T. Laranjera / V. Franca
(The Study Center for Urbanism and Architecture – ISCTE, Lissabon, Portugal)
Nowadays the importance of a Public Information System is known by all users. In areas like Cartography, where the existing information can be found in archives and libraries in world, the advantages of an available database and the integration of different sources through Internet are unnumbered.
The Digital Library of Portuguese Urban Cartography is a database composed of texts and images of historical cartography of cities of Portuguese origins, which can be found in archives and libraries in Portugal and abroad, available through Internet and accessible to researchers and all public.
The Digital Library of Portuguese Urban Cartography aims to identify and catalogue the historic urban cartography, of cities of Portuguese origin namely those built in Portugal, Brazil, in Africa and in the East and to make this information available.
The results generated by this Digital Library will provide a centralized public information system which allows multiple kinds of search in cartography area. The cartography search in this Digital Library of Portuguese Urban Cartography may be done using three distinct processes: Free text, Porbase System and Geographic Referencing.
This Digital Library is intended to overcome weaknesses in the infrastructure, documentation and research in the field of Portuguese urban cartography and to be a relevant instrument in the knowledge, dissemination and study of Portuguese urban heritage.
