On 11/8/06, Andy Robinson <Andy_J_Robinson(a)blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
We have today been having a similar discussion about
obtaining and
digitising out-of-copyright OS mapping on the talk-gb(a)openstreetmap.org
mailing list
(
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk-gb). Some of
those involved in OSM have recently got the New Popular Edition Maps for
England and Wales on the web at
http://www.npemap.org.uk/ and others,
including myself have a small collection of other out-of-copyright OS
mapping but a much more systematic and quality approach is required to
really take anything further.
The maps and their scanning for the npe site were done by Richard Fairhurst,
also an OSMer. He bore the original cost of finding the maps and getting
them scanned commercially.
however due to licencing issues we can't use them (at least under UK case law).
So while OSM is creating new mapping we also have an
interest in obtaining
and utilising digital versions of out-of-copyright mapping, both in the UK
and elsewhere (if only we could get the Imperial War Museum's stuff).
Other people have copies of those maps. The british library certainly
does although there would likely be similar difficulties.
Best bet appears to be university libraries. For example the
University of Oxford has a copy of the WW2 Antwerp map.
A number of universities hold copies of the Map of Pretoria and
surrounding country from 1908 although Cambridge University is the
only one in the UK
most can be found through a few searches of:
http://www.worldcat.org/
--
geni