Burnaby on history map—literally
Burnaby is now on the history map, literally, thanks to kudos it received for its own map-based historical website.
City archivist Arilea Sill received a call a couple months ago from Historypin.com, a website of contributed archival photos operated by a not-for-profit company in partnership with Google.
They were looking for photos of the Queen's visits to Burnaby as part of an initiative to mark her diamond jubilee. Sill believes they heard about Burnaby through the accolades it received in recent years for its Charting Change website which shows the progressive changes to Burnaby over the decades.
The Historypin website is similar but on a global scale, Sill said. Essentially, individuals and museums can "pin" archival photos on a map, which people can browse and use as entry points to explore different parts of the world in pictures.
The site also works in conjunction with Google Streetview to show what the locations identified in the photos look like today.
"You can juggle between the two," she said, noting that's what Burnaby was attempting to do with its award-winning website, Charting Change, which it described as an interactive atlas of Burnaby's heritage.
"This is it on a much larger, global scale."
So far, Burnaby has pinned several photos of the Queen's visits in 1951 and 1971 and plans to add more photos from its general collection in future.
"It's very exciting," said Sill. "It's a large global project and it's nice to be involved in a cultural project of that scale which we wouldn't normally have the opportunity to do."
wchow@burnabynewsleader.com
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