Greg,

One way in which some or all of those captured maps ended up in your collection is if someone from UT participated in the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division's Summer Project one or more times. The Project launched I believe in the late 1950s or early 1960s as a way to "pay" map librarians and/or library school students in exchange for coming to the Division for a week or more of pre-arranged tasks, kind of like an internship. Later on I think things were opened up to university faculty and grad students as well. This was a way for the Division to manage a too-large collection of duplicate maps, by exchanging X number of maps for a set amount of hours (weeks?) worked. I participated myself in 1996 and got to choose maps that came to Penn State's collections in return. I know that both faculty and grad students of Penn State's Geography Department participated over the years as well. Just a suggestion as to how UT obtained these maps if they were not part of the original depository group.

Paige

________________________________
From: Maps-L: Map Librarians, etc. <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of March, Greg <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 16, 2020 9:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: WWII Captured Maps


Hello map community,



I hope everyone is well considering what we’re all going through with this virus.  The University of Tennessee (UT) Libraries has donated its entire collection of WWII captured maps (Japanese and German) to Stanford University, who’ll be adding these maps to its existing captured map collection, and digitizing and making these maps available online to the public.  I’m writing an article with Julie Sweetkind-Singer and Shizuka Nakasaki from Stanford about the captured maps, and we’re trying to find out more information regarding the history, production, and distribution of these maps.  We have documentation provided to Stanford University from University of Washington that includes correspondence (dating back to 1946) between Oregon State College and the Army Map Service (AMS).  From our understanding, Oregon State College donated it’s collection of Japanese captured maps to University of Washington – who then donated them to Stanford University Libraries.



Included in this documentation is a list of libraries in the United States that participated in the AMS Depository Plan to receive tactical maps.  This list is about 10 pages, so if anyone wants it, I’ll be happy to send it to you.  There is also a letter (attached - AMS_1 and AMS_2) dated January 23rd, 1946 from Charles Steele, Chief, AMS Library.  The letter mentions the 1946 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Chicago and centers around the broad AMS Depository Plan – those libraries participating in receiving AMS tactical maps.  The letter also mentions WWII captured maps, and how these maps would be distributed to a limited number of libraries (not to be confused with the larger distribution list), that were chosen by an appointed committee at the ALA Midwinter conference.  This committee would be in direct contact with Library of Congress and the AMS.



One of the questions I’ve tried to find out more about is -  How did UT receive a majority of the WWII captured maps it had in its collection?  I haven’t been able to find any documentation at UT about the captured maps or the AMS tactical maps.  UT wasn’t on any AMS depository plan – not included on the large distribution list to receive tactical maps.  Some of the captured maps in UT’s collection had Library of Congress stamps, but the majority didn’t.  A majority of the maps were stamped by AMS.  This makes me wonder if the University of Tennessee was one of the geographically located libraries selected by the 1946 ALA Midwinter committee.



Does anyone have any information regarding the history, productions, and distribution of these maps to these geographically selected U.S. Libraries?  For our literature review, all we’ve been able to find so far is Lee Hadden’s work (WAML article – Heringen Collection, and the Earth Sciences History article - The Heringen Collection of the US Geological Survey Library, Reston, Virginia), and Mark Monmonier’s article in Coordinates – Mapping Under the Third Reich: Nazi Restrictions on Map Content and Distribution.  I’ve contacted the Library of Congress and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency to try and find out more information and am awaiting a reply.



Does anyone have similar circumstances where you have a collection of captured maps in your library but don’t know how your library received them?  Any information that anyone can provide is greatly appreciated!  Stay safe!



Sincerely,



-Greg



Gregory H. March

Map & Government Information Librarian

Associate Professor

University of Tennessee

Hodges Library

Knoxville, TN 37996

865-974-3878

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