libquery_extensions

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Alabama Maps ​

The class for scraping metadata and images from Alabama Maps' Historical Map Archive.

Usage ​

Create a querier for Alabama Maps:

python
from libquery_extensions import AlabamaMaps

directory = "./output/alabama-maps"
querier = AlabamaMaps(
    metadata_path=f"{directory}/metadata/metadata.jsonl",
    img_dir=f"{directory}/imgs",
)

Query metadata:

python
base_url = "http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/"
queries = [
    f"{base_url}worldwarI/index.html",
    f"{base_url}civilwar/unionroutes.html",
]
querier.fetch_metadata(queries=queries)

Query images:

python
querier.fetch_image()

Metadata Schema ​

Each metadata entry is stored as:

typescript
interface SourceData {
    mainAuthor: string | null
    titleDescription: string
    publicationInfo: string
    date: string
    scale: string
    originalSource: string
    viewUrl: string
    downloadUrl: string
}

interface MetadataEntry {
    uuid: string
    url: string
    source: 'Alabama Maps'
    idInSource: string
    accessDate: string
    sourceData: SourceData
}