Revealing Maps: Preserving and Creating Access to the Bound Maps in the James Ford Bell Library Collection

FAIN: PW-50904-11

University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN 55455-2009)
Marguerite Ragnow (Project Director: July 2010 to November 2017)

Cataloging, digitization, and selective conservation of 30,000 maps bound into 11,000 rare books and atlases dating from 1350 to 1800. The maps would be searchable via a Web-accessible finding aid and an online image repository.

Revealing Maps is a three-year project proposed by the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota to discover, inventory, digitize and make Web accessible 30,000 maps bound into 11,000 rare books and atlases of the early modern period (ca. 1350 CE-ca. 1800 CE) that are part of the James Ford Bell Library. We are requesting $349,665 in NEH funding to support this project. Revealing Maps focuses on providing access to this significant map collection via 1) a searchable, Web-accessible finding aid in which each map is fully described according to current bibliographic standards for cartographic materials, and 2) an online media repository, which will provide high-quality images in a flexible viewing environment. Links to the finding aid and the images will be embedded in the Bell Library's web site and tagged for easy access through Google and other search engines.