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What Ordnance Survey does with its 'old maps'

• August 24. < http://blog.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/2010/08/what-happens-to-our-old-maps/ > 'What happens to our old maps?' (by Gemma on the 'official' Ordnance Survey blog).
        ' ... there are also thousands and thousands of old maps and map-related records. So, what do we do with them? There are actually several routes we follow. Our Historic Map Archive has been used to complete collections and libraries up and down the country for example. But that was quite an easy one. What would you do with a large scale metric survey of Shetland? It was actually gratefully received by The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Even more unusual has been the discovery of a 30-foot aerial photo covering the length of Britain. Dating from 1942, it was a training flight by the Spitfire Air Reconnaissance based in Scotland. It has now been passed to The National Archives (TNA) at Kew.
        'Aside from the unusual cases, the majority of our records are transferred to TNA as they are of historic value. We have trig records (our surveyors used them to show where measuring points were) which often include an old photo of a former surveyor pointing at some item on the ground! There are also flight plans being packaged up and transferred to TNA. Before 2000 all our aerial photography involved photos and films, and the flight plans were used to show exactly how the images were captured along a route. This helped our colleagues with their digital orthorectification. This involves removing any height distortions in a flat photograph of the earth’s service so that the orthorectified image accurately reflects the position of features on the ground.
        'So, that’s what we do with our old maps. Before you know it, our old maps could be in deep store in a redundant Cheshire salt mine under the safeguard of the TNA. Or they could be in your local library, waiting to be used!'

New Learning Centre at the British Library to open just in time for the map exhibition


• August 12. < http://www.teachers.tv/news/70761 > 'New learning centre for schools at British Library' (from teachers.tv).
        'The Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, will be opening a new learning centre at the British Library on 16 September, giving schools access to a large range of facilities and delivering improved workshops for children, which will run alongside the library's exhibitions. One of the exhibitions attracting children this summer is 'Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art', where children can explore 80 wall-maps which have never been seen before. The 100 maps being showcased date from 200AD to the present day, and are drawn from the 4 and a half million maps held in the British Library's collections. Children will get to see a collection of maps on paper, wood, vellum, silver, silk and marble, including atlases, maps, globes and tapestries that were intended for display side-by-side with the world's greatest paintings and sculptures.
        'Peter Barber, Head of Map Collections at the British Library describes maps as "pictorial encyclopaedias that are about far more than just geography." When children visit the exhibition, which opened on 30 April and finishes on 19 September, they can take part in workshops which will encourage them to think about maps in more depth ... Around 16,000 students and 3,000 teachers, adult learners and families take part in the British Library's Learning Programme each year, which includes workshops, activities and resources ...'

Hitchcock's late 19th century geological relief map of New England restored


• August 10. < http://www.newswise.com/articles/geologist-restores-historical-map-of-northern-new-england > 'Geologist Restores Historical Map of Northern New England' (from Newswise.com).
        'Thanks to Wally Bothner, the top of Mount Washington has been replaced and the Northeast’s highest peak now reaches its true height of 6,288 feet. Bothner, Professor Emeritus of geology at the University of New Hampshire, did not wear hiking boots or carry a backpack to repair the fabled mountaintop; rather, he rebuilt it with pine, glue and wood putty in a makeshift studio at the edge of campus.
        'Mount Washington got its facelift, along with the rest of New Hampshire, Vermont and western Maine, when Bothner undertook a painstaking restoration of a 12-by-16-foot wooden relief map created by state geologist Charles Hitchcock in the late 1800s. The map, formerly muted, pocked, and occasionally “graffiti’d” by students claiming their hometowns with x’s in ink, is now an eye-catching centerpiece of the recently restored James Hall, home of UNH’s Earth sciences department.
        'Far more than a pretty picture, the Hitchcock map has a curricular role, too. “It was a teaching tool for Hitchcock, and it has been part of our teaching in this department since 1929,” says Bothner, who worked with a team of undergraduate and graduate students for nearly a year on the restoration. “It can serve as an instructional tool to see how geological thought has evolved over the last 140 years,” Bothner adds, noting that modern geology changes little of Hitchcock’s basic map pattern but refines, reorders and subdivides many of his original units.
        'Charles Hitchcock spent a decade mapping New Hampshire, Vermont and eastern Maine by foot, horse and railroad. Because the state at the time was largely unforested, Hitchcock’s surveys were remarkably accurate. He was allocated $200 by the New Hampshire General Court to produce the relief map and worked on it from 1871 to 1890 at Dartmouth College, where he was a professor. The map came to UNH’s Thompson Hall in 1894, moved to Conant Hall in 1933 where it was repainted by professor Ralph Meyers, and finally, in 1966, to James Hall, where it suffered wear and neglect in the lower level until Bothner undertook its restoration.
        The Hitchcock map, which was the first of three relief maps of New Hampshire, is at a horizontal scale of one inch to one mile, with its vertical scale exaggerated 500 percent. Constructed of laminated half-inch thick boards cut and glued on top of each other, it weighs nearly 1.5 tons and was moved in three pieces. In addition to 40 color-coded rock types, the map showcases bodies of water and mines that were active when the map was created. Geographic features like the boundaries and names of nearly 570 towns and major roadways reflect 1870s New England; the state’s largest lake is spelled “Winnipiseogee” and Interstates 89, 93 and 95 are noticeably absent. When Hitchcock completed his relief map, he reportedly declared the geology of New Hampshire a closed subject of inquiry: “Now we know everything we need to know about New Hampshire... [first section of the article only]”

Stanford to appoint a photographer for web digitisation


• July 27. < http://histpres.com/other/historic-map-digitization-specialist-stanford-university-ca > 'Historic Map Digitization Specialist, Stanford University, CA' (from Histpres. Unique Historic Preservation Jobs).
        A welcome announcement promising further additions to an already impressive online map collection: 'Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR) seeks a digital photographer to digitize historic and antiquarian maps in its collections. The successful candidate’s primary function will be the digital capture of historic maps and atlases using sophisticated color digital imaging equipment. He/she will serve as the lead photographer on the digital camera system and will contribute to all other steps in the production workflow, including materials preparation, metadata creation, quality control and preparation of files for online access...'

A Bangkok seminar to discuss early maps of Thailand


• July 14. < http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/07/14/life/King-Taksin-rides-again-30133689.html > 'King Taksin rides again' (by Subhatra Bhumiprabhas in the [Bangkok Nation).
        At a seminar on July 22-23, 'Siamese Archives: From Krung Thonburi to Chanthabun', 'map collector Thavatchai Tangsirivanich will share his recent findings, which include the identification of more than 100 places along the river between Bangkok and Ayuttaya that he deciphered from charts dating as far back as the late 15th century... during the Thonburi Period, European mapmakers completely ignored Bangkok and the rest of the Chao Phraya basin. Only four maps of Siam were printed in Amsterdam, and for the most part they recycled details from maps made during the Ayutthaya period, Thavatchai says.'
        'Historian Chanrvit Kasetsiri meanwhile came across a fascinating map of Siam and Burma at the Palace Museum in Taipei. King Taksin sent it to the Chinese emperor, he says, and Chiang Kai-shek took it to Taiwan when he fled the communist onslaught in 1949. Charnvit, president of the Association of Siam Archives, says he learned of the map from Japanese researcher Masuda Erika, who worked at Taiwan's Academia Chinica. Erika believes the map was primarily created by Chinese serving in Taksin's court, and likely under the king's supervision, since it shows a route from Thonburi to Ava...'

Finding 19th century Pikes Peak boundary stones


• July 5. < http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15441731 > 'Measure of history: Survey retraces 130-year-old steps to chart Pikes Peak propert' (by Jason Blevins in the Denver Post).
        'After an hour of finicky excavating, Wayne Hancock pries a granite slab from the tundra below Pikes Peak's lonely South Slope. "Come on, give me an 'X'," he mutters. A few scrubs with a wire brush and Hancock, a U.S. Bureau of Land Management surveyor, finds his X and more. Etched into the weathered granite slab is a clear "118." That's enough to know he has found his treasure: a surveyors monument buried in 1897, marking the corner of a property boundary. "It's a little bit of an art, finding these vague marks," he says, holding a mirror to the granite to illuminate the etchings. "Sometimes the numbers just jump out at you."
        'Hancock is one of a few hundred BLM surveyors scouring rugged, remote federal lands as part of the Cadastral Survey, the most sweeping, longest-running land survey in history. Since 1785, federal surveyors have overseen the establishment and confirmation of boundaries on 650 million acres of public land that can anchor property lines miles away. For the past half-century, surveyors such as Hancock have sifted through historic maps and documents to guide efforts in the field at re-establishing those often antiquated lines that still - and always will - define ownership. "There is high demand for this," says Randy Bloom, chief Cadastral surveyor for Colorado's BLM. He cites increasing stresses on the state's public lands, including oil and gas development, recreation, mineral leases and expanding urban areas. "How can you manage the land unless you know where the boundaries are?"
        'Preserving and protecting public-land boundaries is the goal of the Cadastral Survey. Even with today's space-based mapping technologies, the job requires digging through both archives and dirt. Last week, Hancock packed a sleeve of hand-scrawled maps dating to the late 1800s along with his satellite- supported navigation equipment and went hunting for property markers, some first set and last seen more than 130 years ago. It's part of a several-year project on the southwest side of Pikes Peak, where Forest Service land and Colorado Springs Utilities land intertwine between a network of reservoirs that store the city's water supply.
        'Hancock has studied the meticulously scripted notes from the original surveyor, Edwin Kellogg, who in October 1874 described the former military reservation high on the south-facing slopes of Pikes Peak as "by far the most rugged and difficult of my career." Back in Kellogg's day, survey teams traveled for weeks, cutting lines across mountains and valleys. They measured distances with 66-foot chains; 40 lengths of that chain equal a half-mile. Using hatchets and solar compasses, surveyors such as Kellogg and his more famous pioneering peer, Maj. D.C. Oakes, established the first-ever property boundaries and marked them using primitive monuments such as etchings on trees and perfectly positioned, X-marked rocks. Their field notes - seemingly always scribed in perfect, if not flowery, cursive - describe each monument and guide to today's surveyors...' [The first half of the article only.]

A perceptive review of 'Magnificent Maps'


• July 5. < http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n13/peter-campbell/at-the-british-library > 'At the British Library' (by Peter Campbell in the London Review of Books, 32, No.13, '8 July 2010').
        A perceptive review by the journal's 'resident designer and art critic', skilfully weaving together comments on a handful of the items in the 'Magnificent Maps' exhibition. Here is his last paragraph:
        'Paintings and illustrated books usually have an optimum viewing distance; you may peer at details but most of the time you choose a position that takes in the whole. With maps it is different. Walking round the British Library galleries you are forever moving in and out, scanning the whole and reading the detail. When you are reading the smallest lettering you are made aware both of how much there is that you are not attending to, and how it relates to the whole map. The GPS satellites that wrap the globe in space-defining signals have led to the development of maps that move along with you and tell you only what you need to know to get where you are going. Maps shown on the television news zoom in from a global view to the exact spot where the latest suicide bomber struck, but show little else. The map you see on the cabin screen on a long-distance flight shows direction, distance, speed and height, but only the most rudimentary geography. The maps in the exhibition from a less accurate but richer cartographic culture hint at what we may be losing'.

Back to the future?


• July 5 [date seen]. < http://www.spatial.redlands.edu/msgis/calendars/ShowEvent.aspx?id=409 > 'Colloquium: Steve Benzeck "Historical Map Styles and Cartographic Effects in the Age of GIS"' (undated announcement from the University of Redlands, California).
        'Distinctive and unusual mapmaking styles can draw a map reader into spending more time immersing themselves into the data and message of a given map. Historical, hand-made or "period" styles can be particularly appropriate when mapping historical data or when a particular point-of-view can be communicated by associating a map with a past time period. This colloquium will examine some historical map styles, show modern examples that employ these styles and provide some tips on how to use modern mapmaking tools in concert with graphics design software to create such effects.'

Mapseller puts 100 Vermont maps online


• July 4. < http://timesargus.com/article/20100704/NEWS01/7040343 > 'Historically, you CAN get there from here' (by Daniel Barlow in the [Vermont] Times Argus).
        'If a picture is worth a thousand words, David Allen believes a map can tell a million stories. Allen, who lives in Chesterfield, N.H., is a connoisseur of old New England maps. He runs a business selling book collections and CD-ROMs of detailed copies of old maps - many of them giving forgotten history of the region.
        'Now he has placed nearly 100 historical Vermont maps online for free. "My hope is that people really take some time to look at these documents," Allen said in a phone interview last week. "They've been sitting on various computers of mine for a few years now. There is a wealth of fascinating information on these maps." Among the maps he has made available online is one from 1780 designed by Bernard Romans that for the first time used the name Vermont. "There was no such thing as Vermont in 1780," Allen said. "The state was part of New York at the time. But there were people, including Bernard, who drew the map, who believed that Vermont should be its own state." ...
        'Most of Allen's maps are scans of originals. He'll travel to the Library of Congress or local historical societies and use what he calls an upside-down scanner to scan in pieces of the maps - many of the documents are much too large for traditional scanners - then digitally piece them back together on his computer...'
        'One of his favorite map stories is the developing name of Camel's Hump, the well-known 4,000-foot peak in Huntington and Duxbury. Allen points to a 1789 map that gave the first - and lesser-known-name for the peak: Camel's Rump. That identification persisted on local maps for about 40 years, he said. Bawdy humor continued on other maps when some began referring to Tickenecket Lake in Boltonville, on the east side of the state, as Ticklenaked Pond.' The maps, which can be seen here are in good resolution.

Notable Tudor mapping exhibition in Portsmouth


• June 27. < http://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/news/news271.php > 'Mapping Portsmouth’s Tudor Past - New Exhibition for Limited Run at the Mary Rose Museum' (news release).
        'Could a 500 year old map have contained clues to where the wreck of the Mary Rose lay and could this be the first time Portsmouth maps have returned to the city in over 400 years? All these fascinating questions will be raised in a brand new temporary exhibition of international cartographic importance, in the Mary Rose Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard from 2nd July to 17th October 2010. Mapping Portsmouth's Tudor Past brings together, for the first time, several important maps from The British Library, UK Hydrographic Office and the Admiralty Library. All but one of these maps are hand-drawn and are works of art in their own right. Together they give us a unique and fascinating insight into Tudor Portsmouth and the view of their world 500 years ago.'
        The piece goes on to describe briefly a number of the items and concludes with comments from Dr David Starkey, who inspired the exhibition. It is a pity that, while 'entrance to the Historic Dockyard is free for those wishing to visit the retailers, cafes and Antiques Storehouse', the visitor to the exhibition has first to pay £19.50 ($29) for a ticket to the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

Preparing to exhibit the Ricci map in Minneapolis in September


• June 17 [seen 23 June]. < http://www.scgma.org/?p=321 > 'Marguerite Ragnow: unique map collections' (Ana Boa-Ventura for the Scholarly Community for the Globalization of the Middle Ages (SCGMA)).
        'On the afternoon of May 21st we walked to the James Ford Bell Library where curator Marguerite Ragnow was waiting for us for a presentation of the Library’s world-known collection of historical maps. The collection is arguably best known for being home to three rare portolan maps. As Lloyd Brown explains in his 1949 "The Story of Maps", portolan charts "were much more than an aid to navigation; they were, in effect, the key to empire, the way to wealth". This could well explain the rarity of these maps. One other factor is that these maps were made of vellum, which was expensive.
        'Ragnow is now planning the exhibition that will display - starting Sept. 15 - the most recent acquisition of the Library: the first map showing North America and China together on the same map, by Matteo Ricci. The exhibition will be entitled "Matteo Ricci and the Jesuits in China" and will likely generate a series of programs at [the University of Minnesota] UMN in relation to this piece. Still, and in the midst of the preparation to receive this rarity, Ragnow found the time to offer us a very informative tour of the Library’s historical maps...So you may want to plan a visit to UMN this Fall as starting in September, the already impressive James Ford Bell library collection will have Ricci’s new map, which may not be as valuable as the three portolan charts (valued at 3 to 10 million dollars, depending on the current market) but is unique in its meaning. Of the new historical map, James Bell said: "There couldn’t be any more iconic purchase for the library than the Ricci map"'.

Boston Public Library gets grant to digitise 2,200 early maps


• June 14 [seen 23 June]. < http://www.cityofboston.gov/news/default.aspx?id=4664 > 'Norman B. Leventhal Map Center Receives $275K Grant' (announcement from CityofBoston.gov).
        'The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to catalog, conserve, and digitize 2,200 rare and historic maps dating from 1500 to 1800. It will take three years to complete the project at which point there will be more than 5,000 high-resolution digitized maps available worldwide on the Map Center’s website. The Map Center’s highly regarded "zoomify" technology allows viewers to magnify sections of maps and see them in intricate detail.
        'The $275,367 grant will conserve maps that illustrate Europe’s discovery of the New World and the colonization of the Americas. NEH Chairman James A. Leach designated this a "We the People" project because "it explores significant themes and events in our nation’s history and culture and advances knowledge of the principles that define America." "We are thrilled to receive the support of the NEH in protecting some of the library’s genuine treasures," said Amy E. Ryan, President of the Boston Public Library. "This grant makes possible the preservation of atlases and maps that are among only two or three of their kind available in the United States."
        'The Map Center has extensive educational programs that include using maps in classrooms to teach history, geography, world cultures and other subject areas to more than 1,000 students. The organization also offers training seminars that show teachers how to use maps in the classroom. There are more than 90 lesson plans and 3,000 digitized maps on the website that teachers can download for free. Jan Spitz, Executive Director of the Map Center, said, "When these historic maps are once again available, we will use them to create curriculum units on World Geography for K to 12 students. There are currently no other map collections in the U.S. that present such a wide-range of digitized images spanning centuries and continents."
        'The maps and atlases to be preserved and digitized document the Great Age of Discovery and the achievements, failures, and nationalistic ambitions of the explorers themselves and the countries that commissioned them. Each artifact is a window not only into the time and place of its depiction, but also its creation by the cartographer, affording the viewer an interpretation of the physical and cultural environment in which history was enacted.'

What missed the final cut for 'Magnificent Maps'?


• May 29. < http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/magnificentmaps/2010/05/magnificent-maps-that-didnt-make-the-exhibition-1.html > 'Magnificent maps that didn't make the exhibition #1' (by Tom Harper on the Magnificent Maps: Curators' Blog).
        Tom Harper, co-curator of the British Library's much-talked-about exhibition, has started a series discussing the 'Magnificent Maps' that didn't quite make the cut. William Smith's pioneering geological map, 'A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales' (1815) heads the list, as Tom explains, 'partly in order to quell any unrest at its non-inclusion.' Being a map curator has its dangers, it seems, with a threatened uprising of geologists wielding their hammers.

Maps upside down in the 'Magnificent Maps' exhibition


• May 28. < http://annasayburn.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/whos-mapping-who-magnificent-maps-at-the-british- library/ > 'Who’s mapping who? Magnificent Maps at the British Library' ('Anna Sayburn: work in progress' blog).
        An interesting 'vox pop' about the Magnificent Maps exhibition. It's one person's view but emphasises the impression that I have had going round the display, that it can be appreciated on many different levels. In a sense you can make your own parallel exhibition by what you read into the exhibits yourself. I simply cannot imagine anybody finding it boring. As Anna Sayburn comments: 'Unlike most art exhibitions, people were actually talking to one another in this exhibition. One chap had stationed himself by an early map of Italy, explaining to all and sundry that it was ‘upside-down’ (the convention that north is at the top of a map arrived late). Another kindly helped me get some kind of fix on the reproduction Hereford Mappa Mundi, pointing out Britain at bottom left and Europe above it. I found myself exclaiming to a stranger that the gold-leaf fringed Venetian map pictured above was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.'

Booth's poverty maps all round you


• May 23. < http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/arts/24iht-design24.html > 'An Early Triumph in Information Design' (by Alice Rawsthorn in the New York Times).
        This is headed with an eye-catching illustration of one of the new galleries at the revamped Museum of London wall-papered, floor, ceiling and sides, with reproductions of Charles Booth's celebrated 'Map Descriptive of London Poverty in 1891'. It goes on to provide the backgound to Booth's work and maps.

A note on John Hessler and his portolan chart conference


• May 22. < http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052104713.html?referrer= emailarticle > 'Library of Congress holds conference on origins of portolan charts' (by Neely Tucker in the Washington Post).
        Ostensibly a report on yesterday's unusual international conference at the Library of Congress, this focuses on just one of the five speakers, John Hessler, the conference's energetic organiser. The issues surrounding the birth of these remarkably accurate navigational charts in the 13th century remain obscure. As Hessler admitted: "Even with all the research that has been done on them the world over,there's not a single question about them that we can definitively answer." However a small group (among which I include myself) continue to grapple with these fascinating problems.

Maps from the early 20th century affected in Parks Canada flood


• May 15. < http://www.vancouversun.com/Thousands+historic+photos+maps+damaged+Parks+Canada+building+flood/3 031635/story.html > 'Thousands of historic photos, maps damaged in Parks Canada building flood' (by Darah Hansen in the Vancouver Sun).
        Parks Canada is taking time out from protecting the wilderness this week to rescue thousands of historic photos, slides, documents, maps and books from a major flood in its downtown Revelstoke headquarters. "It has been really hard," said Marnie DiGiandomenico, spokeswoman for Mount Revelstoke and Glacier national parks in the B.C. Interior, of the emotional toll of the cleanup.
        Dismayed Parks Canada staff arrived at work early Tuesday morning to find the 6,000-square-foot basement of their leased office space under two metres (seven feet) of water. The flood badly damaged the parks' huge archival inventory documenting the cultural and natural history of the area to the early 1900s. "It was underwater," DiGiandomenico said. She credited the quick action of staff for rescuing much of the historic material.
        Thousands of soggy photos and slides -- among them early images of Glacier House, one of Canada's first tourist hotels, and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway -- were immediately dunked into buckets of cold water as a temporary method of preservation as they are sorted and hung to dry. Damaged paper documents -- including historic reports, books and maps -- have been shipped by the truck load to freezer facilities around the province until they can be dealt with. "What that does is it buys us time to make a decision and prevent any further deterioration," DiGiandomenico said.
        Parks Canada has since brought in contractors to help in the cleaning and sorting process. Meanwhile, parks employees have been dispatched to temporary office space until the downtown facility is restored. Some archival items are beyond repair, DiGiandomenico acknowledged, adding many paper documents have been tossed out. But just how much history was lost has yet to be quantified. DiGiandomenico said the flood will likely change the way Parks Canada stores its historical records. The cause of the flood remains under investigation by the office building's management staff.

A new antique map price catalogue


• May 11. Fine Books & Collections announces (on May 10th) 'Antique Map Dealer Publishes The First Catalogue Of The World's Printed Antique Maps, From The Year 1472 To 1850'. This proves to be Map World's Antique Map Catalogue For Collectors. It comprises 25,000 printed maps up to 1850 and, because its context is the thesis that maps are good investments, it 'gives every map's current replacement value, from £50 to £6 million'. My reason for mentioning it is not to promote what is essentially a commercial exercise but to wonder what - as the first [sic] such work - it might add to the long established Antique Map Price Record (AMPR), issued in print since the early 1980s and in annual editions online since 2002. At a current total of 133,000 records, this is almost three times the size of Map World's new offering. Besides its commercial information, the AMPR is also a valuable, and well illustrated, bibliographical resource.

Peter Barber chooses ten interesting maps


• May 8. < http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1272921/Ten-greatest-maps-changed-world.html > 'Ten of the greatest: Maps that changed the world ' (by Peter Barber in the [London] MailOnline).
        Comments from the main organiser of the British Library's 'Magnificent Maps' exhibition, assisted with good illustrations. Note that this is ten 'of the greatest', not one of those ghastly 'ten greatest...' exercises. Instead Peter Barber has selected the items for their interest, not necessarily fame.

Websites inspired by 'Magnificent Maps'


• May 4. I should doubtless have mentioned earlier some of the websites that have been set up to complement and reinforce the 'Magnificent Maps' exhibition and the associated BBC TV programmes. For example, the British Library's exhibition website; the BBC's Beauty of Maps: seeing the art in cartography (with video highlights from the series); and the Animated History of European Mapmaking: a changing view of our world (a slide-show from the BBC, as part of 'British History in-depth').