Historical geographic material, like maps, plans, and air photos, although collected and persevered by libraries, archives, and other heritage organizations, are often hidden from the general public. They can be difficult to find, access, and use. Fortunately, these caches of cartographic gems have been recognized and valued for their significant contribution to research. As a result, many of these collections have been recently digitized and made available to the public, directly and freely, online.
Acting as a comprehensive guide to online historical, cartographic and other visual resources, Discovering and Using Historical Geographic Resources on the Web provides library and archival staff, and their users, with information on how to locate, interpret, understand, and use these resources. Even for experts, this book can serve as a handy reference that summarizes the different types of maps published, providing comprehensive lists of where to access them. This book is written for all library staff members who answer reference questions and provide library instruction, and for those who are interested in digitizing their own cartographic collections. It will also attract history buffs and scholars in environmental studies, history, earth sciences, anthropology, and more.
Industry Reviews
This is the 6th in title in the Practical Guide for Librarians series, intended to provide help to librarians with planning and implementing new library services and programs. This particular guide, as stated in the preface, introduces the wide variety of options available online for exploring history using geographic information. With the explosion of digitized historical content on the Web, this guide is indeed timely. The first chapter introduces map history in general, along with basic map concepts, and the second explores various online options for locating and retrieving digitized historical maps. Three remaining chapters describe and help users locate historical geographic information, including: surveys and plans; photographic (aerial) images; textual information (e.g., gazetteers, directories, and writings); sound recordings; and other ephemera. The authors emphasize resources produced by libraries and archives in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, but many of these include collections that are global in scope. Each chapter also lists recommended resource by state or province. The resources noted would be useful in supporting research in a variety of disciplines beyond history, including agriculture, natural resources, urban studies, archaeology, and more. This work would be beneficial for new reference and instruction librarians with an interest in historical and geographical resources, or for experienced library professionals looking to expand their reference repertoire.
