Old Hampshire Mapped: Providing Good Access to Early Printed County Maps

This article is an overview of the issues considered for a map digitization project. It is based on the authors' experience of building a website for early printed maps of Hampshire, which is still growing in scope and ideas. Most map websites, even those that are funded well, seem to have very limited objectives, and some surprising lack of rigour. We advocate an adventurous approach, constrained by clear and defined standards of working. We have considered why and how maps, and associated descriptive texts, can be presented, and how raw text and image data can be made available for further research.