-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        LexisNexis announces the U.S. Serial Set Maps Digital Collection
Date:   Wed, 20 Jun 2007 14:56:20 -0400
From:

Marina Azariah

Reply-To:       maps-l
To:


LexisNexis Expands Online Collection with New Digital

 U.S. Serial Set Maps Collection


Innovation Makes Valuable, Historic Maps Accessible for web-based
viewing


Alliance with University of Maryland creates easy access to over 56,000
maps

 from the 18th Century to Today


LexisNexis is expanding its Congressional archives with the new
LexisNexis(r) U.S. Serial Set Maps Digital Collection that will provide
easy access to more than 56,000 map records containing nearly 70,000
individual map sheet images when complete. Almost half of these maps
contain color or fine detail and are being scanned as high-resolution
imagery from the originals. These maps offer unparalleled research
potential to historians, law students, labor studies researchers,
political scientists, and other social scientists, as well as to
biologists, geologists, geographers, meteorologists, and
epidemiologists.  Serial Set maps, dating from 1789, include great 19th
Century exploratory surveys of the American West, Civil War
battlefields, as well as flood protection and beach erosion studies in
the 1950s and 1960s, just to name a few.  The maps will be showcased at
booth #3541 at the American Library Association Annual Conference this
week.


This maps digitization effort, conducted in cooperation with the
University of Maryland, is the latest step in LexisNexis' ongoing
commitment to building a complete, easy-to-use repository of
Congressional information. The maps in this new collection, some of
which represent the first geologic, soil, and population maps of many
states and territories, are being conserved, encapsulated, and scanned
from the U.S. Serial Set collection housed at the University of Maryland
Libraries.


Advanced Technology Applied to Historic Maps

LexisNexis is converting the digital, historical map collections into
the standard JPEG 2000 image format to provide advanced web-based
viewing features of the maps, such as panning and zooming, without any
barriers, additional software or browser plug-ins. "These maps will
satisfy a wide and diverse range of research needs, and we are pleased
to continue our tradition of bringing this type of relevant, historical
documentation to our customers in a format they find easy to use," said
Tim Fusco, vice president of Publishing Operations for LexisNexis
Government and Academic Markets.  "By working closely with alliance
partners such as the University of Maryland, we are able to access and
create digital databases of some of our country's richest historical
documents and make them accessible to a wide range of researchers,
students and librarians who find them valuable."


Detailed Indexing For Easy Access


The LexisNexis U.S. Serial Set Maps Digital Collection includes detailed
indexing for every map in the more than 13,000 volumes of the U.S.
Serial Set though the year 1969. Originally created by the University of
Kansas and recently enhanced by LexisNexis editorial staff, this special
indexing makes it easy for researchers to access maps using key indexing
terms, including date, subject and geographic terms, personal and
organizational names, map title, relief method, notation of content
abstracting, or to search the document in which the map was published.


Combined with the LexisNexis Congressional user interface, this powerful
search functionality allows users to quickly and efficiently focus and
hone their search results to a useable data set. All maps will be
accessible through an image content server (ICS), provided by LuraTech
Inc., which renders segments of the entire map image to a user's browser
quickly without the need for additional software.


"Consistent with our Total Solutions company strategy, we are creating a
single, unified information service that provides value-added indexing
and full-text access to Congressional content from 1789 to the present,"
said Fusco. "We began the process in 2003 by digitizing the U.S. Serial
Set and continued it by creating the LexisNexis(r) Congressional
Research Digital Collection, LexisNexis(r) Congressional Hearings
Digital Collection and redesigning LexisNexis(r) Congressional. Making
the LexisNexis U.S. Serial Set Maps Digital Collection available is our
next step."


Marina Azariah
Marketing Manager
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LexisNexis
Phone: 301-951-4604
Fax: 301-941-2931