From Historical Maps to Digital Stories: Georeferencing and Digitizing with AllMaps and Mapwarper
The webinar, titled “From Historical Maps to Digital Stories: Georeferencing and Digitizing with Allmaps and MapWarper,” focused on teaching participants how to take scanned historical maps—such as those from the Library of Congress digital collections—and transform them into interactive, geographically accurate digital formats. The instructor demonstrated three main tools: MapWarper for uploading historical map images and adding control points to rectify them; Allmaps for working with IIIF manifests from digital repositories like Temple University’s library to generate georeferenced annotations and map tiles; and QGIS for further analysis and layering of the georeferenced maps. Throughout the session, attendees actively uploaded test maps (e.g., “Test1,” “Test2,” “Durham, 1951,” and “Thessaloniki”), added control points, and explored export options such as KML files and XYZ tiles, all to turn static historical maps into digital stories.