Maps help restore Hawaiian collection
When a flood destroyed the University of Hawaii’s map collection several years ago, many of the lost historical materials were difficult to replace.
The school hired East View Cartographic (EVC), a cartography publisher, to assist with the restoration of the collection – specifically, to replace the damaged paper holdings with scanned images of topographic maps or digital raster images.
EVC identified Cornell University Library’s Map and Geospatial Information Collection as a rich source for much of the material needed for the project, including maps of Southeast Asia, the Army Map Service series and nautical charts from the Hydrographic Office.
In all, Cornell lent EVC 462 items in January 2009 and an additional 250 items in February 2010. In return, EVC provided Cornell with digital raster copies of all the loaned materials; the new digital maps will help the library make more images available online.
- Gwen Glazer