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PhillyHistory.org

Yeah! for History and GIS: PhillyHistory Receives a 2011 Award of Merit

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We’re excited to announce that the Philadelphia Department of Records has been awarded a 2011 Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) for their PhillyHistory.org project.

Now in its 66th year, the Leadership in History Awards from AASLH are awarded annually for projects that demonstrate excellence in the collection, preservation, and interpretation of state and local history.

Have you ever wondered what your neighborhood or your house looked like 50 or 70 years go?  The photographs and maps on PhillyHistory.org enable you to discover more about the history of Philadelphia and its many neighborhoods and communities.  Take a stroll down memory lane at: http://www.phillyhistory.org/

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PhillyHistory.org Augmented Reality App Now Available for Android

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Visitors to Philadelphia now have an opportunity to view the city in a completely new way.  Ever wondered what Market Street looked like in the 1800s?  Curious as to how Broad Street has changed over time?   Finding the answers to those questions is a bit easier thanks to the newly released Augmented Reality by PhillyHistory.org application!

The opening screen of the application provides options for launching the images, viewing the credits for the project, or finding info on using the app via the help page.

The PhillyHistory.org AR app is now available for free download in the Android Market (simply search PhillyHistory.org).  Download the app to gain access to nearly 90,000 historic images from the PhillyHistory.org database via your smartphone.  Choose to view the whole collection or a select 500 images chosen by the PhillyHistory.org team.  These images have been more accurately “pinned” in space and use absolute rotation so that they appear overlayed on the current urban landscape.  After downloading, you can also read more about the project on the credits page or get additional info on the help page.

As we mentioned in the last Azavea Journal the AR project is funded by an NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant awarded to the Philadelphia Department of Records to research augmented reality technology.  While the initial grant stated that we would provide AR access to 500 images, we chose to make the whole collection (with the exceptions of maps and images without locations) available in the app.  We’ve also collaborated with the editors of the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia and Dr. Amy Hillier from the University of Pennsylvania to provide added contextual information for twenty of the images.  The result is a layered experience that provides access to a variety of historical images at locations around the city.

The PhillyHistory.org AR app is built on Layar, a mobile augmented reality platform developed by a company located  in the Netherlands.

Three icons indicate the different types of images available in the app.

If you do not already have Layar downloaded to your phone (a free download), the app will prompt you to download the platform.  While this platform gave us a great starting framework, we also conducted some significant research of our own in a variety of AR-related areas including building data services and placing 2D photos in 3D space.

We’ve been documenting our research on the Azavea Atlas and Azavea Labs blogs and will also be producing a white paper with more information on our development process and research findings.  You can sign up to receive that white paper at www.azavea.com/augmented-reality.

The Augmented Reality by PhillyHistory.org application is currently available in the Android Market at no cost with Apple iPhone access coming soon.  Let us know what you think!

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Augmented Reality: PhillyHistory.org Meets the 21st Century

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ARPhoto

An artist’s interpretation of the PhillyHistory.org augmented reality application.

As we announced recently in the Azavea Atlas blog, we’re currently hard at work investigating mobile augmented reality and its use with historical photographs.  The Philadelphia Department of Records recently won an NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant to research augmented reality (AR) technology and create a smartphone prototype that will enable users, via their smartphones, to view historic photographs from PhillyHistory.org as overlays on the current landscape.  If the research proved successful, users would be able to point their smartphones, using the camera view, at a building or other location and see historic images of that same location.  The photos would be accompanied by descriptive information from PhillyHistory.org with additional explanatory text provided by local historians.  This combination of technology and history could be a powerful tool for showing the lengthy and interesting history of Philadelphia.

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Software developer Erik Osheim gives us a peek into the initial design for the application.

But how to make it happen? Intended to fund research into innovative uses of technology in the humanities, a Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant was a great way for the Department of Records to experiment with augmented reality.  Would AR be a useful method for showing the history of Philadelphia and enabling users to see the connections between the past and the present?  Is AR technology advanced enough to make this type of application possible?  Can the historic images really be represented as overlays (i.e. 3-D objects pinned in space)?  Would the screen size of a mobile device be too small to properly display an image and text?  Are smartphone networks fast enough to load all this information?  Would the phone be able to pinpoint a user’s location accurately enough to load images of that location even in a crowded urban setting where GPS coordinates can be incorrect?  Would this work? If we build it, will anyone actually use it?

The grant gave the Department of Records and Azavea a chance to discover the answers to these and other questions while making use of the wealth of resources available on PhillyHistory.org.  The website currently features over 93,000 historic images and maps from five Philadelphia organizations, giving us plenty of materials to use in the project.  We’re excited to be working with the Department of Records on this project and are learning much about iPhones, Android phones,  Layar, gyroscopes, and everything else involved with mobile augmented reality technology.  Our research findings will be published in a whitepaper to be available for free download later this spring.

Experimenting with the prototype application

While the grant only called for research into a prototype, we believe that we will be able to release an application for public use.  The completed Augmented Reality by PhillyHistory.org application will be available at no cost for both iPhone and phones running the Android platform.

While the application is still in development, we’re hoping to have it ready for release in the next couple months.  Until then, visit Azavea Labs to read more about the development process or Azavea Atlas to learn about other augmented reality projects in museums around the world.

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PhillyHistory.org Adds Historic Images from the Free Library of Philadelphia

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PhillyHistory.org, the Philadelphia Department of Records’ historic photo and map website powered by our Sajara product, now features two new groups of images from the collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

The Historical Images of Philadelphia collection includes over 170 photos taken throughout the city during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. With images of everything from Memorial Hall to the hand and torch of the Statue of Liberty, the Centennial Exhibition collection contains 1,600 beautiful photographs documenting America’s celebration of 100 years of history and progress.

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Since the geographic search option on PhillyHistory.org is such a popular feature, we wanted to geocode the Free Library images as well. This proved to not be so straightforward for the Centennial images. The exhibition was located in Fairmount Park, an area that has changed dramatically since 1876. To find the coordinates of the original locations of the Centennial buildings, we needed to georeference an historic map of the Centennial grounds. By overlaying the historic map with a current street map in ESRI’s ArcGIS and finding a few buildings and intersections that still existed to serve as anchor points, we were able to create a new image that showed the locations of the historic buildings. We then found the coordinates for specific buildings and used them to geocode photos of those buildings, making the images searchable by location.

Including collections from multiple organizations in the system is something that we’ve always hoped to be able to do. When PhillyHistory.org first debuted, it contained a few thousand images from the collection of the Philadelphia City Archives. Over the next couple years, the Philadelphia Water Department contributed 1,500 historic images, the Department of Records provided 4,800 property maps, and the Free Library added nearly 200 historic maps dating from the 1850s and 1860s. The addition of the Free Library images provides PhillyHistory.org users with even greater access to the historical resources of the city.

Of course, including the collections of various organizations in a single database is not as easy as signing an agreement and uploading some images. Institutions have different needs ranging from collection size to collection management processes to available metadata. We built Sajara, our geographic digital collection management system, to accommodate these different needs by a series of features that enable watermarks, metadata and activation of features (like commenting, photo print sales, licensing, etc.) to be configured on a collection-by-collection basis.  Web-access prevents the necessity of installing software at different offices, and a system of roles and levels of access ensures that while multiple organizations may have their data in the same database, they have the ability to manage only their own collections.

The result is a database that enables several organizations to pool their resources and increase public access to their collections. Rather than switching from website to website, users can visit PhillyHistory.org to view amazing images and maps from three separate organizations. And we are now working with additional institutions to add their images in the future.

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Sajara Adds Public Commenting Feature

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sajara_bigWhen we first began developing Sajara to power PhillyHistory.org, we thought that people would be pretty excited to search through thousands of previously inaccessible photos of Philadelphia.

“Pretty excited” turned out to be an understatement. People loved that they could use Sajara’s geographic search feature to locate historic photos of their neighborhoods. We began receiving wonderful comments and stories from PhillyHistory.org users.

We loved hearing the stories but unfortunately did not have an easy way for users to share their comments with the larger PhillyHistory community. We decided to remedy the problem by adding a new feature to Sajara – a public commenting panel.

New Sajara commenting feature in use on PhillyHistory.org

New Sajara commenting panel in use on PhillyHistory.org

Enabled on a collection basis, commenting provides a way for the public to share information or opinions about an image with other users via a comment page on the detail view for each photo.  After creating an account with PhillyHistory.org, users can leave comments about the image, respond to comments left by other users, or report abusive comments.  A user’s comment is associated with their user name, and each user name is linked to a public profile for that user.  While a user’s comments are shown by default on their user page, the user can also choose to display their favorite photos, bookmarked searches, and personal information such as a biography or website.  In addition, a user can also sign up to receive other users’ future comments via an RSS feed.

Actually implementing the commenting system turned out to be somewhat complicated.  There are a few different ways to organize comments, including a flat list that shows comments in the order they were entered and a nested tree that shows all the relationships between comments and responses to comments.  Getting it right means understanding your audience.  Our approach with the Sajara software organizes comments into single-tier threads so that users can see simple conversations but not get lost sorting through which ones relate to others.

Sajara commenting feature in the sample Japanese Garden website

Sajara commenting feature in the Japanese Gardens of the World sample application of the Sajara software

Commenting systems require quite a lot of ongoing management as well.  Some comments will need reviewing for various reasons, which, on a high volume site, can be an overwhelming task.  Included in the Sajara commenting system are a set of tools that allow the site’s administrators to easily review and handle all the site’s comments.

The public commenting feature is currently available on PhillyHistory.org and Japanese Gardens of the World, the Sajara sample application, and is an optional feature for future Sajara implementations.

Big Map search in the new version of Sajara

Big Map search window in the new version of Sajara

Oh! … and by the way, have you seen the new ‘Big Map’ search window we implemented in PhillyHistory.org (also a new option in Sajara)?  The map view search page features a nearly full screen map with thumbnails of the images displayed along the bottom of the screen.  Flags on the map correspond with each thumbnail, indicating where the photo was taken.  All the original search filters (address, keyword, topics, dates, and more) are still available at the top of the map under the ‘Search By’ menu.

Check both new features out and let us know what you think!

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PhillyHistory.org Makes it to the iPhone

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"We've recently decided to make some inroads to learning about and implementing mobile phone technology for several of our software applications."
Left to Right: PhillyHistory as seen on an iPhone; detail view of an historic photo; map view of historic photo search.

An increasingly hot topic in technology lately is that of mobile versions of web applications. It seems that everyone is carrying a BlackBerry, SmartPhone, or iPhone these days, and wants to be able to access all their information on the go. In response to this trend, we’ve recently decided to make an investment in learning about and implementing mobile phone technology for several of our software applications. I recently attended a workshop on iPhone development at the 2009 Museums and the Web conference, and decided that working on an iPhone-specific application would be a great way to get started. We decided to start with the Sajara-enabled PhillyHistory.org site.

Basically, developing for iPhone can take one of three forms:

  • Adjust an existing site. Essentially, you simply need to make sure that your current site looks good on the iPhone.
  • Create an iPhone specific web application. Create a new web application, but tailor it visually and functionally to the iPhone’s layout and interface.
  • Create an iPhone application. Write a full application (in the Objective-C programming language) and publish it through the App Store.

Each option has its advantages and disadvantages, but we decided to go with the second option, since it allows us to have a very sleek interface, without the difficulty of rewriting the application in a new language and the overhead of publishing it to the Apple Store. The main disadvantage to creating a full iPhone application is that it means that we won’t have access to the iPhone’s location SDK.

Once we chose a development route, we needed to start thinking about the user interface from a functional standpoint. I first decided to remove some of the more advanced features (such as keyword and topic searching) of the PhillyHistory site, and focus on what Sajara does best: geography-based searching. iPhone UI design generally follows a simple ‘screen-per-function’ guideline, so I decided to include three ways of accessing a geographic search: by neighborhood, by text location, or directly by map interaction.

All three tasks eventually take the user to a map view, which includes the Sajara geographically-based asset search, and shows markers for the results. The map view uses the OpenLayers API for displaying the map and markers, with some hacks and modifications for allowing the user to more easily drag the map around and zoom in and out on the iPhone. Each time the user pans or zooms the map, the new map extents are used to request a new search. Since I was mostly focusing on the redesign of the user interface, I left the logic behind the search mechanism unchanged from the logic that runs the full PhillyHistory site.

From the map, a user can select one of the markers to get the details for that asset. This screen shows the asset’s image, title, date, and other related data.

Developing the Sajara iPhone web application was fairly simple from a technical perspective. The constraints of having a small screen and keeping a touch interface in mind did make the project interesting. Additionally, one of the big advantages of developing a web app for the iPhone is that there is only one target platform, which greatly simplifies testing.

We look forward to continuing to brainstorm about possible ‘next steps’ in expanding our collection of mobile Sajara apps (and beyond). The next steps for this application and research, specific to Sajara, might include:

  • Enhancing the map interface to allow for pinch zooming
  • Supporting other devices, e.g. BlackBerry
  • Allow other types of searching (keyword, year range, etc.)

To experience the PhillyHistory iPhone app, please go to http://www.phillyhistory.org/i

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Puzzle: What the Heck Is … That Photo!?

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Photo used courtesy of the City of Philadelphia’s Water Department. www.phillyhistory.org

Occasionally, as the PhillyHistory.org team is posting historic photographs to PhillyHistory.org (from the Philadelphia Department of Records’ City Archives collection or the recently added Philadelphia Water Department collection), we come across some beautiful, bizarre, and sometimes inexplicable images. The photograph above is a great example of one of these discoveries.

This month’s puzzle is a bit different from our typical newsletter puzzles. We’re asking you to awaken the right side of your brain and come up with a creative caption describing what you think might be happening in the above photograph.

Head to www.phillyhistory.org to explore the photo collections of the City of Philadelphia Department of Records‘ City Archives and of the Philadelphia Water Department.

Send your caption to info@azavea.com. The winner (chosen by the super-saavy PhillyHistory.org team) will receive a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble! The winning caption will also be published in our next newsletter.

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Sajara Now Supports Maps and Its Mapping Interface Has Gone Through An Extreme Makeover

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"Our first goal for the re-design of the PhillyHistory.org search page was to bring [location-based searches] into focus by giving [them] the place of honor at the top of the search options."

One of the difficulties a software developer faces in designing a complex web page is the user interface. Striking a balance between advanced functionality and ease-of-use is a challenge for even the most seasoned designer. Understanding how a user will approach and utilize the page will often determine where certain page elements are located and how they appear; and watching real users use the page is a rare treat. We recently had an opportunity to observe new users work with the PhillyHistory.org search page and made an important discovery. Our most powerful search options – location and address-based searches — were often not being used effectively! Sajara is designed so that the address search option can match street addresses or intersections to map coordinates, automatically move the map to that location, and return assets in the area; all with one click. Our first goal for the re-design of the PhillyHistory.org’s search page was to bring this powerful tool into focus by giving it the place of honor at the top of the search options.

Beyond the fairly simple task of re-ordering search options, we are also excited to launch a new function in Sajara that enables the upload, management, and search of a whole new class of documents: maps. In the new version of Sajara, searching for maps is as simple as searching for photographs and other documents. Simply use the search options or the map to limit your search to a place, subject or time, and use the new tabs to view either photographs or maps. While PhillyHistory.org currently holds 5,000 maps, our archivists will be adding more each week along with new photographs to enrich PhillyHistory.org’s view into the city’s past.

Most importantly, in order to enhance users’ experience on the site, especially with the map search functions, we decided to entirely re-design the search page using OpenLayers and Ext JS. OpenLayers is an open source JavaScript library that enables ‘slippy maps’ to be embedded in any web application. OpenLayers allows communication with most standards-compliant web map services such as ESRI’s ArcIMS, ArcGIS Server and GeoServer, as well as other sources such as GoogleMaps. As an open source framework, OpenLayers separates map tools from map data and enables developers to include layers from several different sources in the same map. Ext JS is a visual framework which offers customizable website pieces (or widgets) that can be easily added, updated, and changed to fit a website’s design.

Shifting PhillyHistory.org from a Microsoft ASP.NET – only framework to one powered by not only ASP.NET but OpenLayers and Ext JS as well, was not a completely smooth affair. Several of the bumps in the road came from learning how to use OpenLayers and Ext JS effectively. While both are written using JavaScript objects, each has its own methods to drive its functionality. Getting a handle on a new framework involves learning how different objects are connected, how they communicate and how to get them to perform at their best. But the result is stunning, smooth, and allows for easy-to-use functionalities. Let us know what you think!

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Puzzle: PhillyHistory – Explore Historic Maps of Philadelphia

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Azavea is excited to introduce a brand new search page for Sajara and the addition of 5,000 maps to PhillyHistory.org. In honor of the new maps (and just because we love all things geographical), get your map and street finding skills ready for this month’s puzzle!

1. PhillyHistory.org features a volume of the historical Hexamer & Locher maps courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia and the digital scanning center at the Philadelphia Athenaeum. Head to www.phillyhistory.org and search for the intersection of 4th Street and Market Street. Find the Hexamer & Locher Plate 11A map from 1860.

What is the name of the street that used to connect 4th Street and 5th Street just south of Market Street? Hint: It’s also a synonym for a businessperson.

2. Although that street existed in 1860, records show that its name changed. Head to the DOR Historic Streets Index and search for the name of the street. The section of this street from 4th Street to 5th Street just south of Market Street had a name change recorded in 1897.

What was the new name of the street? Hint: It still exists in that location under that name.

3. Since 1895, a landmark Philadelphia building has sat in this same area from 4th to 5th Street just south of Market. On PhillyHistory.org, enter the intersection of 4th Street and the street you found in #2 to find a photo of this building on the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the name of the building located at the intersection? Hint: A food court is now located in this building.

Be the first to send an email with all three correct answers to info@azavea.com and we will send you a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble!

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‘Googling’ Sajara: How Sajara Uses Google Earth and Google Maps … O’Reilly Radar calls it “fantastic”

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"... you can now fly through a 3D version of downtown Philadelphia, clicking on historic photos and displaying them in Google Earth."


The image above shows the results for geocoded historic photos from PhillyHistory.org found in Center City. The results are displayed in Google Earth.

Since their introduction in 2005, Google Maps and Google Earth have transformed the geospatial software world. Google Maps introduced a game-like, ‘slippy’ map interface that was simple and intuitive. Subsequent releases have added traffic, terrain, street-level photography, and a mapping toolkit that enable you to add maps to your web site. The Javascript-based Google Maps API lent itself to being combined with other web API’s and resulted in thousands of ‘mashups’ that displayed data on a Google Maps base map.

Google Earth, a technology Google acquired when it purchased Keyhole Corporation, is a software application that you download and install on your computer. It provides satellite and aerial imagery in a 3D environment. More important for folks like us, it supports KML (Keyhole Markup Language). KML enables us to add new data and display it in Google Earth.

We thought these Google tools were pretty neat, and we are always looking for ways to add cool new features to our projects and solutions. So in August, we added an RSS publication feature to our Sajara product, which runs the PhillyHistory web site. What’s RSS? It’s another web standard that is typically used by newspapers and blogs to provide syndication of articles. That sounds like publishing, so you might ask why we put RSS in a GIS product. Well, we had requests from PhillyHistory visitors to be able to save their searches and also be able to monitor when new photos were added to their area of the city. We thought that if every search could be turned into an RSS feed, then people would be able to use the RSS readers that are built into the Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers to monitor when the photos in their area of interest are changing. But we then went one step further and added the latitude and longitude coordinates of each photo with a GeoRSS tag. GeoRSS is simple but powerful. And it’s supported by Google Maps, so you can now take a PhillyHistory search and paste it into a Google Maps search box and see the historic photos in Google Maps.

In October, we added Google Earth support to Sajara as well. Assets stored in a Sajara database can now be displayed in Google Earth three different ways. First, every photo with a location now has a button that says ‘Show in Google Earth’. Second, the first 100 records of any search can be shown as a group. Finally, we just added a feature whereby an entire collection can be displayed in Google Earth. For the PhillyHistory project, with more than 48,000 photos — and counting — it’s a pretty dense set of imagery, but you can now fly through a 3D version of downtown Philadelphia, clicking on historic photos and displaying them in Google Earth.

Peter Brantley in his recent “Mapping Philly” article in O’Reilly Radar, calls this latest feature “fantastic” … well, we couldn’t agree more. What a stunning cyber trip in history indeed!

Have you got ideas about how we can integrate our work with other internet sites? Let us know and we’ll see what we can do!

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A Historic Puzzle!

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A famous female aviator who later mysteriously disappeared in the Pacific Ocean was photographed upon her arrival at the Philadelphia airport.

1. Do a “Keyword” search on PhillyHistory using the name of the aviator to find the photograph of her in Philadelphia (hint: her first name was Amelia). What year was she photographed at the Philadelphia airport?

2. In the year this aviator arrived in Philadelphia, travel by airplane was still a unique and exciting experience. Philadelphians used the subway as one form of transportation to make their way around the city. Do a “Keyword” search using the word “subway” and a “Time Period” search using the answer from question #1 to find a photograph of where some of the subway cars were stored. What was the name of the subway yard? Hint: It’s still in use as a transportation center today.

3. After setting many aviation records, the female pilot disappeared during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe. What year did she disappear? Using PhillyHistory, find a photograph from that year and tell us why it is your favorite.

Be the first to send an email with all three correct answers to info@azavea.com and we will send you a $20 gift card to Barnes & Noble!

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PhillyHistory Mobile Version Released: Carry Philly in Your Pocket and Become a History Sleuth!

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"... it can be adapted to virtually any historic, cultural or commercial asset."

We have just launched the mobile version of PhillyHistory. It is now accessible from most cell phones, handheld computers and other mobile devices enabling anyone to search the more than 45,000 historic photos currently on the PhillyHistory site at anytime and from anywhere.

PhillyHistory Mobile can serve pedestrians and visitors curious to see what their surroundings used to look like; organizers of historic tours; and teachers who are interested in making their history curricula more interactive. It has a simple search screen in which you can enter an address or intersection of nearby historic or cultural sites. The resulting display returns a map of the area showing coordinates for various historic and cultural assets in close proximity, accompanied by photos of those assets.

This innovative mobile website leverages Sajara, our web-based digital asset management software. It was built on ESRI’s ArcGIS server technology and ASP.NET 2.0 Mobile Controls. The greatest advantage of Sajara is that it can be adapted to virtually any historic, cultural or commercial asset. It can be applied to cultural resources of any kind (murals, architectural assets, and paintings), tours, real estate, the restaurant industry, and environmental information.

The mobile website has been tested for browsers on various devices using device emulators including the Pocket PC, Openwave, Sony Ericsson and many more. It’s designed to work on phones with Internet browsers that support wml, html or xhtml.

PhillyHistory Mobile is an extension of PhillyHistory.org, developed by Azavea in 2004 to help the City Archives preserve its deteriorating and aging photographic memories, PhillyHistory.org attracts thousands of unique visitors each month. Its e-commerce module supports funding of the project and creates revenue through the sale of prints and digital photos. New images from the City Archives’ estimated two million photos are uploaded and viewable from both PhillyHistory media at a rate of two thousand per month. And now you can take a mobile tour of Philadelphia’s past from a handheld computer or other mobile device, visit mobile.phillyhistory.org and enjoy your ride on what Philadelphia Magazine has called “your own flux-capacitor-fueled DeLorean”!

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PhillyHistory.org Resonates with Thousands of Philadelphians and Gets its own Exhibit

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"This site is one of the most terrific things I've seen out of those who care about the history of this city." PhillyHistory.org user

PhillyHistory.org did it again! People are going nuts over it. It even received at Best of Philly! 2007 Award for best local website.

On top of that, Azavea, the City of Philadelphia Department of Records, and The Art Institute of Philadelphia partnered to organize an exhibit of more than 80 photos from the site. From images of trade, commerce, education, municipal services, arts and entertainment to photos of men and women actually building the city, the exhibit reflects the vitality, vibrancy and development of Philadelphia over the past 150 years. Images dating from the late 1800s, some never before seen by the public, are on display. “Philadelphia Stories: The Building of a Great American City” is free and located at the Art Institute’s 1622 Chestnut Street gallery until August 31.

Local press and TV covered the event heavily, which attracted droves of people to the gallery. Visitors were mesmerized, amused and moved by photos as varied as that of the “Rat Patrol”, the site of City Hall without the iconic building on it, men building the sewer system in mud up to their eye brows, and a worker seated next to William Penn’s head before the statue was lifted on top of City Hall.


Commissioner Joan Decker


Rachel Cheetham-Richard and Governor Rendell

In her address, Commissioner Joan Decker said: “Voices and stories  of the Philadelphians who helped shape our city can be heard through these images. It is our hope that it will inspire more Philadelphians to explore this historical treasure-trove and offers glimpses of both the heroic, tragic and everyday facets of the city’s long and rich history.”

Governor Rendell stopped by the exhibit opening reception on August 2 and picked two photos of the construction of City Hall as his favorites. Between a few hand shakes and camera flashes, he even took the time to chat about the project with us!

PhillyHistory.org is powered by Sajara. Stay tuned for next issue’s news about a mobile version of the software!

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Azavea Releases a New Version of PhillyHistory.org, Powered by Sajara

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"...the Philadelphia Department of Records has demonstrated vision and commitment towards the preservation ... of its photo archives."

We are happy to announce the release of Sajara, a web-based, geographic digital asset management software, and the subsequent release of a new and improved version of PhillyHistory.org, powered by Sajara.

Philadelphia’s City Archives, managed by the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Records (DoR), contains an estimated 2 million photographs, some dating back to the 1860s. In 2004, the DoR partnered with Azavea to develop PhillyHistory.org. The development of PhillyHistory.org was motivated by the DoR’s desire to create a web-based system for managing and preserving the City Archives’ extensive collection of photographic assets while simultaneously making them more readily available to the public at large and becoming a revenue generator for the City. Among many other powerful capabilities, the new version of PhillyHistory.org includes features that enable multiple organizations to contribute material to a single shared system, improved search features and support for other media, such as recordings, drawings, music, etc.
— Read the 5/9/07 Philadelphia Inquirer article about the project, including a “Now and Then” slide show —

In the past few years, many archives, libraries, and special collections have begun digitizing their contents and making them available to the public on the web and most of these support searches via keyword, topic or date. As the world of digital information becomes more accepted as a legitimate source for academic, genealogical, and public user research, the demand for publicly accessible data rises and so does the need for comprehensive digital asset management (DAM) applications that have both a web and a collection management interface. While many DAM applications exist, few offer the ability to search for images based on location. Sajara adds this geographic dimension, enabling search by address, intersection, place name, and neighborhood.

While a recent New York Times article by Katie Hafner noted that “for every letter from Abraham Lincoln to William Seward that can be found online, millions of documents … will never be digitized,”1 the Philadelphia Department of Records has demonstrated vision and commitment towards the preservation and accessibility of its photo archives. It is our hope that Sajara, by making digital asset management, preservation, and accessibility easier and more flexible will assist other archival organizations, especially if their assets are location-based or geographic in nature.

Sajara is built using software from Azavea’s business partner, ESRI whose ArcGIS Server and ArcIMS products are used for map generation.

Visit the new PhillyHistory.org and read more about our Sajara software.

1 Hafner, Katie. “History, Digitized (and Abridged).” New York Times. 11 March, 2007.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/business/yourmoney/11archive.html?

ex=1331179200&en=1b38c43bcbe04b6b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

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Azavea Research: Historic Geocoder

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This photo states that it was taken in 1894 at the NW corner of 15th and Pennsylvania Ave.
In 1895 Pennsylvania Ave. ran along the railroad tracks that are now between Hamilton and Callowhill.
That intersection no longer exists, as Pennsylvania Ave. now ends around the intersection of 22nd and Hamilton.
We have the photo geocoded as 15th and Hamilton as that is the current address for the same location.

Most people have experienced typing an address, intersection, or other location description into an online application which then converts it into coordinates that can be used to pinpoint the location on a map. This is the part of the process called “geocoding”.

Creating geocoding software is almost never a simple process. The more variables involved in the software, the more complex the geocoding process becomes. One of these variables is time and the change of place names over time. In our spare time we have been developing an application called a Historic Geocoder, through which we aim to address the difficulties of geocoding historic pieces of information with a ‘current’ set of location data.

A good example of an Azavea application that uses geocoding is PhillyHistory.org, a publicly accessible site run by the City of Philadelphia Department of Records and City Archives. The site is a searchable collection of some of the approximately 2 million historic photos stored in the City Archives. A unique feature of the site is that a visitor can search by a current address and find pictures near that address.

Over the years the City photographers have documented the location of each photograph by using addresses. However, the catch is that sometimes street names change. When this happens, a historic photograph with a location description that has since changed is geocoded to the wrong coordinate location or cannot be geocoded at all.

Our Historic Geocoder research project consists of three parts: a) a record of street name changes; b) a database of street segment changes; and c) software to enable time-based geocoding.

By recording not only where current streets are and what they are named, but also where streets were in the past and what they used to be called, the Historic Geocoder will provide us with the ability to geocode based on both space and time. Instead of only entering a location, a user will be able to enter a location and a date and the system then locates where the historic address was during that time period on a current map.

Historic photos are not the only records with potential historic address problems. Surveys, censuses, and legal records all use addresses to describe locations. Being able to geocode these locations with relation to time is a very important first step towards the analysis of these data. Through our R&D work on a Historic Geocoder, we hope to make it possible to more accurately assign locations for historic data.

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Photo Contest

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Over the past several months we’ve introduced you to PhillyHistory.org, an engaging website Azavea created for the City of Philadelphia Department of Records (DOR). The city archives house over 2 million photographs, dating back to the late nineteenth century. The DOR came to Azavea, seeking a way to digitize, organize and store this historic collection. PhillyHistory.org allows users to search for images by location, address, keyword, or date, and purchase these photographs.

As we continue to unearth the fascinating photos stored in the city archives we look for opportunities to share them with you. Explore the website and be the first to answer the questions below to win a $25 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble. Send your answers to info@azavea.com.

PhillyHistory Quiz
What famous opera house opened in 1870 in Philadelphia, became a burlesque theater in the 1940s and today attracts a much different music-loving crowd?

A. Do a Phillyhistory ‘keyword’ search under the theater’s modern name and look for a picture of the interior of the theater. What is the the word painted upside down on the ceiling?

B. What guest band played at that theatre on New Year’s Eve, 2006 (Azavea is proud to have added this band to our office music playlist)?

C. List the name of two of the acts (found on posters outside the theater) in the theater’s ‘seedier’ days.

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PhillyHistory.org “Guess That Photo!”

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Week after week Azavea interns continue to unearth striking photographs from the Philadelphia Department of Record’s City Archives and post them to PhillyHistory.org. The photographs cover over 150 years of Philadelphia history and range in topic from waterways and transportation to architecture and education. Can you guess the Philadelphia location, year the photograph was taken, and the activity taking place in this photograph from PhillyHistory.org? Be the first to send an email to info@azavea.com, with all three correct answers and you will win a $25 gift card to Borders.

Continue your visit of the streets of Philadelphia at the Atwater Kent Museum.


Don’t miss…
How Philly Works: Streets as Barometers of Urban Life
October 6, 2006 – September, 2007

How Philly Works: Streets as Barometers of Urban Life includes paintings, photographs, prints, objects and documents, using William Penn’s vision for Philadelphia to explore street activity over 300 years. Drawn almost exclusively from the City Records Department, individual City Departments and the Atwater Kent Museum, the exhibition showcases the recent program of the Records Department to make its holdings available on the Internet. The exhibition features the Philadelphia City Charter, drafted by Penn in 1701, the wampum belt believed to have been given to Penn by the Lenape tribe, a waywiser from 1750 used to measure consistent city blocks, historic regulatory measures from the Department of Licenses and Inspections, and police paraphernalia from the late 1800s. How Philly Works will be on exhibition until September, 2007.

Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia is at 15 South 7th Street, one block west of Independence Hall, between Market and Chestnut Street. It is open for general admission Wednesday-Sunday from 1-5 p.m. School and group tours are scheduled everyday from 10:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m. Admission is: adults, $5; seniors and children 13-17, $3; members and children 12 and under, free. The Museum Store is open Monday and Tuesday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Wednesday through Sunday from 1-5 p.m.

For program information call 215.685.4830 or visit www.philadelphiahistory.org.

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PhillyHistory.org Launches New Blog

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Need a new blog to add to your favorites’ list? Each week Azavea interns highlight discoveries from the Philadelphia Department of Record’s PhillyHistory.org website in a new blog located at www.phillyhistory.org/blog. The blog contains weekly articles that bring alive photographs that showcase Philadelphia’s rich social and cultural history. They narrate the stories that lie behind these fascinating photographs, providing those interested with links to further resources. You can read entries from the blog, which was recently featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer Online, at www.phillyhistory.org/blog.

Azavea has been working in collaboration with the Philadelphia Department of Records developing the PhillyHistory.org website. The site includes a growing database of over 50,000 historic records, of which more than 15,000 have scanned images. The site’s GIS functionality enables users to locate photographs within a certain neighborhood, within a radius of an address, near a particular intersection, or by a place name like “City Hall.” One of the most important aspects of historical preservation is fostering interest in our past. Philadelphia is one of the most historic cities in the country, and we are proud to lend a hand in preserving its history for the enjoyment of generations to come.

Recognize the header image?  The photo is from the www.phillyhistory.org website, taken in December 1906, the photography was titled ‘Compulsory Education-Newsboy.’ To read more about the image, check out the PhillyHistory.org blog, click here. You can also buy historic Philadelphia photographs taken since 1890 online at www.phillyhistory.org.

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