The Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography

April 21, 2006 8:33 AM

The Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography Maps, mappers, and the history of mapping, with slide shows, online exhibitions (e.g. The French Empire in North America, popular cartography), and journal articles. Part of the Newberry Library, Chicago.
posted by carter (5 comments total)

Some map blogs:
The Map Room (by mcwetboy)
Cartography
designorati:cartography
posted by carter at 8:44 AM on April 21, 2006

None of the maps are over 650 pixels wide and it's impossible to read most of them. I hate to complain, but this is actually commonplace with a lot of university libraries that do this, so much that's it's become a pet peeve for me. So far Perry Castaneda remains one of the few map libraries that puts maps up in their full, high-resolution glory.
posted by zek at 8:47 AM on April 21, 2006

Good point. Maybe you could send them a nice e-mail?
posted by carter at 8:49 AM on April 21, 2006

Thanks carter, I do love high resolution images but not all the time: it drives you nuts if you just want a quick look. This is an ok site with an emphasis on showing what material they have with a fair balance of descriptive background. It's not always about poster size files.

And zek, Newberry is an independent library - not at a university.
posted by peacay at 9:30 AM on April 21, 2006

What zek said—I love maps, but primarily as sources of information and not as art objects, so images that can't be read don't do much for me. Nice site, though.
posted by languagehat at 12:44 PM on April 21, 2006