This very sad news and I really hate seeing some of my old friends pass
onto another map world. Phil and I shared many good times during our
careers and he was truly one of the best. Peace my friend.

On Sat, Mar 4, 2023, 12:35 PM Heiko Muhr <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> [image: Phil Hoehn 2]                                          Phil
> Hoehn, with a Sanborn atlas, Bancroft Library, May 1990. Photograph:
> Mary-Ellen Jones (BANC PIC 19xx.349).
>
> Longtime UC Berkeley Maps and Earth Sciences Librarian Phil Hoehn passed
> away on February 6, 2023, from complications of colon cancer. He was 81
> years old.
>
> Raymond Philip Hoehn, Jr. was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri on October
> 23, 1941, the son of Raymond Philip Hoehn and Florentine Jeanne Hoehn.
> Following World War II, the Hoehn family moved west to southern California
> and Phil grew up in Pomona. Inheriting a love of maps from his grandfather,
> he majored in geography at UCLA. In 1967, Phil earned an MLS from UC
> Berkeley and began his career as the Map Librarian at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft
> Library <https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/visit/bancroft> in 1969. He was
> then asked to assume responsibility for the map collection of the General
> Library, and managed both collections for several years. When the Map
> Library was merged with the Earth Sciences map collection, Phil was tapped
> to lead the new combined unit, eventually known as the Earth Sciences and
> Map Library <https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/visit/earth-sciences>, and did
> so until his retirement in 1996.
>
> Phil counted among his favorite accomplishments at Berkeley the
> development and management of the California Maps Project, an ambitious
> effort funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to catalog
> and re-classify some 21,000 maps held in the collections of UC Berkeley and
> UCLA. Randal Brandt, currently Head of Cataloging at the Bancroft Library,
> was the project cataloger. “Phil hired me into my first professional
> position,” he recalled. “He mentored me, encouraged me, and supported me in
> the early years of my career. He also taught me how to catalog maps, which
> has been a part of nearly every job I’ve held since then. I can honestly
> say that I owe my professional career to Phil.”
>
> One of the innovative decisions that Phil made during the project was to
> include geographic location data in records that describe California Land
> Case Maps. These diseños, rough manuscript maps, were used as evidence in
> the court cases which determined the validity of Spanish and Mexican land
> grants once California was ceded to the United States. Without the online
> tools of today, determining correct longitude and latitude data for the
> ranchos represented on the land case maps was not a simple task in the
> early 1990s.
>
> Although this work was time-consuming, Phil’s decision paid huge dividends
> several years later when the Bancroft Library undertook the digitization of
> the maps. When discussing the significance of this metadata, Bancroft
> Interim Deputy Director Mary Elings, who directed the digitization project
> <https://calisphere.org/collections/12347/>, noted the bridge that has
> been made between the handiwork of 19th century amateur cartographers and
> contemporary Geographic Information Systems in an important aspect of
> California history: “Adding the longitude and latitude to the Land Case
> Map records provided helpful information for researchers in geo-referencing
> the digitized historic maps, which in turn helps current researchers using
> GIS systems in their work.”
>
> After he retired from Berkeley, Phil headed down the Peninsula and held
> the position of map bibliographer at Stanford University’s Branner Earth
> Sciences Library & Map Collections <https://library.stanford.edu/branner> from
> 1996 to 2000. At Stanford he performed collection development and
> maintenance, provided reference assistance, and worked to promote
> university-wide awareness of the map collections and services.
> Subsequently, from 2000 until 2007 he served as consulting librarian at the
> David Rumsey Map Collection (now the David Rumsey Map Center
> <https://library.stanford.edu/rumsey> at Stanford), where he created
> thousands of detailed catalog records for digitized maps.
>
> Never one to spend much time “retired,” Phil then launched a second career
> as a volunteer map cataloger, first at the California Genealogical Society
> and then at the  California Historical Society. In 2020, a CHS blog post
> <https://californiahistoricalsociety.org/blog/the-behind-the-scenes-map-cataloger/> described
> Phil’s work:
>
> In June 2015, Phil Hoehn … took on the daunting task of organizing the
> California Historical Society’s vast map collection … over 45 drawers of
> flat sheet maps dating back to at least 1800 (including maps in atlases and
> books where cartographers depicted California as an island) as well as
> early mining, railroad, and irrigation maps, bound volumes of Sanborn Fire
> Insurance maps, and boxes of large rolled maps spanning all the counties in
> California. During the four years Phil worked reviewing, researching,
> cataloging, and rehousing the maps he discovered many unique titles, some
> that appear in only a few other collections in the world.  Many of the
> works, by such prominent surveyors and cartographers as William Eddy,
> Herman Ehrenberg, Jasper O’Farrell, and August Chevalier, document the
> birth and growth of the city of San Francisco … [Phil] leaves nearly 4,000
> maps now accessible to researchers. From foldout ones in rare books to
> enormous rolled maps that practically took a village to bring up from the
> vaults, Phil has discovered, cataloged, preserved, and documented them all.
>
> Frances Kaplan, until recently Director of Library & Collections at the
> California Historical Society, expanded on Phil’s impact, saying “It is due
> to his efforts that the entire map collection at CHS is now cataloged and
> searchable. Along the way he discovered some rare ones and his work
> inspired the [current] map exhibit.” The exhibit, “Mapping a Changing
> California: From the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century
> <https://californiahistoricalsociety.org/exhibitions/mapping-a-changing-california-selections-from-the-seventeenth-to-the-twentieth-century/>,”
> is on view through March 11, 2023.
>
> Phil joined the Western Association of Map Libraries <https://waml.org/> (WAML)
> in 1969, which was just two years after its first meeting took place. Phil
> was an active member of WAML his entire career. He found that the benefits
> of WAML membership included getting good practical advice from friendly,
> experienced colleagues. Phil also emerged as a wheeler and dealer who
> obtained many great maps for the UC Berkeley Library by participating in
> WAML duplicate exchanges. He viewed membership as a form of therapy
> <https://waml.org/waml-information-bulletin/49-2/spotlight-on-phil-hoehn/>
>  and described WAML meetings as good places to voice local problems and
> concerns among like-minded individuals.
>
> Phil had a direct hand in the founding of the California Map Society
> <https://californiamapsociety.org/>. Together with Diane M. T. North, who
> was then a Ph.D candidate at UC Davis, he co-convened a meeting at the
> Bancroft Library in May 1978, which was the inaugural gathering of the
> California Map Society. North recalled her long relationship with Phil: “Phil’s
> knowledge of and deep enthusiasm for maps, all maps, seemed boundless.
> Anyone privileged to have the opportunity to be guided by him and work
> alongside him benefited from his professionalism, patience, generosity, and
> quiet sense of humor.”
>
> Phil had a longstanding interest in fire insurance maps, including local
> California maps, produced by the Dakin Publishing Company
> <https://digital.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/static/maps/Hoehn.pdf> and he
> published on the subject. His most important publication, compiled together
> with William S. Peterson-Hunt and Evelyn L. Woodruff, is a reference tool
> of enduring value to map librarians and researchers, the *Union List of
> Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps Held by Institutions in the United States and
> Canada*
> <https://search.library.berkeley.edu/permalink/01UCS_BER/1thfj9n/alma991000320369706532>,
> originally published in 2 volumes by the Western Association of Map
> Libraries in 1976-1977. The Earth Sciences and Map Library maintains an updated
> online version <https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/sanbul_CA_AB.html> on
> its website which documents Phil’s hard work.
>
> Together with UCSB map librarian Mary Larsgaard, Phil also co-authored a
> reference resource which historically has been useful to map librarians, the
>  *Dictionary of Abbreviations and Acronyms in Geographic Information
> Systems, Cartography, and Remote Sensing*
> <https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/abbrev.html#a>*. *
>
> Will Murdoch, a book cataloger at the California Historical Society, who
> worked with Phil from 2015 until 2019, shared his memories of Phil:
>
> He was my mentor and work colleague in the CHS Library.   I cataloged
> books and Phil processed the maps in that collection.  We shared a lot of
> fun discoveries with each other and learned about the depth of the CHS
> archives.  It was an education for me as Phil’s background was extensive
> and he was so kind to share his knowledge with me.  I miss him and our work
> together there.
>
> [image: Phil Hoehn]
>              Phil Hoehn at the California Historical Society, 2020.
> Photograph: Frances Kaplan.
>
> Phil Hoehn played an important role in building the rich and diverse map
> collections on the Berkeley campus. As a map librarian, map bibliographer,
> metadata specialist Phil was instrumental in providing expert resource
> discovery for cartographic resources at many institutions throughout the
> Bay Area. More important than his professional qualities, however, Phil
> excelled as a colleague, mentor, and friend. Everyone who knew him and
> worked with him was made better for the experience.
>
>
> Randal S. Brandt, Bancroft Library
>
> Heiko Mühr, Earth Sciences & Map Library
>
> Susan Powell, Earth Sciences & Map Library
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> UC Berkeley Library Blog link:
> *https://update.lib.berkeley.edu/2023/03/03/in-memoriam-phil-hoehn-1941-2023*
> <https://update.lib.berkeley.edu/2023/03/03/in-memoriam-phil-hoehn-1941-2023/>
>
>
>
> Heiko Mühr
>
> Map Metadata and Curatorial Specialist
>
> Earth Sciences & Map Library
>
> 50 McCone Hall
>
> University of California
>
> Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
>