Gethin Rees

Dr Gethin Rees

Position: Lead Curator, Digital Mapping
Specialism: Geospatial data, visualisation, geography of cultural heritage, Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
Department: Collections
Related Offices: Secretary of Legal Deposit Libraries’ Map Librarians Group, Co-chair of Pelagios Network , Series editor of De Gruyter’s ‘Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State’

Gethin’s role includes helping to manage the non-print legal deposit of digital maps and coordinating the Georeferencer crowd-sourcing project.

He is interested in helping research projects to get the most out of geospatial data and tools. Before taking up his current role he worked in a digital humanities role on two collaborative history projects funded by the ERC, Beyond Boundaries and Mapping the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Empire, and as a software developer.

His PhD on South Asian archaeology (University of Cambridge) made use of GIS for spatial analysis and data management.

Digital mapping offers great potential to help people discover the collections of the British Library. Gethin seeks to tap that potential through co-coordinating the Pelagios Visualisation activity.

He is principle investigator of the AHRC-funded Locating a National Collection project.

Publications

Chapters and articles

With A. Hunt, V. Vitale, J. Horgan and P. Strachan. ‘Discovering the local in national cultural heritage collections. How web maps can help the UK public engage with their ‘own places’’, Information, Communication & Society. (2022)
With S. Gadd, J. Horgan, A. Hunt, L. Isaksen, V. Morris, A. Musson, R. Simon, P. Strachan, and V. Vitale. ‘Locating a National Collection project report’. (2022)
‘Buddhism and trade: Interpreting the distribution of rock-cut monasteries in the Western Ghats mountains, India using least-cost paths’, Archaeological Research in Asia 28. (2021)
With A. Keinan-Schoonbaert. ‘A Season of Place: Teaching Digital Mapping at the British Library’, Journal of Map & Geography Libraries 16. (2020)
'The Bhaja Stupas: Henry Cousens’ View' in Buddhism: Origins, Traditions and Contemporary Life, ed by S.S. May and J. Igunma. (London: British Library, 2019)
With N. de Lange and A. Panayotov, ‘Mapping the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Empire using GIS’ in Migration, Diaspora and Identity in the Near East from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, ed by A. Zerbin and J. Yoo. (London: Ashgate, 2018)
‘Colonial discourse, Indian Ocean Trade and the Urbanisation of the Western Deccan’, South Asian Studies, 30.1. (2014)
With F. Yoneda, ‘Celibate Monks and Foetus-stealing Gods: Buddhism and Pregnancy at the Jetavana Monastery, Shravasti, India’, World Archaeology 45.2. (2013)