Obituaries – Page 2 – The Map Room

Waldo R. Tobler, 1930-2018

Published on 5 March 201827 July 2018 by Jonathan Crowe

The influential geographer Waldo R. Tobler died last month at the age of 88. Tobler, who taught at the University of Michigan and UC Santa Barbara, was best known for his First Law of Geography, which he coined in 1970: “Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.” See obituaries from the AAG and UC Santa Barbara.

Update, 8 March: Obituary in the Santa Barbara Noozhawk.

Update, 27 July: Obituary in Cartography and Geographic Information Science.

Dee Longenbaugh

Published on 11 February 2018 by Jonathan Crowe

Dee Longenbaugh, former proprietor of Observatory Books in Juneau, Alaska, died Friday at the age of 84. Observatory Books, which specialized in rare books and maps, especially pertaining to Alaska, closed in late 2016 owing to Longenbaugh’s illness; the store’s stock was later inventoried. [WMS]

The Miami Map Fair at 25

Published on 30 January 201830 January 2018 by Jonathan Crowe

Coming this weekend, as it does every first weekend in February: the Miami International Map Fair, now in its 25th year. It’s marking that milestone without its co-founder, Marcia Kanner, who died last June at the age of 82. [WMS]

Robert G. Bartholomew, 1927-2017

Published on 23 October 201722 October 2017 by Jonathan Crowe

I’ve belatedly heard the news that Robert G. Bartholomew died last April in Edinburgh at the age of 90. Robert and his older brothers John and Peter, who died in 2008 and 1987, respectively, were the last of six generations of Bartholomews working for the eponymous family mapmaking firm, John Bartholomew and Son, that was, among other things, responsible for the Times series of atlases before being subsumed into the HarperCollins publishing empire. Robert served as production manager, John as director and Peter as chairman. See the NLS’s Bartholomew Archive and the family’s website for more on the firm’s and the family’s history. [WMS]

Rodney W. Shirley

Published on 8 March 2017 by Jonathan Crowe

According to a Facebook post by the Washington Map Society’s Bert Johnson, Rodney W. Shirley, the author of several books of cartographic antiquarian research, including The Mapping of the World, Courtiers and Cannibals, Angels and Amazons, and other titles on early printed maps, died last Saturday. I have not been able to find an obituary or other notice; I will update this post if I do.

Antonín Rükl, 1932-2016

Published on 22 July 2016 by Jonathan Crowe

Astronomer and lunar cartographer Antonín Rükl, author of the authoritative Atlas of the Moon among other works, died on 12 July in his home in Prague at the age of 83, Sky and Telescope reports.