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Join us for the second lecture in our new series: 'Historical Cartography in the Digital Age: Applications of GIS and WebGIS' by Daniel Fenech, Christopher Gauci, Martha Piscopo, George Buhagiar and Emanuele ColicaLECTURE 2 // 28-11-2025
'Landscapes in Paper and Place: Rethinking geo-spaces through Malta’s Cabrei and Country Maps' - The 8th edition of the National Library of Malta's Public Lecture Series, coordinated by Mevrick Spiteri, Daniel Borg, and André P. DeBattista, in collaboration with the Public Works Department.
The Policy Research Directorate within the Public Works Department has recently launched a digital map that allows a comparative viewing of old maps of Malta with the current survey sheets of the islands. This lecture will delve into the process of creating such an important research tool. The process of producing the map is known as georeferencing, which lined up the old maps, known as the Joint Ordnance Survey Sheets (1896–1927), so they match their real world location in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Program. This involved referencing the Joint Ordnance Survey Sheets against modern aerial photography (2018) as provided by the Planning Authority. The source material were 152 paper based surveys from the Public Works Department’s archives, which were digitised. These sheets were ‘trimmed to remove anything other than the survey drawing itself and then assembled into a single digital map encompassing the island of Malta. The end result is a free, online map of the Joint Ordnance Survey of Malta (1896–1927) that is accessible by anyone through a web browser.
Daniel Fenech holds a B.Sc. (Hons.) in Earth Systems and a M.Sc. Physical Oceanography, with dissertations on the statistical verification of numerical weather models and spatial prioritisation of Martine Protect Area (MPA105) respectively. He is the current systems administrator for the Public Works Department’s GIS platforms. At the Policy Research Directorate, Daniel Fenech is the lead on the GIS component of the digitalisation of the Records and Archives and the Joint Ordnance Survey 1896–1927 project.
All lectures start at 18.30hrs. Free entrance. No booking required. For more info email [email protected] and check out our lecture series flyer: https://issuu.com/nationallibraryofmalta/docs/ml_pl_-_landscapes_in_paper_place_a5_booklet
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