SBIR Phase I: Temporal Geocoder: A Collaborative Software Tool for Connecting Historical Materials with Contemporary Place

这项创新是一种构建、收集和使用历史地理空间数据的新方法，可以为历史文献中出现的文本描述快速分配地理位置。 地理空间位置是大多数文档的关键要素，历史档案也不例外。 地理编码（将坐标分配给地理参考）是实现历史数据库地理搜索所需的关键任务。虽然地理编码技术不断进步，但当前的数字地图系统侧重于当代位置参考，而城市规模的时间地理编码器尚未开发。 此类服务不仅可以输入地址、交叉路口或地名，还可以输入时间段，即使街道名称和其他参考信息多年来发生变化，也能准确识别其在城市景观中的当代位置。 将开发新的数据库结构和处理算法，将任何记录时间段的街道地址转换为当代地理坐标。 协作数据收集和质量评估工具将使不同地点的具有不同技能的个人能够更新、编辑和完善将填充数据库的历史地理和时间数据。更广泛/商业的影响是开发具有时间功能的地理数据库，该数据库将支持新的和更有效地使用历史数据进行公共卫生、政治学、犯罪学、社会科学、家谱学和任何其他过去和现在之间的联系很重要的学科的研究。随着时间的推移，我们城市的街道名称、地名和寻址系统发生了很大的变化。 特别是城市地理的动态性质长期以来一直是使用历史名录、财产契约、地图集和其他档案材料作为理解地理位置与人类状况之间关系的手段的障碍。虽然当前的商业和开源地理编码器可以帮助研究人员了解当代景观，但在特定时间用地理位置标记文档的能力将通过将数字学术和研究带入基本上尚未开发的档案馆来解锁人类知识的全新维度。 除了生成有关过去的新知识之外，用于创建、维护、访问和查看时态地理数据的协作平台也是一个重要的商机。 最初的项目将重点关注费城，但最终的框架将适用于世界任何地方。

The innovation is a new approach to structuring, collecting and using historical geospatial data that will make it possible to rapidly assign a geographic location for text descriptions appearing in historic documents. Geospatial location is a critical element of most documents, and historical archives are no exception. Geocoding, the assignment of coordinates to a geographic reference, is the key task required to enable geographic searching of historical databases. While geocoding technology has continued to advance, current digital mapping systems focus on contemporary location references, and an urban scale temporal geocoder has yet to be developed. Such a service would take not only an address, intersection or place name as an input but also a time period, enabling accurate identification of its contemporary location on the urban landscape even when street names and other reference information have changed over the years. New database structures and processing algorithms will be developed that translate street addresses from any documented time period into contemporary geographic coordinates. Collaborative data collection and quality assessment tools will enable individuals with varying skillsets across diverse locations to update, edit, and refine the historic geographic and temporal data that will populate the database.The broader/commercial impact is the development of temporally-enabled geographic databases that will support both new and more effective use of historical data for research in public health, political science, criminology, social science, genealogy and any other subject where the connection between past and present is important. Street names, place names and addressing systems in our cities change a great deal over time. The dynamic nature of urban geography in particular has long been a barrier to the use of historic directories, property deeds, atlases, and other archival materials as a means of understanding the relationships between geographic location and the human condition. While current commercial and open source geocoders can help researchers navigate the contemporary landscape, the ability to tag documents with a geographic location at a specific time will unlock an entirely new dimension of human knowledge by bringing digital scholarship and research to archives that are largely untapped. In addition to generating new knowledge about the past, a collaborative platform for creating, maintaining, accessing, and viewing temporal geographic data is a significant business opportunity. The initial project will focus on the City of Philadelphia, but the resulting framework will be applicable to any location in the world.