[Talk-GB] Search OS OpenData through Unlock Places API

[Jo Walsh]

dear all,

Sorry that the below is a bit spammy, but I figure there's a good chance 
of reaching UK researchers with geodata interest through this list. We 
recently added some of the OS OpenData sources to the Unlock Places 
search service that EDINA runs, the details are below.

Not sure if the service will have direct use for the OSM massive, more 
looking for archaeobods, historians, humanists etc, having a "spatial 
turn" and looking to geotag archives and that sort of thing.

We're working on standing up a Nominatim mirror and cross-searching OSM 
and Natural Earth, but i've burned up some goodwill resources recently, 
it may take a little while to get that done. Message follows:

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We're happy to let you know it's now possible to search and re-use 
Ordnance Survey OpenData sources through EDINA's Unlock Places service.

Unlock Places was created for software developers working in a research 
context, providing search and query of geographic shapes through a web 
API, with data returned in formats suitable for re-use on the web.

Ordnance Survey datasets available include Boundary-Line, with 
administrative boundaries for the UK; the 1:50K gazetteer for 
contemporary placenames; Code-Point for conversion of postcodes into 
points and vice-versa.

These data sources can now all be searched and re-used freely without an 
API key. Registration still gives Digimap OS Collections subscribers 
search across places and shapes derived from Ordnance Survey MasterMap.

The Places gazetteer powers EDINA's Unlock Text service for text-mining 
and georeferencing research archives. This service extracts references 
to place from text documents, web pages or XML metadata, and links them 
to geographic references in a gazetteer. It is developed in partnership 
with the Language Technology Group at University of Edinburgh.

Get started with the Unlock Places API:
http://unlock.edina.ac.uk/getstarted.html
http://unlock.edina.ac.uk/api.html

Detail of updates to the Unlock Places API:
http://unlockdata.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/unlock-places-api-version-2-2/

Try the web version of Unlock Text:
http://unlock.edina.ac.uk/text.html

Questions? Ask jo.walsh at ed.ac.uk Problems? Try unlock at ed.ac.uk