Purchase of Storage Equipment for Cartographic Collections at the Osher Map Library

FAIN: PZ-50162-08

University of Southern Maine (Portland, ME 04104-9300)
Yolanda Theunissen (Project Director: October 2007 to March 2012)

The purchase of compact storage systems for the Osher Map Library and the rehousing of 100,000 rare and semi-rare maps, atlases, globes, and explorers' accounts dating from 1475 to 1950.

The Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education (OML) is one of the newest rare map collections in the United States. Housed on the Portland campus of the University of Southern Maine (USM) since 1994, the collection consists of rare maps, atlases, globes, geographies, and explorer's accounts from 1475 to 1900. As part of USM's University Commons campus expansion, the OML will be expanded by 13,000 sq feet, greatly enlarging the map library and doubling the reference area. This NEH request allows for the purchase and installation of custom designed compact storage systems and equipment to house the collections in the new vaults.This state of art storage facility will meet both environmental and security standards for the twenty-first century, and enable OML to better serve its diverse constituencies, inclucing university students & faculty, visiting scholars, the general public, and K-12 students and teachers, in its improved and expanded facility.