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Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 16:57:10 -0400
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Online Map Cataloging in Europe
Sender: [log in to unmask]
Fellow Cartophiles,
Here follows the personal survey of online map cataloging in Europe
which I accidentally inflicted on MapHist and Maps-L readers in unfinished
form last week. Comments, corrections, and additions are still welcome,
and will be used to update the version I plan to post on the Web.
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I received several informative replies to my question on MapHist about the
state of online map cataloging in Europe. I thought I would summarize these
responses and the results of my own follow-up investigations. Because I
think the subject will be of widespread interest to the map community in
North America, I am also posting this summary on Maps-L. Corrections and
significant additions would be appreciated. I plan to post some version of
this message with live links on my Web site at SUNY Stony Brook.
In brief, a fair amount of map cataloging from Europe is available online,
although the majority of it is for contemporary maps. A significant amount
of retrospective cataloging has been done in several countries, and some of
it is available on the Internet. The situation is complex, and I have just
scratched the surface, but in lieu of anything better the following
information should provide a good starting point for anyone interested in
accessing European map cataloging via the Internet.
The best place to begin is probably Odden's bookmarks
<http://oddens.geog.uu.nl>, which can be searched for online map catalogs.
Click on "browse," then on "map collections," limit to the category
"catalogues," and select "all countries." This will give you 37 hits, but
does not include many comprehensive catalogs that include maps. Also useful
is a gateway site
with links to many European national libraries, which can be found at http:
//www,konbib.nl/gabriel/. Another notable gateway site with links to both
union catalogs and online catalogs of individual libraries is Tony
Campbell's recently updated "Map Collections" page
<http://ihr.sas.ac.uk/maps/collect.html> , which can be found on his
History of Cartography site hosted by the Institute of Historical Research.
A very good source of information on developments in online cataloging in
European libraries is the set of Web pages maintained by the LIBER Groupe
des Cartothecaires at <http://www.kb.nl/infolev/liber/>. These pages
include articles of cataloging and progress reports from major European
countries, and most are in English. (The materials not in English can be
automatically translated by something called "Babelfish," which produced
information for me about the Dept. of "cards and plans" at the Bibliothèque
Nationale.)
OCLC and RLIN are available (at least to catalogers) in many European
libraries, and some contribute records to the databases. I do not know how
many map cataloging records created by European libraries can be found in
those databases, but I have the impression that the total number is small
in comparison to that available on individual European OPACS.
The closest thing to a European version of OCLC is (or was) a Dutch-based
system called PICA. PICA has three central databases in Holland, Germany
and France, which contain approximately 40 million bibliographic records.
For better or worse, PICA is apparently being taken over by OCLC. If this
deal goes through, it would nearly double the size of the OCLC database,
including many European maps, which would be a boon on this side of the
Atlantic. A large number of Dutch maps are either in PICA, or are being
converted to PICA format, according to Jan Smits.
As Chris Fleet mentioned in his post to MapHist, the Consortium of
University Libraries has a union catalogue of 8 million records across 18
libraries that called COPAC <http://copac.ac.uk>. This catalog is easy to
search, and has many records for maps, including historical maps. According
to Nick Millea (Map Librarian at the Bodleian Library), the COPAC catalog
includes about 10,000 maps from the Todhunter Allen Collection at Oxford.
It will also include records from a collaborative retrospective conversion
project called "Mapping the World," which involves seven UK academic
institutions. A larger collection of British academic online catalogs can
be accessed individually at http://www.niss.ac.uk/lis/opacs.html. A union
database for Scottish research libraries can be searched at
http://cairns.lib.gla.ac.uk.
When one moves to the level of individual European library catalogs, things
get really complicated. a large number of European maps have been converted
into some sort of machine readable format. As in the United States, most of
them are current maps and retrospective conversion is proceeding slowly or
not at all. Many of the bibliographic records are in some national version
of MARC, but there are a fair number of catalogs that use idiosyncratic
formats. Both in terms of content and ease of use, the European catalogs
range from very good to atrocious. They need to be described one at a time.
I will hit a few of the highlights.
A good deal of retrospective cataloging of maps has been done by German
libraries. I was particularly impressed by the catalog of printed maps
before 1850 done by the Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut (DBI) Berlin database
<http://dbix01.dbi-berlin.de:6100/DB/login.html>. It has a user-friendly
interface with an English language option. This site contains some 250,000
descriptions of atlases and their individual pages, which makes it possibly
the largest bibliographic database for old maps in the world. Several other
German catalogs are listed in Odden's bookmarks.
In Switzerland the IDS Basel/Bern catalog has a good collection of
historical maps of Switzerland and neighboring countries (thanks to the
Ryhiner Project at the University of Bern). The catalog is easy to search,
and it also has an English language interface. The URL is
<http://aleph.unibas.ch:4505/ALEPH/-/start/ids+basel+bern-eng>.
The Royal Library of Sweden has a well designed Web site with records for
many recent Swedish maps. They may be found at the above site by following
links to Web Search Advanced, Media Type Maps. They are conducting a
project involving manuscript maps, but no retrospective cataloging of
printed maps has yet taken place.
I was not able to find out very much about developments in Italy or Spain.
The Biblioteca Nacional in Spain has cartographic records in IBERMARC
format in its ARIADNA database, but apparently that database is not yet
available on the Web.
Special mention should be made of the situation at what are probably the
three richest and most heavily consulted collections--the Bibliothèque
Nationale, the British Library, and the Public Record Office. I have
limited information about developments at all of these institutions, and,
as elsewhere, what I say is subject to amplification and correction.
The Bibliothèque Nationale has cataloged almost 200,000 maps. The catalog
can be reached via their Web site at www.bnf.fr, which links to their
Telnet based "Opaline" system. The maps are located in "Le Cataloge des
Collections specialisees." Opaline seems to be suffering from major
communications problems. The catalog is available only from 7-12 p.m.
(Paris time), and even in those hours I have had great trouble in accessing
it. The interface is one of the most cumbersome I have seen. One can only
hope that Opaline will be replaced by something better.
The British Library Manuscripts Catalogue can be searched at:
http://molecat.bl.uk. This catalogue is essentially an automated version of
their archival finding aids. As such, it has limited value for locating
individual maps, but it is certainly better than nothing. There is also a
version of the old printed map catalogue of the British Library available
on CD-ROM. This catalogue is in a simplified version of UKMARC. Tony
Campbell has written an important article, which is available on the
previously mentioned LIBER site, on the problems involved in producing this
catalogue. Campbell stresses the importance of not letting insistence on
highest level cataloging stand in the way of retrospective conversion
projects--a remark which is applicable to the situation of all l libraries
with large retrospective collections of maps. His article concludes with
the words: "we very much hope that they [the bibliographic records] can be
used as part of a European or global map file"--to which I can only say
"amen."
The Public Record Office also has an online catalogue, which can be found
at http://www.pro.gov.uk. Like the British Library Manuscripts Catalogue,
this is essentially an automated archival finding aid, and shares the
limitations of that genre.
In summary, there is clearly a lot of map cataloging going on in Europe. A
great deal of it is already online, and much more will become available in
the near future, although it will be some time before we begin to approach
the ideal of a single global database containing catalog records for all of
the maps in the world. Now, if only all those maps were available in
digital form so that American cartophiles would not have to undertake
wearisome journeys to places like Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Madrid to
view them!
David Allen, Map Librarian, SUNY Stony Brook
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