Map Library
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Participate in a humanitarian mapping project, no GIS experience needed! Bring your laptop to the library and join us in developing map data to aid a humanitarian project. The exact project is to be determined, but likely will involve improving our knowledge of road networks in an African country by looking at satellite images and marking the roads with your mouse. We will supply the refreshments while you save the world, one click at a time. If you plan on joining us, create an OpenStreetMap account and download the browser plugin here: http://hotosm.org/get-involved/disaster-mapping...
Continue reading "GIS Day November 18, 2015, drop-in 2-4pm"...QGIS is a popular open source Geographic Information System that runs on several operating systems. The introductory workshop on October 19th will focus on introductory topics such as how to acquire and display GIS shapefiles, map a list of addresses, perform a spatial analysis, and create a layout. The second workshop will further build on QGIS skills by working with raster images and data. Participants will learn how to georeference a digitized map (such as a historic map or aerial photo) and create vector data from it for basic analysis. Map Projections and data alignment will also be...
Continue reading "QGIS Workshops @ MSU Libraries"...For hundreds of years European nations yearned to discover a water route over or through the Americas to reach the Pacific and Asia. In 1775 the unofficial contest became more real when Great Britain offered a £20,000 prize (about £2.2 million today) mainly to beat the Spanish to the discovery.
This map attempts to mark out reports from several expeditions. Two, however, were likely fictitious or at least grossly exaggerated, those of Juan de Fuca and “l’Amiral” De Fonte. The Spanish government archives have no records of such voyages (and in De Fonte’s case, no such person)....
Continue reading "Myths of the North Pacific"...Map catalogers Tim Kiser and Nicole Smeltekop have attacked the Map Library backlog in the areas listed below. Catalog searches of the following places will now reveal EVERY paper map MSU Libraries owns*.
List for 2015, 2nd Quarter:
City maps of China Cuba
Estonia Libya Syria Tanzania Michigan Counties: Just beginning Delta County
Thank you Tim and Nicole!!
*Those paper maps kept in the “regular” map cabinets of the Map Library. This does not include the folded geology maps, rolled wall maps, aeronautical charts, nautical charts, or...
Continue reading "MSU Map Cataloging, 2nd Quarter 2015"...Our map catalogers Tim Kiser and Nicole Smeltekop have attacked the Map Library backlog in the areas listed below. Catalog searches of the following places will now reveal EVERY paper map MSU Libraries owns*.
List for 2015 1st Quarter:
Cambodia
Guinea Liberia Malawi Sierra Leone Ukraine City maps of Brazil City maps and National maps (meaning, whole country on 1 sheet) of Nigeria Michigan Counties: Alcona, Alger, Allegan, Alpena, Antrim, Arenac, Baraga, Barry, Bay, Benzie, Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Chippewa, Clare, Clinton,... Continue reading "MSU Map Collection in the Library Catalog"...
On April 1, 1840 Michigan’s governor approved the creation of 30 new counties to fill in the recently surveyed northern Lower Peninsula. The counties didn’t fit on old 1830s style maps. The Bradford map on the left forces Grand Traverse County (called ‘Ometna’ here) to be landlocked and Grand Traverse Bay is in Charlevoix County (called ‘Keskkauko’ here). The Tanner map on the right used new geography to map the counties (more or less) correctly. Both maps misspelled numerous county names from those approved by the legislature.
Many of the names, which had been proposed by...
Continue reading "Michigan in the 1840s"...Maps were no longer just for kings and scholars. By the late 1500s, maps were increasingly purchased by ‘regular’ (though still fairly wealthy) people. After all, everyone was interested in the voyages of discovery and exploration going on at this time. European map makers now had enough dribbles of information to piece together world maps based largely on observation rather than on myth.
Ortelius gathered information from many different sources for this world map. The Americas are here, and even part of Australia. Monsters and the worst errors are pressed into parts of the...
Continue reading "Monsters Patrolling the Oceans in this 1588 World Map"...Gas stations weren’t the only place to get free road maps in the early 20th century. This map of the U.S. Midwest was distributed by the menswear clothing chain Richman Brothers.
Though the map is undated, we can confidently place it in the mid-1930s because of the price of the suits. Richman’s had simple pricing: From fall 1933 to spring 1937, $22.50 could buy you any suit or overcoat in the store ($412 by today’s prices). The style of the automobile also gives us a clue to the map’s date.
Richman Brothers was an innovative and progressive company. Their own factory in...
Continue reading "A Map to Sell Suits and Overcoats"...Richman’s Official Road Map. Made by The Foreman-Bassett Company of Cleveland, Ohio circa 1935. Distributed by Richman Brothers, Inc.
Gas stations weren’t the only place to get free road maps in the early 20th century. This map of the U.S. Midwest was distributed by the menswear clothing chain Richman Brothers.
Though the map is undated, we can confidently place it in the mid-1930s because of the price of the suits. Richman’s had simple pricing: From fall 1933 to spring 1937, $22.50 could buy you any suit or overcoat in the store ($412 by today’s prices). The style...
Continue reading "A Map to Sell Suits and Overcoats"...This world map is composed entirely of musical notation. It was created with the intention of viewing the world in musical terms. Specifically, as a symbol and model of harmony, or as the author prefers, ‘common threads.’ The entire composition is scored for 37 instruments and contains a total of 32 measures. The total playing time is approximately 40 seconds.
Wondering what it sounds like? This YouTube video performs the piece.
(detail from map)
Citation; World Beat Music. Made (and composed) by James Plakovic. Published in New York by MusicArt in 1996....
Continue reading "A World Made of Music"...Pages
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