A map collection or map library is a storage facility for maps, usually in a library, archive, or museum, or at a map publisher or public-benefit corporation, and the maps and other cartographic items stored within that facility.
Sometimes, map collections are combined with graphic sheets, manuscripts and rare prints in a single department. In such cases, the expression "map collection" refers to the whole of the cartographic collection holdings.
Even in medieval libraries, maps formed part of the inventories. According to scholars of the renaissance, maps were collected from the 15th century, either at the court or at naval academies to prepare for voyages of discovery. Over time, new techniques, such as copper engraving, reduced production costs, and assisted in spreading maps more widely.
By the 17th century, private map collections were often the basis for public map collections. As early as 1571, for example, the Court Library in Munich, Bavaria, (now the Bavarian State Library) became the owner of the Fugger collection. In 1823, the British Museum in London acquired the King's Library, which had been inherited and greatly enlarged by George III of the United Kingdom, and donated to the Museum by his heir, George IV of the United Kingdom. The King's Library included a collection of approximately 50,000 maps, plans and views, which are now housed at the British Library and known as the King's Topographical Collection. [1]
In the development of public map collections, the geographical societies were important. They exerted great influence on the establishment and collection policy of such collections, or even stored their own collections at such institutions. So, for example, in 1680 Vincenzo Coronelli founded the Accademia Cosmographicae degli Argonauti, which existed until 1718. In Nuremberg, the Kosmographische Gesellschaft was established in 1740, while a namesake organization came into existence in Vienna in 1790. The Société de Géographie de Paris , founded in 1821, was the first modern geographic society.
Especially in the 19th century, many map collections were either newly established, or merged with existing collections of cartographic materials held by libraries under the responsibility of specialist librarians.
Newly published maps, like books, are recorded in national bibliographies. Thus, the title, author(s), imprint and ISBN of any recently published map are mentioned in official records. Additionally, various data specific to a map, such as scale, map projection, geographical coordinates and map format, are included in the records of that map.
Most academic map collection owners now index at least the most important parts of the collection in electronic catalogues that can be viewed online.
Older collections or private collections are often described in bibliophile catalogues. In such catalogues, at least representative parts of the collection are shown. Bibliophile catalogues provide evidence of the collection's stock that can be used in the event of theft. Also, the use of a collection's rarities can thereby be noticeably limited, as in many cases the image and scientific description of the map is sufficient for the required purpose, and thus the original map is left undisturbed.
Holdings in archives are often not indexed on a single sheet by sheet basis, but on a basis under which a sheet can be found in the records only with the assistance of a finding aid. Archive staff, often not trained in cartographic matters, can be cautious in describing an unwieldy, and in some ways reputedly "foreign" document type. For that reason, significant characteristics such as the projection and map scale of an individual sheet will often be omitted from an index to a map collection. These circumstances make it difficult for users of such indexes to search for a specific map in an archive, but still allow persistent researchers to make some 'discoveries'.
The authoritative guide World directory of map collections (2000) [2] lists 714 map collections in 121 countries. With few exceptions, the most valuable map collections are held in either Europe or North America. There are also some map collections in South America, Africa and South Asia, but those collections are comparatively rare and of much lower value.
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Indisputably the largest map collection in Austria is the Map Department of the Austrian National Library in Vienna. It has about 275,000 maps, 240,000 geographic-topographic views, 570 globes, 80 reliefs and models of fortresses, and about 75,000 volumes of technical literature and atlases, [3]
Also a department of the Austrian National Library is the world's only public Globe Museum, [4] at the Palais Mollard, Vienna.
The Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels has a collection of over 200,000 maps, atlases, cartographic books and globes. Most of these items relate either to Belgium, or to its former colony the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Département des cartes et plans of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris ranks among the top three worldwide collections of cartographic materials. It holds stocks of atlases, maps, map series, globes, geography games, city maps, building plans and relief maps.
The largest map collections in Germany are those of the Berlin State Library, the Bavarian State Library in Munich and the Göttingen State and University Library.
Not currently publicly available is the collection of the publisher Justus Perthes in Gotha, which is owned by the state of Thuringia and presently housed at the University of Erfurt.
The National Library of Spain in Madrid has a collection of over 500,000 maps.
In Switzerland, there are major map collections in several libraries. The map collection in ETH Zurich's library is the largest, and specialises in thematic maps. The map collection of the Zentralbibliothek Zürich covers to a large extent the various official topographic map series and national atlases.
Located in Bern is the Ryhiner Collection, a former private collection of Johann Friedrich von Ryhiner with a focus on the 17th and 18th centuries.
Major map collections are held at the British Library in London, the National Library of Scotland (available free online), [5] the National Library of Wales and the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.
Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa has a collection of some two million cartographic items. [6]
The world's largest collection of maps is held by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It includes around 5.2 million maps.
The Osher Map Library located on the University of Southern Maine's Portland Campus has a large collection of maps, atlases, and globes.
The map collection of the National Library of Australia in Canberra includes over 600,000 maps and 2,500 atlases. [7]
As with books in libraries, map collections now put more weight on creation of digital documents. These include maps and atlases on CD-ROM and DVD and in some cases the provision of Geodata. Such new forms of publication present map collections with major problems, as not just "mere" text and some inline images need to be kept, but very large amounts of data, up to several Gigabytes, that may eventually be required to operate specialised geographic information systems.
Also, the long-term storage of cartographic data is an unresolved issue that is particularly important for archives.
The digitization of analogue map stocks also offers the opportunity to link library catalogues directly with the images (or at least with so-called thumbnails). Also, digitally processed sheet indexes to individual sheets of map series allow for more targeted research from one's own workplace. [1]
Cartography is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.
A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth.
Gerardus Mercator was a Flemish geographer, cosmographer and cartographer. He is most renowned for creating the 1569 world map based on a new projection which represented sailing courses of constant bearing as straight lines—an innovation that is still employed in nautical charts.
In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large-scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines, but historically using a variety of methods. Traditional definitions require a topographic map to show both natural and artificial features. A topographic survey is typically based upon a systematic observation and published as a map series, made up of two or more map sheets that combine to form the whole map. A topographic map series uses a common specification that includes the range of cartographic symbols employed, as well as a standard geodetic framework that defines the map projection, coordinate system, ellipsoid and geodetic datum. Official topographic maps also adopt a national grid referencing system.
A world map is a map of most or all of the surface of Earth. World maps, because of their scale, must deal with the problem of projection. Maps rendered in two dimensions by necessity distort the display of the three-dimensional surface of the Earth. While this is true of any map, these distortions reach extremes in a world map. Many techniques have been developed to present world maps that address diverse technical and aesthetic goals.
Augustus Heinrich Petermann was a German cartographer.
The Austrian National Library is the largest library in Austria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Neue Burg Wing of the Hofburg in center of Vienna. Since 2005, some of the collections have been relocated within the Baroque structure of the Palais Mollard-Clary. Founded by the Habsburgs, the library was originally called the Imperial Court Library ; the change to the current name occurred in 1920, following the end of the Habsburg Monarchy and the proclamation of the Austrian Republic. The library complex includes four museums, as well as multiple special collections and archives.
A thematic map is a type of map that portrays the geographic pattern of a particular subject matter (theme) in a geographic area. This usually involves the use of map symbols to visualize selected properties of geographic features that are not naturally visible, such as temperature, language, or population. In this, they contrast with general reference maps, which focus on the location of a diverse set of physical features, such as rivers, roads, and buildings. Alternative names have been suggested for this class, such as special-subject or special-purpose maps, statistical maps, or distribution maps, but these have generally fallen out of common usage. Thematic mapping is closely allied with the field of Geovisualization.
Walter William Ristow was the head librarian of the map library at the New York Public Library and later the Library of Congress. Ristow graduated with a degree in geography from the University of Wisconsin in 1931. He went on to earn a master's degree in geography from Oberlin College and a doctorate from Clark University. Ristow joined the Library of Congress in 1946 and became chief of its map department in 1967. He retired in 1978.
East View Geospatial (EVG), formerly East View Cartographic (EVC), is a provider of worldwide maps, geospatial data and geographic information systems (GIS) services. EVG's holdings include all types of geospatial data including vector & raster data, digital elevation models (DEM), satellite & aerial imagery, topographic maps, nautical & aeronautical charts, geological maps, bathymetric data and atlases.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to cartography:
Pictorial maps depict a given territory with a more artistic rather than technical style. It is a type of map in contrast to road map, atlas, or topographic map. The cartography can be a sophisticated 3-D perspective landscape or a simple map graphic enlivened with illustrations of buildings, people and animals. They can feature all sorts of varied topics like historical events, legendary figures or local agricultural products and cover anything from an entire continent to a college campus. Drawn by specialized artists and illustrators, pictorial maps are a rich, centuries-old tradition and a diverse art form that ranges from cartoon maps on restaurant placemats to treasured art prints in museums.
Planetary cartography, or cartography of extraterrestrial objects (CEO), is the cartography of solid objects outside of the Earth. Planetary maps can show any spatially mapped characteristic for extraterrestrial surfaces. Some well-known examples of these maps have been produced by the USGS, such as the latest Geologic Map of Mars, but many others are published in specialized scientific journals.
A national mapping agency is an organisation, usually publicly owned, that produces topographic maps and geographic information of a country. Some national mapping agencies also deal with cadastral matters.
Cartographic propaganda is a map created with the goal of achieving a result similar to traditional propaganda. The map can be outright falsified, or created using subjectivity with the goal of persuasion. The idea that maps are subjective is not new; cartographers refer to maps as a human-subjective product and some view cartography as an "industry, which packages and markets spatial knowledge" or as a communicative device distorted by human subjectivity. However, cartographic propaganda is widely successful because maps are often presented as a miniature model of reality, and it is a rare occurrence that a map is referred to as a distorted model, which sometimes can "lie" and contain items that are completely different from reality. Because the word propaganda has become a pejorative, it has been suggested that mapmaking of this kind should be described as "persuasive cartography", defined as maps intended primarily to influence opinions or beliefs – to send a message – rather than to communicate geographic information.
A map series is a group of topographic or thematic charts or maps usually having the same scale and cartographic specifications, and with each sheet appropriately identified by its publisher as belonging to the same series.
The Globe Museum is a museum in the Palais Mollard, Vienna, Austria, part of the Austrian National Library. It was opened in 1956, and is the only public museum in the world devoted to globes, being three-dimensional models of Earth or other celestial bodies, or spherical representations of the celestial sphere.
The Mercator world map of 1569 is titled Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata. The title shows that Gerardus Mercator aimed to present contemporary knowledge of the geography of the world and at the same time 'correct' the chart to be more useful to sailors. This 'correction', whereby constant bearing sailing courses on the sphere are mapped to straight lines on the plane map, characterizes the Mercator projection. While the map's geography has been superseded by modern knowledge, its projection proved to be one of the most significant advances in the history of cartography, inspiring map historian Nordenskiöld to write "The master of Rupelmonde stands unsurpassed in the history of cartography since the time of Ptolemy." The projection heralded a new era in the evolution of navigation maps and charts and it is still their basis.
Ferdinand Jan Ormeling Jr. is a Dutch cartographer. He is the son of the well known cartographer Ferdinand Jan Ormeling Sr.