David Rumsey Map Collection

Maps are remarkable examples of material culture. As texts, they provide historians rich views of how people compiled data about their world and thus how they perceived geography and spatial relationships. Maps also affect peoples' geographical decision making, encouraging them to make significant choices, for instance, in establishing transportation routes or fighting battles. Like historical documents of any kind, however, few maps are widely available, and few collections are both adequately comprehensive and generally accessible. The David Rumsey Map Collection has moved to correct the situation by allowing scholars to research a large collection of maps without the need for travel to collections. This idiosyncratic Web-based collection— some 6,400 items—includes less than 5 percent of David Rumsey's total map collection, and, although running behind his initial ambitious schedule, Rumsey is moving quickly to mount more maps every year. Both the larger collection and the Web portion of it focus heavily...