Cancelled Maps and March Mapness
By Lauren Maddox
As schools prepare to move online and sport’s seasons are postponed, cancellation is on everyone’s minds. While looking through the drawer of Madagascar maps, a graduate student intern found a map with
“CANCELLED” printed on the verso:
The main map “Madagascar rainfall chart” from the Great Britian Eastern African Army from 1942 stands as a historical record of the key role recycling and material conservation played during war time. Obsolete maps or extra printings would have been re-used such as this Madagascar map.
Another great example of reusing paper can be seen on this map of Martinique also from 1942. The map is also printed on verso of an obsolete chart with a more detailed cancellation pattern overprinted to obscure that chart’s details.
This has been a hard week for many people, sports fans included. We understand that without basketball, hockey, and baseball games, March just won’t be the same. But we hope that we can lift your spirits and give you something to cheer for! While you’re at home practicing responsible social distancing over the extended Spring Break, the AGSL invites you to participate in March Mapness! We will be voting on our Instagram story to decide which map in our collections is the best! The first round will be March 16th, and then we’ll vote on the last two maps standing on March 30th. Please join us on Instagram to celebrate March Mapness!
Engaging Users through Social Media
The AGSL Instagram hit 1,000 followers this December!
The account began in February 2016, and has since made over 200 posts. Students and staff alike share photo and video content of maps, atlases, globes, nautical charts, historic images, library events, and occasional goings-on about digital data.
The theme of the account reflects many of the prominent themes of the AGS Library’s Collections: travel, adventure, exploration, and the boundless world. Visitors of the page are delighted by celestial globes and atlases depicting the night sky, and artistic flourishes on maps which add embellishment and distinguish the documents as more than mere navigational tools; especially popular are “Map Monsters,” who are scary, or sometimes silly dragon-esque creatures adorning the seas of some of the older maps in the AGS Library’s Collection.
An exciting benchmark for the AGS Library’s social media is a post from this past summer (2017) about Abraham Ortelius’ Map Monsters. The post reached over 1,100 notes on Tumblr!
Visitors likewise seem to enjoy maps and graphics which convey messages in unique and beautiful ways; the post with the most love is an image depicting comparative elevation of mountains in North America, coming from the Johnson Family Atlas of the 19th century (155 likes).
As promised, Stephen got the students an ice cream cake to celebrate reaching 1,000 followers at Instagram. December 20, 2017
Follow us @agslibrary on Instagram and at agslibrary.tumblr.com on Tumblr.
Instagram Account:
https://www.instagram.com/agslibrary/
Tumblr Account:
https://agslibrary.tumblr.com/
And finally, we celebrate the graduation and successful employment of AGSL student cataloging intern Sam Balistreri. Congratulations and best luck as you embark on your career.
American Geographical Society Library 