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