Abstract:

The article presents experience in teaching how to connect historical and technical knowledge. First aspect of the course was based on using archival material to analyze the changes in urban space between a selected historical period and contemporaneity. The second part was related to the use of GIS solutions to integrate archival data in digital repository accessible from an online map. The task was carried out in the form of practical project on master’s level, realized from the beginning (source data search) to the final presentation (Internet map).
The test area was the small city Glebokie in the 30s of the twentieth century. The study area in selected period was located on the former territory of Poland, in the Vilnius region. Today it is the part of the Republic of Belarus, near the Vitebsk. Political changes results in e. g. a lot of changes in street locations and names as well as function (or destruction) of buildings. There are not so many archival data related to this city, there was a lack of cartographic data in selected period, accessible archives are prepared in different languages.
Therefore, the task of the student in the project was to find different - mainly descriptive - archival materials. They could be: small and medium scale military topographic maps, photographs, memories of the residents, the local press etc. Exploration of materials had to be conducted in Polish, Belarusian, Lithuanian and German institutions like: archives, libraries, museums and historical centers. Materials available in the Internet, as well as own private collections had to be also used.
On the basis of archival materials network of streets in the city and railway lines in the area in the first part of XX century had to be reconstructed by the students. Historical toponyms of the objects in the city should be also recreated. As the result of the project two plans of the city: the historical and the contemporary should be developed.
The results of the project should be presented with the use of GIS solutions. Plans of the city together with information about places should be presented in the form of spatial database and interactive repository of archival sources accessible from the map. It should be created as the Story Map in ArcGIS Online and made available to the public on the Internet. Former and present object characteristics should be supplemented by archival and contemporary photographs and other archival data depicting the changes that have occurred in the space.

Keywords:

Archives, urban space, old maps, spatiotemporal changes.