Digital Excursion: Geographies

Note: this event at the Wellcome Collection will be part of the UCLDH Digital Excursion series starting in the new academic year, October 2011

This UCLDH Digital Excursion will take you to The Rediscovering African Geographies project at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) (map), hosted by Alasdair McLeod, Head of Collections. The event will offer an introduction to the Society's unique collections, the exhibition and its materials, and reveal the digitisation process for historical maps. You will also have the unique opportunity to see the original maps and exhibition materials close-up in the Society's Foyle Reading Room.

The Rediscovering African Geographies project explores, in partnership with London-based African Diaspora community organisations, items from the Royal Geographical Society's African Collections. It provides new perspectives through online galleries of maps and images, the embedding new information within the Society's Collections records, and a public exhibition. In a BBC online showcase of the maps, exhibition consultants Cliff Pereira and Zagba Oyortey explain how the maps tell the story of a changing continent.

Founded in 1830, the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) is the UK's learned society and professional body for geography. The society promotes, supports and enhances geographical research, education, fieldwork and expeditions, public engagement, knowledge transfer to policy, and the professional accreditation of geographers, as well as holding one of world's pre-eminent geographical collections that spans over 500 years of discovery and geographical science.

It has been a full month, but we recommend you come to this event if you don't want to miss the chance to see how one of the most important geographic collections has been digitised and is now accessible for research!

The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) is located at 1 Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AR (map).