layers=171&right=BingHyb

and georeferenced (which has an overlay feature - use blue slider button to vary transparency):
http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#

The pulldown menu on the left allows you to select different map series (though some are not very detailed or useful).

Added: the tithe maps are brilliant 

[bugbear]

Yes, NLS has all the FEATURES you'd want.

But the Norfolk one has the DATA I (we?) want.

 BugBear

[bugbear]

Added: the tithe maps are brilliant 

The 1946 aerial imagery is pretty cool too. I don't want to lose it.

 BugBear