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Subject: Harvard Map Cataloging Project
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 12:52:59 -0500
From: David Cobb <[log in to unmask]>


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Dear Colleagues -

After several years of discussing the possibilities, we are pleased to
announce that the Harvard Map Collection has begun to catalog its
antiquarian map collection. This weekend (April 2-3) we will be remodeling
the interior of the Map Collection to create a more efficient processing
area so that we can have more room to review and catalog the maps. We will,
of course, concentrate our cataloging efforts initially on the Boston and
New England regions. Our plans are to quickly move into the America's,
North America, and colonial America collections as well. Initial sampling
for some of these maps reveals that we will be able to take advantage of
the excellent cataloging already completed at the Library of Congress and
other research library institutions.

As with any such project, it is inevitable that duplicates will be
identified. We are also finding many duplicates between our atlas
collection and those of the flat map collection. Since so many of the
atlases are difficult to use and our patrons always want the area usually
found in the "gutter" it is had been decided that these maps would be far
more valuable to our users if they were flat. Since we have no intention of
selling the atlases, thereby the atlas value is inconsequential, it will be
far easier to rid ourselves of the limits of those volumes. Therefore, it
will be easier to "debind" and catalog them as flat maps and they are far
easier to copy that way as well.

Since we have begun our cataloging this seems an appropos time to complete
two projects at the same time and make our collection more accessible and
much easier for us to file. We look forward to keeping everyone aware of
our progress.

David Cobb

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David A. Cobb                                   Tel. 617.495.2417
Harvard Map Collection                          FAX  617.496.0440
Harvard College Library                         Email: [log in to unmask]
Cambridge, MA 02138                             HTTP://hcl.harvard.edu/maps
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