Storage Furniture for Rare Maps in the American Geographical Society Library

FAIN: PG-50543-09

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (Milwaukee, WI 53211-3153)
Christopher M. Baruth (Project Director: May 2008 to August 2013)

The purchase of storage furniture for rare books, atlases, and maps in a collection that the American Geographical Society had given to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1978 along with a legacy of deferred maintenance. The university has in place an ongoing program to upgrade the environment, condition, and security of the collection.

This grant is intended to purchase a cabinet to house the American Geographical Society Library's 1452 Mappamundi (world map) by the Venetian cartographer, Giovanni Leardo, and around twenty other extremely rare and valuable books, atlases and maps. The acquisition of this cabinet, although very much a continuation of the preservation initiatives being undertaken by the AGS Library over the past several years, is an acute need occasioned by the re-mounting of the map for exhibition, which made it too large to fit in existing storage. The exhibition of this map took place first at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago (November 2, 2007-January 27, 2008), and currently, at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (March 14, 2008-June 8, 2008). This "blockbuster" traveling exhibition, Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, has for the first time ever drawn together in one venue many of the world's most important cartographic treasures.