The Social Life of Allmaps: Reflecting on Software Communities in Sustaining the Digital Geohumanities
Published in Journal of Map & Geography Libraries, 2025
Ann Hanlon, Ian Spangler, Stephen Appel, Jules Schoonman, Bert Spaan
Digital tools for humanistic inquiry (digital humanities) have become important parts of how people engage with historical collections. For map and geography library workers, developments in open data, resource digitization, frameworks for discovery portals, and proliferation of new spatial data standards all factor into how the digital humanities have become ubiquitous aspects of contemporary librarianship. This comment describes the Allmaps software ecosystem and how this set of technologies for annotating and curating maps has developed as an open tool with diverse stakeholders and fluctuating funding streams. With an eye to sustainability and equitable access, the authors examine the social infrastructure that is necessary to inform and sustain tools that advance the spatial humanities and access to historical map collections.
Recommended citation: Hanlon, A., Spangler, I., Appel, S., Schoonman, J., & Spaan, B. (2025). The Social Life of Allmaps: Reflecting on Software Communities in Sustaining the Digital Geohumanities. Journal of Map & Geography Libraries, 21(3), 156–163. https://doi.org/10.1080/15420353.2025.2574896