Q. Name of project
I will refer to two different projects, identified by a number. In the fist one we prepared the GIS system and in the second one we applied it to other periods and to population censuses. 1- Dízimos e Produção Agrícola em Portugal no Começo do Século XIX. 2- Censos Portugueses da Primeira Metade do Século XIX.
Q. Name of project IN ENGLISH
1- Tithe and Agricultural Production in Portugal in the Beginning of the 19th Century 2- Portuguese Population Censuses from the First Half of the 19th Century
Q. Principal researcher(s)
Luís Silveira.
Q. Who can/should be contacted now, and how?
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Name: |
Prof. Doutor Luís Silveira |
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Postal Address: |
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Av de Berna,. 26-C, 1069-061 Lisboa Portugal |
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E-mail Address: |
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Web site: |
Q. When did research begin?
1- 1993 2- 1998
Q: Is the project still in existence? If it has ended, when did it end? If it still exists, when is it expected to end?
1- ended in 1996 2- will end in June, 2000
Q: What institution(s) was/is the project based in?
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Q: How many people were/are employed, and for how long? Were these people recruited specially for the project, or were they already employed by the institution(s)?
1- 3 people were employed, for 2 years, in part time 2- 2 people, for 2 and a half years, in full time In both cases they were recruited specially for the projects
Q: How much did the project cost?
1- 8 760 000$00 PTE=43 694.695 Euros 2- 10 929 000$00 PTE=54 513.622 Euros
Q: Who paid for the project?
Science and Technology Foundation
Q: If the project is still underway, has all necessary funding to complete the project been raised?
In both cases the money was enough to complete the projects but not enough to publish their results. This is a major problem in project 2 given high the cost of the book we committed our selves to publish
Q: How easy has it been to raise the money?
Both projects were submitted to a national and open selection process. The main difficulty was to prepare the proposals, a task that involved a demanding planning
Q: Other than raising the money, what are the biggest problems your project has faced?
Especially in the first project, where we prepared the GIS system used in the second project, the biggest problem was the difficulty of the work itself and the risk of failure involved.
Q: How likely is it that further funding might be raised within your country for a collaborative European project?
Within Portugal I don’t know but I suppose that multinational projects may be financed by EU funds
Q: What geographical area is covered by the project? What is the MODERN legal status of this area?
Portugal, excluding the islands of Açores and Madeira. Portugal is a nation state
Q: Does the project aim to: (a) Reconstruct boundaries at a single date (b) Reconstruct boundaries at a series of dates (c) Construct a continuous record of changing boundaries over a period
1- In the first project we reconstructed the boundaries for 1826, 1834 and 1842. 2- In the second project we produced the administrative and religious map of 1801 and the administrative map of 1855. The latter is very similar to the one used today
Q: What is the earliest date covered by the project?
See above. With caution the 1801 map may be used to the 18th century
Q: What is the latest date covered by the project?
See above.
Q: What systems of units are included?
From bottom to top level: parishes, municipalities, comarcas (Ancien Regime)/districts (after the Liberal Revolution), and provinces. We have also mapped the dioceses (1801)
Q: What is the project's final product?
1- First project: Território e Poder, 1997, book and a CD-Rom. It also resulted a GIS system not available to public use 2- From the second project will result a book with the data of the 1801 and 1849 censuses and an Internet site with all the maps produced so far and the censuses data
Q: What other publications has your project produced?
Silveira, Luís; Lopes, Margarida and Melo, Cristina Joanaz de - 'Mapping Portuguese Historical Boundaries with a GIS', in Boonstra, Onno; Collenteur, Geurt e Elderen, Bart van - Structures and Contingencies in Computerized Historical Research, Hilversum, Uitgeverij Verloren, 1995, pp. 245-252.
Q: What base map is/was used to record the information? When was it created, and by whom? Is it published or in an archive?
Carta Administrativa de Portugal, produced by the Comissão Nacional do Ambiente, 1991. It is available on the Internet
Q: What scale was this base map on?
1:250 000
Q: If the base map was not already in digital form and your project created a digital version, how was this done?
Not applicable
Q: If your project constructed a record of boundary CHANGES, what sources of information were used? How was this information gathered?
The main sources were the population censuses of 1801 and 1849 and the laws of 1826, 1834 and 1842
Q: What other maps besides the base map were used? When were they created, and by whom? What scale were they on? What boundaries did they show? How reliable are they?
Not applicable
Q: Did your project make any use of DESCRIPTIONS of boundaries? Who created these? Where are they preserved? What problems did you have converting this information into lines on maps?
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Q: What software was used?
Database: Microsoft Access GIS software: Esri Arcview 3.2
Q: What were your reasons for your choice of software? If you started again now, would you use the same software?
The choice of the GIS software was strongly dependent on the advice of a highly experienced engineer. Yes, I would choose it again.
Q: Describe the data files making up the final system:
They are standard GIS files, corresponding to different dates
Q: What map projection is used?
Gauss
Q: Assess the overall accuracy of your digital mapping:
The accuracy depends on the date of the map and on the different layers. I would say that the parish maps have a reasonable accuracy, better after 1842 than before. The municipal and higher layers seem quite good. Some of the error levels are quantified in the publications referred above
Q: From your existing experience, what methodological recommendations do you have for a larger collaborative project?
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Q: If the end-product is neither a traditional publication or a GIS, please describe it?
1- The first project produced a CD-Rom containing the maps of 1826, 1834 and 1842 2- The result of the second project will be an Internet site showing the 1801, 1826, 1834, 1842 and 1855 maps and publishing the 1801 and 1849 population censuses
Q: More generally, whatever the resource your project has actually created, and in the light of your experience with the project, what form of output SHOULD a new project have?
A paper and an electronic output. Between the CD-Rom and the Internet I would prefer the latter
Q: What place-names are built-in to your mapping? Is each point/area (node/polgon) labelled with a single name, or is there some system for linking to different versions of names?
The names and other data are stored in a database table, each record corresponding to a polygon. Each polygon is labelled with a single name. The different tables corresponding to different maps (and dates) are related to each other
Q: Does the history/linguistic geography of your area raise special problems with naming places?
The main problem with place-names, dealing with the parishes, is that quite often different parishes have the same name. In these cases we have to use other informations (the name of the saint, for instance) to identify them
Q: What sources have you used to research place- and area-names for use in your system?
Mainly the laws that enforced the reform of the administrative system. We also used an important collection of demographic data for the period of 1864-1960 published by the Instituto Nacional de Estatística and several dictionaries
Q: Are there any quite separate projects concerned with the history of place names or of administrative hierarchies in your area? If so, please give details? Are they using computers? Are they aiming to make their results available on-line?
Some years ago there was a successful effort of publishing a conventional administrative map of Portugal in the beginning of the 19th century. Currently, as far as I know, there is a project concerned with the publication of the 1527 population census. They intend to publish a CD-Rom.
Q: Was the GIS/digital resource constructed for use by its creators ONLY, or was it intended for wider use?
It was constructed for the use of its creators
Q: Are you willing to make it available for use by others?
I’m not willing to make the core of the GIS system available. I may consider the possibility of publishing some of its components
Q: Are you willing to make it available for free, or for distribution costs only? If not, what plans have you for commercial distribution?
Beyond the publications mentioned above, I’m willing to produce maps for other researchers
Q: Is the resource available NOW? If so, how and from where?
No
Q: Are there any limitations on access?
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Q: What file format or file formats is the resource available in?
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Q: If the resource is available from the researcher/project that created it, what plans are there for distribution after the project ends/the researcher retires?
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Q: What plans are there for updating the data files for use with more recent versions of software?
There aren’t any specific plans but I hope to be able to create a group not only to update the files for use with new software versions but also to continue the research that has been going on
Q: What plans are there for updating the data files to include the results of more recent historical research?
See previous answer.
Q: Do you own all intellectual property rights in the resource created by your project? If not, what other rights exist, and who do they belong to? What limitations have they imposed?
Yes, I own property rights but the Science and Technology Foundation may reclaim its share
Q: How have Intellectual Property Rights issues limited your project?
So far they haven’t.
© Luís Silveira (Lisboa, May 2000)