Tag: map stores

A Video About the Map Center

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

A short video about the Map Center, the Rhode Island-based map store that, you will recall, Andrew Middleton took over two years ago. The video came about, Andrew says, when a customer came back and insisted on filming it. (“Is this the highest form of flattery? Most people just leave a review!”) What I appreciate most about it is being able to see what’s on his shelves and walls, especially since I can’t visit it in person right now.

Previously: Paper Maps: New Business, Lost Loves; A Map of Map Institutions; TPR on the Map Center.

World of Maps Owners Retiring, Seeking New Owners

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
A photo of the World of Maps storefront in a snowy day in Ottawa on 27 November 2017.
World of Maps on 27 Nov 2017.

Ottawa map and book store World of Maps is for sale, per their Facebook page: “After 30 years of running this interesting and profitable map & book business Petra and Brad want to sell and retire. There are plenty of adventures and trips still to take after we find the next owner(s) who we can help take it over.”

Previously: World of Maps Turns 25.

TPR on the Map Center

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The Public’s Radio talks with Andrew Middleton, who you will remember took over the Map Center in Pawtucket, RI in 2023. The focus of the piece is on how Andrew came to own the store and why he doesn’t see Google and Apple as competitors. “I see them as selling information. I do not sell information. I sell a good story.”

Previously: Paper Maps: New Business, Lost Loves; A Map of Map Institutions.

A Map of Map Institutions

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

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.)

Independent Map Sellers

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Lots of little companies and individuals making and selling maps; the Independent Map Sellers page lists a bunch of them in one handy place. “Interested in buying something special for the map enthusiasts in your life (or yourself)? Skip the giant companies and go straight to the source: there are loads of skilled, independent cartographers out there whose work you can buy!” [Daniel Huffman]

Paper Maps: New Business, Lost Loves

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

GIS analyst and cartographer Andrew Middleton moved across the country to become the new owner of the Map Center, a Rhode Island map store, after the previous owner announced that he was looking for someone to give the store away to. In an interview with GeoHipster’s Randal Hale, Andrew outlines what he sees as the state of the market for paper maps: the antique map business is pretty healthy; what he’s interested in is contemporary cartography.

The bigger and more mysterious question for me is: Can I build a store off of something that focuses on contemporary cartography and do it in a physical location? Some people more talented than I have been able to pull it off selling their own work online. Only a couple of people in the U.S. are doing it in a physical space with overhead. With rent. I like knowing that there are places like the Map Center still around and I want to be a part of keeping Rhode Island quirky and worth exploring. But it’s not 1995 any more. I sell gas station 8-folds and prints of USGS topo maps and guide books and trail maps but it’s hard to sell information that someone on the internet is giving away for free. The value add of a paper map is providing that information in a portable, digestible and familiar way that includes context and that does have value. Lots of folks buy paper maps for outdoor activities, trip planning and conceptualizing space in large areas or putting on their walls to remind them off a place they love or a place they want to explore.

He’s looking for maps to sell: see the Map Center’s call for cartographers. As for the kind of customer Andrew is looking for, it would probably look a lot like Mary Ann Sternberg, who in a piece for Next Avenue writes about her history with and love of paper maps.

The Lost Art of Map Reading

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

“The physical map has the same appeal, probably, as the vinyl record. It’s tactile, it’s there, it’s present—it’s not ephemeral.”

A nice piece from CBC News on the so-called lost art of map reading and paper maps, touching many of the usual points, featuring (among others) the co-owners of my local map store, Ottawa’s World of Maps.

Some Map How-to Videos

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Most of their videos are a few years old, but I only recently stumbled across the YouTube channel of New World Maps. They have a number of short, practical videos aimed at map buyers and map owners who want to display their maps: tips for framing maps, for flattening maps so they can be framed (above), for dealing with small chips and tears (at least on inexpensive maps), among other subjects. Useful—and not just for maps.

Philadelphia Print Shop Reopening This Fall Under New Management

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The Philadelphia Print Shop (not to be confused with the Denver-based Philadelphia Print Shop West), an antique prints, rare books and maps dealer that closed last December, is back in business. David Mackey has bought the business from Don Cresswell, who founded it in 1982, and is relocating it from Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill neighbourhood to nearby Wayne. A “COVID-style grand opening” is planned for October. [WMS]

More on Stanfords’s Move and Paper Maps’ Comeback

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Another article on the comeback of paper maps that is really about the move of the venerable map and travel bookstore Stanfords’s London store to new digs, this time from Nicholas Crane in the Financial Times. He maunders a bit, as do many map aficionados when we get started, and ends up becoming a paean to Stanfords’s old paper maps as much as anything else. [Gilles Palsky]

Previously: Stanfords Cartographer: ‘Paper Is Going to Make a Comeback’; Stanfords Is Moving.

Stanfords Cartographer: ‘Paper Is Going to Make a Comeback’

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

You know who isn’t worried about the future of paper maps and whether people still know how to use them? The people who actually sell them. The Guardian’s Kevin Rushby talks to Stanfords cartographer Martin Greenaway, ostensibly on the occasion of the venerable map store’s move to new digs in London; Greenaway thinks that paper maps are ripe for a comeback (Stanfords does a lot of print-on-demand maps), and points out a number of other map use cases that a mobile device simply can’t be used for. [CAG]

Stanfords Is Moving

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

British map and travel bookstore Stanfords is moving its London store from its venerable Long Acre location, where they’ve been since 1901 (!), to a new building on Mercer Walk, all of 200 metres away. They cite a need for more back-office space for their online business. The new store is officially scheduled to open in January, but the ground floor will be open as a gift boutique later this month. [TimeOut London/MAPS-L]

John Loacker and the Kroll Map Company

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

It’s nice to see media coverage of a map publisher or store that doesn’t involve it going out of business. The Seattle Times looks at a local institution, the Kroll Map Company, which has been mapping the city and its environs for more than a century, and its current owner, John Loacker.

The survival of a company like Kroll is a small act of rebellion against the forces reshaping the city by the day. And yet lately, John has wondered what will become of the business his grandfather bought in 1920 and his father worked at for 72 years. John is also a co-owner of Metsker Maps, a retail store in Pike Place Market, but he leaves the day-to-day operations there to others. He is the sole owner of Kroll.

“I have to craft my exit,” he says.

[MAPS-L]

MacVan Map Company Is Closing at the End of March

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

MacVan Map Company, the Colorado map publisher and store, is closing at the end of March—another victim, the Colorado Springs Gazette reports, of car- and smartphone-based navigation systems:

MacVan General Manager Bob Stanley, one of two remaining employees of a company that once employed nearly 20 people, said this week he and owner Ken Field agonized for four months, trying to find way to keep the company alive.

“We were just looking for a path to stay open. We went through the books, but it just wasn’t going to happen. It (the business) just wasn’t paying for itself,” Stanley said. “I just want to thank our customers. We appreciate their loyalty. They have always been great to work with.”

MacVan is best known for “The Book,” its annual spiral-bound collection of detailed maps of the Colorado Springs area that has been a staple for real estate agents, delivery drivers, police and firefighters and even journalists. The company operates a retail store at 1045B Garden of the Gods Road and produces more than 40 different maps for cities along the Colorado Front Range and Western Slope, a telephone directory called the “Ute Pass Gold Book” for Teller County and parts of El Paso and Park counties as well as advertising and custom real estate maps.

MacVan has been in business since 1978. [MAPS-L]