Library and Archives Canada has posted a four-part series on early automobile maps to their Facebook page (they don’t have a blog, just social media accounts), featuring examples from their collection: Nova Scotia, Montreal, Banff National Park, Vancouver.
Tag: libraries
The World Turned Upside Down and Other Globes: A Roundup
Mark Wallinger’s World Turned Upside Down, a 13-foot globe on the LSE campus with the South Pole on top, generated controversy (and vandalism) after its unveiling in 2019 for how it handled contested borders: it shows Lhasa as a capital, Taiwan as a separate country, and omitted Palestine. I mean, it’s on a university campus: controversy about such things was inevitable. Via Mappery; more at Atlas Obscura and Brilliant Maps.
Mappery also points to a 19th-century globular clock that shows the sun’s position at noon on the globe, which I find awfully intriguing, which is to say I want one.
The Library of Congress is changing how it stores its rare globes, replacing acrylic vitrines (heavy, bulky, and potentially off-gassing compounds that put the globes at risk) with archival cardboard cases, which are less sexy but more practical—we’re talking about storage, not display. I’m actually surprised that rare globes had essentially been stored in display cases.
Allmaps Loses Digital Humanities Grant
The Leventhal Center has posted a statement on the future of the Allmaps project—Allmaps is a georeferencing tool for digital images—now that its Digital Humanities Advancement Grant from the NEH has been terminated, like so many other NEH grants. “Although we’re disappointed that the U.S. government is backing away from supporting projects like Allmaps, LMEC and AGSL will keep working to support the Allmaps project (and we’re thankful that it has support from European agencies).”
A Map of Map Institutions
Andrew Middleton, the owner of the Map Center in Pawtucket, RI (previously), has put together a map of map stores and non-commercial map institutions (archives, libraries, etc.). Comment on Bluesky to suggest other places.
Earlier this month, Andrew posted about the state of the map store, wherein he lays out what makes up his business and where he’d like to go from here. (Mind you, that was before this post and this post went all sorts of viral.)
Online Exhibition Introduces Cincinnati Library’s Map Holdings
How many libraries host map collections that you might be unaware of? The Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library’s online exhibition, Landscape and Layers, is an introduction to that library’s map holdings, which per the blog post include 19th- and early 20th-century maps of the city, Sanborn fire insurance maps, and early maps of Ohio.
Alice Hudson, 1947-2024
Alice Hudson, who from 1981 to 2009 was chief of the New York Public Library’s Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, and as such responsible for one of the world’s significant map collections, died on 6 November 2024 from complications of kidney disease. She was 77. The New York Times published her obituary yesterday.
Newberry Library Digitizes Novacco Collection
The Newberry Library has announced that it has digitized the 754 maps comprising its Franco Novacco Map Collection, which includes Italian maps from the 16th and 17th centuries.
A large portion of the collection includes world maps of all sizes, ranging from functional to more experimental. One 1590 cordiform map, for example, places the heart-shaped world inside of a fool’s cap, resulting in an unsettling visual commentary on previous conceptions of world geography. A 1555 map, alternatively, presents the world in gores, or segmented parts, which can be cut out and pasted onto a sphere to create a globe. This blend of art, science, and history is at the heart of the Franco Novacco Collection. […]
The Newberry Library acquired the Novacco Collection from the Venetian map collector Franco Novacco himself in 1967. Since then, the maps have only been available for viewing on-site in the Newberry’s reading rooms. In early 2022, the Newberry received generous funding from Mr. Rudy L. Ruggles, Jr. and Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps to begin digitizing the entirety of the collection.
The Newberry Library is in Chicago.
The How and Why of Measuring Maps
Matthew Edney poses an interesting question about measuring the physical size—i.e., the length and width—of paper maps: how do we do it, and why are we doing it? “There’s a philosophical question (how do we construe this thing that we need to measure?), the question of precision (how finely do we measure?), and a pragmatic question (what use is to be made of whatever measurements are recorded?), all of which influence the selection of which part(s) of an image are to be measured. Add to that a great deal of historical inconsistency in practice, and the question becomes difficult to answer.”
A History of the Harvard University Institute of Geographical Exploration
“The Harvard University Institute of Geographical Exploration was one of the first and most well-wrought private institutions in aerial photography in the first half of the 20th century. Its short institutional life at Harvard was replete with materials, stories and scandal, and its pieces remain scattered today throughout the Harvard Archives and Libraries system and beyond.” Ana Luiza Nicolae tracks down what records, photos and other materials can still be found on the Harvard campus that once belonged to Alexander H. Rice’s HUIGE, which was not closely affiliated with Harvard’s geography department but was shut down at roughly the same time.
Multispectral Analysis Reveals Lost Details on a 16th-Century Portolan Chart
The Library of Congress reports on how its Preservation Research and Testing Division used multispectral imaging to bring out previously illegible place names on a 16th-century portolan chart of the east coast of North America. Initially the PRTD was brought in to confirm that the chart was legit before the Library purchased it (which it did last fall), but the faded iron gall ink in some areas of the map suggested obscured details that further analysis could draw out and place names that could be made legible again. According to the article, this represents the first time the Library has posted an enhanced image of one of their holdings.
National Library of Israel Receives Donation of 400+ Antique Maps
More than 400 maps, previously owned by collector Howard I. Golden, have been donated to the National Library of Israel.
The antique maps, dating from 1475 to 1800, were preserved in excellent physical condition by Mr. Golden who, over several decades, collected historical maps of the Land of Israel. A significant percentage of the maps were printed before 1700 and are therefore defined as rare. NLI has cataloged and digitized the maps for preservation and research purposes, to be used as primary sources, downloadable and free-of-charge, for students, researchers, and visitors from Israel and abroad.
The library’s map collection is available online. News coverage from The Times of Israel.
The Materiality of Maps
Fresh from a course on the materiality—“i.e. the physical characteristics of maps: size, paper, format, printing method, color, etc.”—of maps, the Library of Congress’s Amelia Raines explores a few maps from her home state of Michigan in terms of the production methods behind them, and the context in which they were published (e.g. as part of a book).
Het Grote Kaartenboek (The Great Book of Maps)
Out today from WBooks: Het Grote Kaartenboek: Vijf eeuwen cartografie [The Great Book of Maps: Five Centuries of Cartography] a book collecting 500 years of maps from the National Archives of the Netherlands. Edited by Ron Guleij, it also features eight essays by guest authors. (In Dutch, naturally.) We’ve seen other map books that focus on the holdings of a specific library or archive: I’m thinking specifically of Debbie Hall’s Treasures from the Map Room (2016), which presented maps from the Bodleian Library, and Tom Harper’s Atlas: A World of Maps from the British Library (2018). This one seems to be taking a look behind the curtain, with material on collection management (assuming Google Translate is not deceiving me).
Previously: The History of the Netherlands in 100 Old Maps.
Crossings: An Exhibition at the Newberry Library
Crossings: Mapping American Journeys, is an exhibition at Chicago’s Newberry Library that explores cross-country journeys of various kinds.
Maps, guidebooks, travelogues, postcards, and more from the Newberry’s collection recreate travelers’ experiences along the northern and southern borders of the US, across the continent’s interior, and up and down the Mississippi River.
These cross-country paths have been in use for centuries whether by water, railroad, car, or airplane. And they’ve remained remarkably consistent despite changes in transportation, commerce, and the people who’ve used them.
But not everyone has experienced travel and mobility equally. The same paths meant “discovery” to the European explorer, freedom to the enslaved, and loss and removal for Indigenous nations.
Crossings shows how centuries of movement—from the Lewis and Clark expedition to the American road trip—have forged deep relationships between people and places that survive to this day.
Crossings opened on February 25 and runs until June 25. Free admission; masks required.
Ortelius Online at the National Library of the Netherlands
The National Library of the Netherlands has an online version of Ortelius’s 16th-century atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. In Dutch only. (From what I understand it’s not the only digitization of this work available online: see the atlas’s Wikipedia page for links to additional sites.) [Maps Mania]