Putting Pittsburgh Histories on the Map:

Mark your calendars! You are invited to explore the historical photographs in the University of Pittsburgh library’s archives. With your help, we can enrich our digital collections and call attention to important aspects of Pittsburgh's cultural heritage.

The University of Pittsburgh Library System (ULS) Archives and Special Collections houses a rich collection of digital photographs that showcase the history of Pittsburgh. From the early days of the city’s labor unions to the disappearance of Pittsburgh’s streetcars, they tell important stories of our city’s history and development! Library collections can be an important source of data for researchers. A collection of photographs, artifacts, and various objects can be transformed into an invaluable dataset to study patterns, trends and changes across time and space.

Take a look at Retrographer.org—a project that places Pittsburgh’s historic photographs onto digital maps! Retrographer uses Google Maps to make it easy for anybody to geotag these images.

At the Datathon, we will consider ways that data can be used to enhance the research potential of library collections. We will brainstorm ways to add data to our digital collections and generate new datasets by adding geolocation data, identifying the names of monuments and buildings, and tagging important people and places.

Participants will be grouped into different teams based on topics of interest and will work together to add information to photos. Complete the registration form to let organizers know what topics are interesting to you!