Calendars
(by L. E. Doggett, from P. Kenneth Seidelmann (ed.) Explanatory
Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac (University Science Books, Sausalito))
’Mapping
the Past (brief notes on the Nebra Sky Disc, Nippur Map Tablet, Goldmine Papyrus, Han Dynasty map, Forma
Urbis Romae, and various indigenous maps: Daniel Weiss for Archaeology, May/June 2019)
‘Mapping the Bible’ (an exhibition, curated by
Reinout Klaarenbeekat, for the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 22 June-31 August 2022)
'Maps
and Geography in Biblical Studies' (links to early & historical maps, satellite images, etc., some interactive -
David Instone-Brewer, Tyndale Tech blogspot, 22 April 2008)
for illustrations to Bible maps see Web articles: Themes ('Art & Cartography')
Late Antiquity (a series of (mostly) footnoted articles about the cartography and context
of the Madaba Map - for further Madaba links see Web Articles:
Asia)
'Encyclopédies Médiévales' (annotated links on medieval text and image sources, including
sections on Pierre d'Ailly, Isidore, Vincent of Beauvais, etc. - Marie-Christine Duchenne)
Medieval cartography (a
guide to resources and activities by Emmanuelle Vagnon, partly in French and with French emphasis)
'Michael of
Rhodes: a medieval mariner and his manuscripts' (a study of the Venetian sailor Michalli da
Ruodo (fl. 1401-45) - Institute and Museum of the History of Science, Florence [formerly Dibner
Institute for the History of Science and Technology])
+ ‘The Art of Discovery’ (an online
exhibition, created in 2011 by Renee Keul, based on one of 1992, illustrated with high res. scans, at the Osher Map
Library, University of Southern Maine)
Colour. 'The Geography of Colorants (including 'A Brief History of Color in Maps', an online exhibition in
2015, a collaboration between the University of Michigan Library (Stephen S. Clark Library) and Melissa
Zagorski)
Héraldique
européenne (a wide-ranging site, with historical information (in
French) and heraldic illustrations arranged, e.g., by place or
person)
Illusions. ‘Look But Don't Touch: Tactile Illusions on Maps’ (an online exhibition from October 2017, featuring 35
maps with trompe l’oeil elements, e.g. as if an inset was on a separate sheet with curling edges – Harvard University Map
Collection)
Imagery Search (enter a keyword, e.g., ‘mermaid’ or
‘four elements’, to retrieve a selection of details - Osher Map Library)
International Civic Arms
('the largest website on civic heraldry', with historical notes - Ralf
Hartemink)
GIS Tools
Online (includes length and area conversions, scale calulator, etc. - Bureau of Economic
Geology, John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin)
Mesures et
répresentations (a series of illustrated pdf pages, in French, dealing with: measuring and
representing the earth, the astrolabe, measuring a meridian and longitude/latitude, distance of
the earth to the moon and sun - Bibliothèque nationale de France)
'Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance
Culture' (the section on Mathematics, including illustrated chapters on 'Greek Mathematics and its Modern Heirs', 'Ptolemy's
Geography' and 'Greek Astronomy'; from the Library of Congress 1993 exhibit)
’Map Scale’ (‘MCG Toolbox’: April Carlucci, Tinho da Cruz and
Anne Taylor, for the British Cartographic Society)
OnLine Conversion.com (by entering ‘1’ into the
quantity box you can see what conversion rate is being used; some early units varied widely - Robert Fogt)
'Theme Maps (Fanta "Z")' (i.e. Literature, Love & Marriage, Utopia - part of the 'First X, Then Y,
Now Z: Landmark Thematic Maps' exhibition at the Princeton University Library, curated by John Delaney, August
2012-February 2013)
Ties.
'Cartocravatia, or the Disease of Collecting Map Ties' (by Leonard A. Rothman - Occasional
Paper 12 of the California Map Society, 2013, with an associated 'Gallery' [originally published
in The Portolan, Journal of the Washington Map Society, 71 (2008)])
Strange Maps (a blog by Frank Jacobs,
started in September 2006, of imaginative or fake cartographic occurrences through the ages - reached No. 563, May
2012). [See also his Opionator blog, 'Borderlines: Forbidden Zones', in the New York Times, since October 2011]
Caricature maps. 'Asia on
the World' (about caricature maps relating particularly to China and Japan, and others generally - BibliOdyssey
blog, 13 May 2008)
Caricature maps. 'Kaartencollectie'
(this retrieves 18 'Karikaturen' maps, enlargeable to very high res. with Zoomify - Bibliotheek van de
Universiteit van Amsterdam)
Pictorial maps see under that heading in the Themes section of the Web Images
pages. For biographical notes on individual artists, search the People page, or
better still the Barron Maps Blog, under 'Categories' (lower right)
Propaganda maps see under that heading in the Themes section of the Web Images pages.
Fantasy maps. ‘What
is a fantasy map?’ (Tom Harper discusses and illustrates old and modern examples appearing in the
British Library’s exhibition ‘Maps and the 20th Century: Drawing the Line’- British Library, Maps blog)
{December, 2016}
Imaginary. 'Cap sur les territoires de l’imaginaire…' (brief, illustrated overview of
'imaginary cartography', by Gilles Palsky & Fabrice Argounès - exhibition at the Bibliothèque
interuniversitaire de la Sorbonne, Sept.-Nov. 2015)
Schnebelins Schlaraffenlandkarte (enlarged details, full list of place-names and
description (in German) by Hans Zotter of the Homann curiosity of 1716, a map of
Schlaraffenland, or Fool's Paradise)
Carto-Maine-ia
exhibition (featuring jigsaw puzzles, games, etc. - Osher Map Library
and Smith Center for Cartographic Education)
Festival of Maps ('a list of websites
offering fun and games with maps', mostly relating to the US, a few historical - reprinted from Base Line, a newsletter of the
Map and Geography Round Table of the American Library Association, 28, 3 (June 2007))
’Game Maps’
(jigsaw puzzles, playing cards, and board games illustrated and described - Crouch Rare Books)
Games. ‘The Maps We Play…’ (‘an in-
depth look at the topic of cartographic games’ by Matthew Edney, November 2020, based on material in the volumes of The
History of Cartography)
'Giochi dell'Oca' [the game of
Goose] (select 'Archivio giochi', then 'geografia' under Category, for descriptions (in Italian) and
scans of board-games involving maps or quasi-maps - Luigi Ciompi and Adrian Seville)
Jigsaw maps (select 'English
Puzzles' and 'Map Puzzles' for some small illustrations), and see also 'Who Invented the Jigsaw Puzzle?' (a
well-researched account - icollectpuzzles, 3 July 2009)
Jigsaw Puzzles (includes notes on early jigsaw maps - Elliott Avedon Museum and
Archive of Games, University of Waterloo)
Online map games
(GIS and map enthusiasts can "fly through and interact with late 1800s
maps of California's most scenic and dynamic landscapes: Yosemite Valley,
Lake Tahoe, and Los Angeles. A 3D mosaic of Lewis and Clark's legendary
early 1800s expedition of the Western territory of the U. S. is also
included" - David Rumsey)
Puzzle and Game
Maps (images from various acknowledged sources, with commentary; a good round-up of map games and dissected
maps, with a list of links at the end - by Pecay on BibliOdyssey, 24 August 2009)
'Clark Library Literary
Maps (online exhibition at the Clark Library, broken down by theme, area or author, curated by Lisa Lorenzo and Corinne
Vieracker, 2014, with sample enlargeable illustrations [pointing out the useful Library of Congress search term, 'Literary
Landmarks'] - Stephen S. Clark Library, University of Michigan)
(e)space & fiction (a
blog "about maps and other spatial machineries used in fiction: novels, movies, paintings,
music, comics, art works " - bilingual, English & French)
Fantasy Atlas (a selection of fantasy and literary
maps)
’How Writers Map Their Imaginary
Worlds’ (illustrated commentary by Sarah Laskow on The Writer’s Map, edited by Huw Lewis-Jones - Atlas
Obscura, 22 October 2018)
Literature and Maps:
Image and Text' (an interesting, if confusing, site [being rebuilt] with groups of. images
detached from their explanatory text; also follow up the list of links: 'Political
maps...Petruccelli's maps' - Chris Mullen, 'The visual telling of stories: a database dedicated
to the study of the narrative in visual form')
'Maps in literature' (a series of about 20 'Map Quotation of the Month' entries
(up to 2004); Stanfords Maps and Books, London - Newsletter)
Maps
in Science Fiction (Jonathan Crowe announcing an article in the New York Review of Science Fiction)
Quixote. 'Los mapas del Quijote' (an extended note by Carmen Líter, Biblioteca Nacional de España, about the
cartography of Cervantes's Don Quixote; click
Exposición for an index of thumbnails to the 2005 exhibition)
'Bad Archaeology: leave your common sense behind'
(select 'Old maps' for comments on the Reis, Finnaeus and Buache maps; or search the site for 'maps' - Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews
and James Doeser)
Science, Pseudoscience, and Irrationalism (critical examination of
the theories surrounding the Piri Reis map, the 1418 Chinese world map, and Menzies's claims about the '1421' map - Steven Dutch)
The Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) (brief biographical entries on 200,000
artists, with bibliographical citations; useful for artist-mapmakers - J. Paul Getty Trust)
UK: 'Exeter
working papers in British book trade history' (bibliographies, for the British Isles,
London, Devon and the South-West, leading to some detailed listings with biographical details
of publishers, etc., mostly covering the 18th and early 19th centuries - Ian Maxted)
'Art and Mapping' (Special
Issue of Cartographic Perspectives, 53 (Winter 2006), edited by Denis Wood and John Krygier, with a 'Catalogue of Map
Artists' by Denis Wood)
Orbis Latinus (Graesse's 1909 dictionary of medieval and later names, in its 1972
version, edited by H. & S.-C. Plechl, provided in three sections by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
Munich; another version can be found, again courtesy of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, broken down into sections: A-D; E-M; N-Z; although you
can select on the first two letters [which may cover 30 or so pages], it does not seem possible to search
for a specific word)
Periplus (names from a 14th century portolan chart)
Lippincott's pronouncing gazetteer [of the world] (Philadelphia, 1856)
("Containing a notice and the pronunciation of the names of nearly one hundred thousand places...Edited by J. Thomas, and T.
Baldwin"; the complete, searchable, 218-page text - ‘Making of America’, University of Michigan Digital Library Text
Collections)
Global
Gazetteer (almost 3 million towns, arranged by country - Falling Rain Genomics)
NGA GEOnet Names Server (GNS)
('the official repository of standard spellings of all foreign place names, sanctioned by the United
States Board on Geographic Names')
ABC for
Book Collectors (the classic text by John Carter and Nicolas Barker
(Oak Knoll Press 1995) - mounted by the International League of
Antiquarian Booksellers)
For bibliographies in the history of cartography and general cartobibliographies see
here
'British Map Engravers - a Supplement' (an ongoing
supplement to British Map Engravers: A Dictionary of Engravers, Lithographers and their Principal Employers to 1850,
by Laurence Worms and Ashley Baynton-Williams (2011) (November 2019)
CERL Thesaurus
file (CT) ('forms of imprint places, imprint names, and personal
names as found in material printed before the middle of the nineteenth
century - including variant spellings, forms in Latin and other
languages, and fictitious names'; well over 800,000 records [December 2006] - Consortium of European Research
Libraries)
’Early modern digital
collections’ (‘A list of digital collections of early printed books that are primarily hi-resolution public domain
images’ - Sarah Werner)
English Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) (a searchable listing of
'over 460,000 items, published between 1473 and 1800... from the collections of the British Library and over 2,000
other libraries'
Finding digital texts (a helpful guide by Otto Vervaart: 'Arguing the law with Nicolaus
Everardi', 5 February 2011 [note, despite the focus on legal history, this is of general relevance])
'Image
analysis of Renaissance copperplate prints' (a 20-page, illustrated pdf article by S. Blair Hedges
describing a method to date undated prints and maps, in the proceedings of the SPIE conference, March 2008)
Incunabula. 'The Atlas of Early Printing' ('a tool for teaching
the early history of printing in Europe during the second half of the fifteenth century' - University of Iowa Libraries)
'The Library in the New
Age' (a very perceptive article, looking at the historical background and context of Google
Books by Robert Darnton, in The New York Review of Books , 55, No.10 - 12 June 2008)
Paper
shrinkage (see the MapHist thread in September 2009 under that heading [but look further for the 're: Paper
shrinkage' posts] for comment and links relating to the slight difference in size of otherwise identical printed
impressions)
'The Plantin Press Online' ('bibliographical information on all editions printed and published by Christophe Plantin (c. 1520-1589) in Antwerp and by his printing office in Leiden until his death on 1 July 1589', with a section for Geography - Brill Online)
rarebooks.info. ('more than 80 electronic bibliographies online'; you can see which bibliographies are
available via 'List of Available Titles', but you have to subscribe to consult them)
'Transcription of early letter
forms & symbols' ('Rare, Antiquarian, or Just Plain Old: Cataloging pre-Twentieth Century Cartographic Resources' - 65-page
pdf slide show by Deborah J. Leslie, June 2007)
'Cartochronology, or helpful hints on how to get a date' (reissue of an illustrated article by Tony
Campbell in The Map Collector 33 (December 1985); about an unfulfilled project to provide a structured
chronological index to datable internal map features - Kunstpedia)
Dating a map (19th and 20th century map codes for selected US and UK
publishers - ‘The Map Curators' Toolbox’: April Carlucci, Tinho da Cruz and Anne Taylor, for
the British Cartographic Society)
Cataloguing. ‘Identifier et qualifier les
relations entre les publications cartographiques’ (the article proposes ‘une typologie qui permet de restituer
les multiples aspects des filiations et de poser les bases des futurs outils de navigation dans les catalogues’, with
particular relevance for CartoMundi; by Jean-Luc Arnaud, in: e-Perimetron, 13:2 (2018), pp. 63-84)
Cataloguing. Rare Map
Cataloging: A Case of Special Considerations (an illustrated pdf article by Joel Kovarsky
and Maryke Barber, first published in Issue 67 (Winter 2006) of The Portolan, journal of
the Washington Map Society, pp.39-44, with a useful list of references)
Cataloguing (see also the electronic journal e-Perimetron)
'The
Description of Non-Letterpress Material in Books' (select volume 35 for the article by G.
Thomas Tanselle in Studies in Bibliography 35 (1982):1-42 - via the Electronic Text
Center, University of Virginia Library)
The Institutional
Repository Bibliography (IRB) ('selected English-language articles, books, technical
reports, and other scholarly textual sources that are useful in understanding institutional
repositories' - Charles W. Bailey, Digital Scholarship)
Journal of Maps & Geography Libraries (launched in
2004; to include articles on ‘the history of map cataloging’ - edited by Mary Lynette
Larsgaard and Paige G. Andrew)
’The Map
Curators' Toolbox’ (including some historical sections - April Carlucci, Tinho da Cruz and Anne Taylor, for the British
Cartographic Society). [Vol. 42, no.3 (2005) of the Cartographic Journal (available online to subscribers) is devoted to map librarianship, and includes an article on ‘The Map Curators' Toolbox’]
'Reading
old documents' ('online tutorials on Latin and palaeography will help you to read documents from the
medieval period and beyond, through practical activities and useful examples' - UK National Archives)
'viaLibri. Quick Query Library Search' ('a free
internet library search tool that greatly simplifies access to 10 different union catalogues and the COPACs of a dozen major rare
book and special collection libraries')
Translate this site (Babelfish is one of the free online language translation programs and it will convert
text, almost immediately, into another language.
Machine translation is of poor quality but it can give some idea of the meaning. Besides
European languages, Babelfish translates to/from Chinese, Japanese and Russian. Equally, if you find a
link from this site to a page in a foreign language, you could translate it into a kind of English)
Geographicus Antique Map blog (since
April 2009, the New York map dealer, Kevin James Brown, has been sharing well-researched notes and
illustrations of interesting stock items; apparently discontinued August 2013)
Google Maps Mania ('an unofficial
Google Maps blog tracking the websites, mashups and tools being influenced by Google Maps', for example Historical Map
Collections, November 2011)
JHMaps (started in July 2008 and run by John
Horrigan, who has an antique map business in Edmonton, Alberta - well-referenced posts)
'La historia en mapas' (a blog by Sebastian Diaz Angel
(Colombia), in Spanish but with a general remit)
Library of Congress (‘Worlds revealed’- started 5 November 2015,
with a wide range of knowledgeable notes by different authors; 'A year in review: newly scanned maps' of the previous year was
introduced in 2017)
'Mapping the Nation'
(a blog, started in June 2012, mostly focusing on thematic maps of the USA, by Susan Schulten)
Maps & More: a world of maps (a blog by Joost Depuydt, Curator
of maps, drawings and prints at FelixArchief (City Archives), Stad Antwerpen, started October 2007)
Map Room blog (a blog by Jonathan Crowe, started
2003 and revived in 2016 after a 4½ year break, however the monthly Archives were maintained throughout; see 'Select category' under the heading 'Archives' for a
wide range of search topics; See here to Subscribe and Follow)
'Maps that Matter' (a blog, started in
June 2008 by Martin Dodge and Chris Perkins, University of Manchester; its concern is with publications that had
a significant impact on geographical theory or practice, or on abstract visualisation, since the late 19th
century (Mackinder); thematic and statistical mapping is likely to feature strongly)
MapUtopia ('a space dedicated to the heritage of cartography and maps especially - but not only - from
the view point of modern digital information and communication technologies'; by E.Livieratos
for the Cartography Group, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, since December 2006; see also the related
Cartography in Cultural Heritage
site)
Strange Maps (a blog by Frank Jacobs,
started in September 2006, of imaginative or fake cartographic occurrences through the ages - reached No. 563, May
2012). [See also his Opionator blog, 'Borderlines: Forbidden Zones', in the New York Times, since October 2011]
Studiekring Historische Cartografie (a blog,
in Dutch and mostly about Dutch subjects, by different members of the Studiekring [founded 1996], started in 2006 -
select 'Logboek' for the entries)
Islamic Cartography
(written by Tarek Kahlaoui as an 'outlet for my dissertation, in the writing process, titled:
"The depiction of the Mediterranean in late Islamic cartography: from the 13th to the 16th
century"' - started August 2006; intermittent)
Eighteenth-Century Reading Room (a blog from the
Mina Rees Library, City University of New York Graduate Center; click on Maps for a small selection of texts)
(e)space & fiction (a
blog "about maps and other spatial machineries used in fiction: novels, movies, paintings,
music, comics, art works" - bilingual, English & French)
