“Denmark seen from the air – before Google” is an application from The Royal Library showcasing aerial photos captured above Denmark from the year 1923 and onwards.
The Royal Library’s collection of aerial photos consists of more than 3.5 million unique captures from 1923 up to 2009. The photos present an extraordinary insight into the changes in the cultural landscape and the development of urban dwelling and infrastructure during the 20th century.
This application gives new (digital) life to these photos and makes them available online to everyone with internet access.
From the outset, the success criteria of the project were to involve the public and use crowdsourcing as a means of securing location data for the aerial photos.
The original metadata of the collection is limited to flight plans and a handwritten ledger containing information about image purchases, sometimes accompanied by the name of the purchaser and occasionally the purchaser’s address. But this information is not sufficient to secure a precise geo-coordinate for the individual photo.
We have therefore invited the public to help us out with the exact location of the photos. In the application, the user is able to pin the photo to the correct location and leave a comment or a tag. The user is then rewarded points corresponding to his/her level of activity and these points are displayed in a Top-20 list of most active users as a gaming incentive.
Since airing the application in September 2011, the users have until the end of August 2013 managed to pin more than 80% of the material. At certain points in time, the users have given us a geo-tag per minute! An amazing feat!
The project is originally financed by the Danish Ministry of Culture. The funding of 4.5 million DKK made it possible to digitize photos and develop the application for the area of Fyn.
The next iteration will include the island of Bornholm, thanks to funding from The Danish Agency for Culture, The Royal Library and the Bornholm region. The aerial photos from Bornholm will be released on November 27th, 2013.
Our hope is to cover all of Denmark in the future – if we can attract the necessary funding.
If you want to know more about “Denmark seen from the air – before Google”, please contact project manager Lone Stefansen (+45 33 47 4217 – lons@kb.dk).