Neatline: Facilitating Geospatial and Temporal Interpretation of Archival Collections

FAIN: HD-50769-09

University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA 22903-4833)
Bethany Nowviskie (Project Director: April 2009 to April 2011)

Creation of an open source tool that integrates timelines and maps to literary and historical materials in archival collections to strengthen the visualization of research.

UVA Library seeks Level II Start-Up funding for the development of Neatline, a tool for the creation of interlinked timelines and maps as interpretive expressions of the literary or historical content of archival collections. Neatline promotes collaboration by libraries and cultural heritage institutions with scholarly end-users, who will build on standard EAD (Encoded Archival Description) metadata to produce geospatial and temporal visualizations of the textual content of cataloged letters and manuscripts. Neatline is a geo-temporal framework for fruitful interchange among scholars and the stewards of primary resources. It builds on robust, open standards and tools, including OpenLayers and SIMILE Timeline. The innovation of our approach lies in our dedication to providing a seamless, out-of-the-box experience for users without deep Web development skills. Neatline is a contribution to interpretive humanities scholarship in the visual vernacular.