Stap isi

9 September 2008

Toponymists get open

An article by Laura Kostanski in the September newsletter of the Australian National Placenames Survey alerts us to the recent upgrade of the VICNAMES website.

VICNAMES is the online Register of Geographic Names in Victoria.

It knows more than 190,000 names for suburbs, localities, towns, cities, regions, lakes, mountains, rivers, roads, reserves and schools.

What’s new?

Historical information on placenames can now be submitted by the public as well as naming authorities.

The stories behind placenames are often of interest to local residents, Local Studies librarians and those researching past residents and other notable people whose names live on in the area.

VICNAMES can capture some of their knowledge as they pass through.

Multiple histories

The website works a little bit like an online encyclopaedia of placenames. Public users can now go to the website and add historical information gathered from books, maps, manuscripts, statues, plaques, oral history sources….the list goes on.

In addition, it is now possible to add historical names to the VICNAMES system, which means you, can add those old town names you find in birth records from the nineteenth century!

As historians we all understand that the facts of the past can often be disputed. The great thing about this website is that it allows for multiple historical records and details to be registered and viewed for each placename. This means that compared to most placenames books previously published you can now see multiple placename translations and meanings at the click of a button.

— Laura Kostanski, Placenames Australia – September 2008  (PDF)

Review

The information design will no doubt evolve over the life of the project and I’m not sure if other machines can hook in and use the data – but it’s still a great initiative.

— b3rn   user generated content   Sep 9, 11:04 PM   #

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