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Columbia University's Butler Library, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Kempner
Exhibition Room, is now displaying "The World on Paper, A celebration of the
mapmaker's art." The exhibit will be open from March 3 to June 3, 1994. Some
50 rare maps, you know...Blaeus, Orteliuses, Olivas, etc...those guys, are on
display, with excellent descriptive label text. The hope is that soon the text
material, perhaps accompanied by illustrations, will be published. Mead Cain
is the curator of the exhibit, and Jean Ashton, formerly of the New-York
Historical Society Library is the Curator for the Rare Book & Manuscript
Library.  The opening was last night in the middle of the latest snow
storm...need I say more? But there was a nice crowd, including local Map
Society and Mercator Society members, who will brave even a nor'easter to gawk
at old maps. So if you are in town, aim for Spring, do stop by the Butler
Library, at the south end of the Columbia campus, to see this exhibit. If
perchance the guard hesitates to let you in to the rarified Columbia
collections, invoke Jean Ashton's name, and go right up!