NLS – The Map Room

Restored Chimney Map Goes on Display

Jonathan Crowe — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 12:18:20 +0000

A 17th-century map by Gerald Valck found stuffed up a chimney has now, following painstaking restoration work (see previous entry), been put on display at the National Library of Scotland’s George VI Bridge building in Edinburgh until 17 April. News coverage: The Art Newspaper, The National. [John Overholt, Tony Campbell]

The Chimney Map

Jonathan Crowe — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 17:52:56 +0000

The big news in the map world this week is a 17th-century map that was found in Aberdeen, Scotland, stuffed up a chimney to stop drafts. Discovered during renovations, the map was handed over to the National Library of Scotland, which found it to be in very bad shape: the 2.2×1.6-metre map, identified as work by the Dutch engraver Gerald Valck, was disintegrating, with pieces falling off every time it was moved. The Library’s restoration process is featured in an article in the winter 2016 issue of their magazine, Discover (direct PDF link), and in two videos about the map: one I’ve posted above, plus another, shorter video. You should take a look at them all: they present a fascinating look inside the conservation process. More coverage at Atlas Obscura, BBC News and Smithsonian.com.

New NLS Exhibition: You Are Here

Jonathan Crowe — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:50:35 +0000

A new map exhibition opens this Friday at the National Library of Scotland. You Are Here “challenges our acceptance of maps. It poses questions about how they are made and how we understand them. Drawn from our collection of more than two million maps and atlases, each map in the exhibition shows the answer to some or all of those questions. The maps on display zoom out from the Library itself to the whole world in the shape of the Blaeu Atlas Maior—‘the most beautiful atlas ever made.’ They also include one of the finest plans of Edinburgh and the first map of Scotland, as well as more utilitarian railway, fishing and schoolroom maps.” The exhibition runs until 3 April 2017. I imagine there will be more links once it opens. [NLS]

Conserving Old Maps

Jonathan Crowe — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 14:47:39 +0000

On the National Library of Scotland’s blog, a look at steps taken to conserve and repair two damaged 19th-century maps. “These case studies show some of the treatment options available for large maps, and demonstrate the challenging decisions that have to be made in order to care for the Library’s collections in their entirety. The principles at the heart of every conservation intervention are reversibility and retreatability, which ensure that we can always return to an object in the future if circumstances change.” [via]

Georeferenced Historic Maps

Jonathan Crowe — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 20:42:43 +0000

The National Library of Scotland has an online map viewer that overlays georeferenced old maps atop a modern web map interface (Bing, I believe). Among my crowd, it’s the various 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps of London that generate the most excitement, though there are plenty of other locales (mostly but not exclusively in the U.K.) and time periods.