Discovering and Using Historical Geographic Resources on the Web: A Practical Guide for Librarians

Historical geographic material, like maps, plans, and air photos, although collected and persevered by libraries, archives, and other heritage organizations, are often hidden from the general public. They can be difficult to find, access, and use. Fortunately, these caches of cartographic gems have been recognized and valued for their significant contribution to research. As a result, many of these collections have been recently digitized and made available to the public, directly and freely, online.
Acting as a comprehensive guide to online historical, cartographic and other visual resources, Discovering and Using Historical Geographic Resources on the Web provides library and archival staff, and their users, with information on how to locate, interpret, understand, and use these resources. Even for experts, this book can serve as a handy reference that summarizes the different types of maps published, providing comprehensive lists of where to access them. This book is written for all library staff members who answer reference questions and provide library instruction, and for those who are interested in digitizing their own cartographic collections. It will also attract history buffs and scholars in environmental studies, history, earth sciences, anthropology, and more.

Eva H. Dodsworth is the Geospatial Data Services Librarian at the University of Waterloo library where she specializes in teaching GIS and map-related content to the university community. Eva’s interests include historical cartographic research, teaching geoweb applications and historical GIS. Eva is also a part-time online instructor for a number of library schools and continuing education organizations, where she teaches the use of GIS technology in libraries. Eva has also written Getting Started with GIS: A LITA Guide.

L. W. Laliberté is the Geographic Information Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta where much of his work revolves around analyzing and synthesizing spatial information at many scales, and in various formats. Over the last decade, he has been involved with teaching different class sizes in a variety of learning environments, developed and maintained an online collection of historical maps of Manitoba, and recently, taken a great interest in developing best practices for the long-term preservation of digital geospatial data.