Library of Congress Map Collections from 1500's

e03179 writes "A friend of mine stumbled across this site from the US Library of Congress. The website allows users to view maps that go all the way back to the 1500's (like this one of America in 1562). The maps have been converted to digital form (SID format - viewer available here) but are viewable in .GIF form in your browser. I was able to look up my hometown during 1871 and see the church in which I'm getting married. Who thought the LOC could be so 31337?"

Comments

useless unless

[madsenj37]

you are a pirate lost in time

Maps are sadly out of state

[Anonymous Coward]

These maps aren't very good for directions. For example, the entire state of California is missing, and the United States isn't even recognizable. They may be fine for getting around Europe, but for use in the Americas, well, they're worthless.

Ok Ok Ok!!!

[thammoud]

So could you please tell me if they included a map for Palestine and Israel so we can settle this once and for all ?

Librarians

[ccarr.com]

Who thought the LOC could be so 31337?"

Actually, librarians were one of the earlier professions outside of the hard sciences to "get" computers.

theifs!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they respect the copyrights on those documents! Remember, sharing is stealing!

More old maps

[tedDancin]

I came across some more old maps the other day, quite a few from the 1500's.

MapQuest

[stephenisu]

This must be where MapQuest does all their data mining.... I always wondered why it told me to take so many non-existent roads..

Twilight Zone...

[jaybird144]

My University has vanished! I found a map of Champaign, IL (I go to the U of I there...) ca. 1869 (2 years after the University was supposedly founded) and there's nothing there! The map shows farmland where all of the University buildings are! So, the question is, did the U of I really exist then, or are they just pulling my leg? I want answers!

Re:Twilight Zone...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, we were wondering when you'd ask about that. There there, don't try and escape, the chains are tight, and there are armed guards all around.

You see, your entire "college" was actually just built 3 weeks ago. Your classmates and friends (and yes, even that cute chick you just met) are all paid agents of our organization.

We tried to conceal everything from you, and we were succeeding.. but DAMN the the infernal Library of Congress!! The ONLY government department were we don't have high-level implants. Who would suspect them? But now you know our secret. In the future we will be sure ALL parts of government are fully managed by our agents.

Ah, yes, why am I telling you this? Because we're putting the finishing touches on a NEW college for you. Rest assured, we have learned from our mistakes. There will be NO maps accessible from your network terminal, and the stone will fool even the most sophisticated carbon dating. This time, we've decided not to use a "cute chick" agent. In fact I personally decided to implant you with a homosexual persona. I think you'll enjoy it! Your new name will be "Brad" (doesn't it just scream "FAG"?) and you're majoring in Computer Science again (and of course, you must, in order for our plans to succeed).

Anyway, tonight after you fall asleep, the Mind Eraser beam will make you forget everything I've just told you.

Tomorrow you will begin your new life!! And our evil plans will remain intact!

MWAH HA HA HA HA HA H- *cough* *cough* (Sorry, still working on the evil laugh).

Re:GIF Format?

[falzer]

Yep. The world didn't turn color until sometime in the 1930's, and it was pretty grainy color for a while, too.

Re:GIF Format?

[ozbird]

I guess the hadn't discovered more then 256 colors in the 1500's.

They're maps - you only need four colours...

Who thought the LOC could be so 31337?

[the eric conspiracy]

Surely you jest. LIbraries are the oldest and ultimate repository of geek-ness. WHat could be more 31337.

Interestingly, the world's first library just reopened a couple of days ago.

Or you could visit this extraordinary place.

Re:GIF Format?

[Anonymous Coward]

A major topic in the field of topology is the Four Color Conjecture, which states that you need only four colors to ensure that no two adjaced regions on a political map have the same color, regardless of their shape or number, except for regions that meet at a single point.

More info.

I'll tell you...

[Qwerpafw]

Who thought the LOC could be so 31337?

Neal Stephenson?

Think back to SnowCrash, that piece of geek required reading...

(for the uninitiated, the Protagonist of SnowCrash is a uber-hacker of sorts who freelances doing data mining for the library of congress. He also delivers pizza for the Mafia, or did until he crashed his car.)

Re:500 years?

[doi]

Yeah, I noticed that all those dragons that used to be in the middle of the Atlantic are nowhere near there anymore.

You missed the disclaimer

[User 956]

These maps aren't very good for directions. For example, the entire state of California is missing, and the United States isn't even recognizable.

I guess you must have missed the disclaimer: "When using this map, it's a good idea to do a reality check and make sure the road still exists, watch out for construction, and follow all traffic safety precautions. This map is only to be used as an aid in planning."

Interesting comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Size of Slashdot's logo (title.gif): 3473 bytes
Size of Slashdot's logo as a PNG: 2558 bytes
Savings of 915 bytes

That's a savings of nearly a gig per million downloads. Imagine the savings when you do all the other graphics on the site, too.

Full size gifs available

[Chris Pimlott]

I found this page the other week (while trying to settle an argument over some street names) and I found you can get the entire full-resolution maps in gif - with a little hackery. Go to a map and set it at the smallest zoom. Now look at the image location - yep, it's CGI generated and right in the query are the position, width and height. A little trial and error and you can get the entire map out as a single gif.

Testify - Librarians: We're Not What You Think

[tiltowait]

I found the attitude in this story very odd, considering online map library exhibits have been around many years. What's next, people start discovering LOC's *free* pre-Google answers service?

Get a grip, nerds, librarians are Not What You Think. (draft of a page I made a few months ago especially directed at the slashdot crowd, url published here for the first time ever!). See also a category I build at the ODP, Librarians in Society.

Re:Testify - Librarians: We're Not What You Think

[jenniferj]

Yeah. Thwart not the librarian:

"Ok, sure. We've all got our little preconceived notions about what librarians are and what they do. Many people think of them as diminutive civil servants, scuttling about "Sssh-ing" people and stamping things. Well, think again buster.

Librarians have degrees. They go to graduate school for Information Science and become masters of data systems and human/computer interaction. Librarians can catalog anything from an onion to a dog's ear. They could catalog you. Librarians wield unfathomable power. With a flip of the wrist they can hide your dissertation behind piles of old Field and Stream magazines. They can find data for your term paper that you never knew existed. They may even point you toward new and appropriate subject headings.

People become librarians because they know too much. Their knowledge extends beyond mere categories. They cannot be confined to disciplines. Librarians are all-knowing and all-seeing. They bring order to chaos. They bring wisdom and culture to the masses. They preserve every aspect of human knowledge. Librarians rule. And they will kick the crap out of anyone who says otherwise."

Re:MrSID viewer?

[wssddc]

For Win32, Irfanview will view .sid files. http://www.irfanview.com/ Get the plugins as well as the program.

You may also be intrested in...

[circusnews]

This is the my current listing of extext and related projects. Some have photographic studies of old text, photos and maps, others are standard text or marked up text.

I appoligize in advance for the format, but I format this correctly it gets rejected as having too few charictors per line.

The Humanities Text Initiative: www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/p/pd-modeng/pd-modeng-idx, The Internet Sacred Text Archive: www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm,

The Bralyn E-text Archive: www.bralyn.net/etext/, The Early Canadiana Online Archive: www.canadiana.org/cgi-bin/ECO/mtq, The Canada

Digital Collection: collections.ic.gc.ca/, The Online Book Page at the U. of Penn.: onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/,

A Celibration of Women Writers project at the U. of Penn.: digital.library.upenn.edu/women/, The Litrix Reading Room archive: www.litrix.com/,

National Library of Canada Online Etexts: collection.nlc-bnc.ca/e-coll-e/inet-loc-e.htm, The Oxford Text Archive United Kingdom Archive: ota.ahds.ac.uk/index.html,

Jennifer L. Armstrong's Free Online Novels archive: www.free-online-novels.com/, The U. of Calgary Online Children's Stories: www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html,

The Best Children's Literature On The Net project: www.geocities.com/Paris/Jardin/1630/index.html, The Christian Classics Ethereal Library: www.ccel.org/,

The Free Online Inspirational Books Archive: www.inspirationalmedia.com/eBooks.htm, The Internet Christian Library Project: www.iclnet.org/,

The Online Library of Literature: www.literature.org/, Arthur's Classic Novels Archive: members.fortunecity.com/wendover/index.html,

The Bibliomania Archive: www.bibliomania.com/, The Bygosh.com etext archive: bygosh.com/index.html,

The Electronic Literature Foundation: elf.chaoscafe.com/elf_by_Author.htm, The Internet Classics Archive at MIT: classics.mit.edu/,

Project Gutenberg: www.promo.net/pg, The Online Book Initiative: ftp.std.com/OBI,

The Internet Wiretap Project (used to be wiretap.spies.com): wiretap.area.com, The U. of Virginia etext project and sub projects: etext.lib.virginia.edu,

The Chinese Philosophical Etext Archives: angle.web.wesleyan.edu/etext/, The NetLibrary Etext Archive: netlibrary.net,

The johannesen.com collection: www.johannesen.com/OnlineGMD.htm, The Internet Public Library (indexes many other repositories as well): www.ipl.org,

Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts (American & English lit as well as Western philosophy): www.infomotions.com/alex/, The University of Texas at Austin online collection: www.lib.utexas.edu/books/booksut.html,

The English Server (and its various subprojects): eserver.org/fiction/, The Making of America project at the U. of Mich.: moa.umdl.umich.edu/index.html,

The University of Chicago Library (3 collections): www.lib.uchicago.edu/eos/html/ www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/ets/efts/ and www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/ARTFL/newhome/texts/,

The SunSite (UC berkley) collection: sunsite.berkeley.edu/Collections/, The Library Of Congress's various projects: www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html,

The Bartleby collection: www.bartleby.com/, The Bielefeld University Library (Germany): www.ub.uni-bielefeld.de/english/,

The Camelot Project: www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.stm, The Blake Digital Text Project: virtual.park.uga.edu/wblake/home1.html,

The Schoenberg Project: www.library.upenn.edu/etext/, The Clevland Digital Library: web.ulib.csuohio.edu/SpecColl/cdl/,

The Everglades Digital Library: everglades.fiu.edu/library/index.html, The Historical Text Archive: historicaltextarchive.com/,

The Humanities Text Intitiative (University of Michigan): www.hti.umich.edu/, The University of Virginia etext project and subprojects: etext.virginia.edu/,

The NY Public Library etext project (comming soon): digital.nypl.org/, The Perseus project: www.perseus.tufts.edu/,

The CDC reading library: www.cdc.gov/publications.htm,

The US Army's online libraries: www.adtdl.army.mil/atdls.htm www.dtic.mil/doctrine/ www.libraries.army.mil/ www.tricare.osd.mil/afml/ www.hqda.army.mil/library/ carlisle-www.army.mil/library/,

Marine Corps Publications: www.usmc.mil/marinelink/ind.nsf/publications, The US Air Force e-publishing page: www.e-publishing.af.mil/orgs.asp?type=pubs,

The Thoreau project: www.niulib.niu.edu/thoreau/, The Free Fiction Library: www.free-fiction.com/library/,

The Ancent Greek Literature Project: www.hol.gr/greece/ancwords.htm, The Free Novels Online project at cjb.net: freenovelsonline.cjb.net/,

submissions?

[WhiteChocolate42]

I have a few maps of my hometown that predate the oldest LOC maps of the area (mine are from early 1800s). Does anyone know of a method to submit maps for archival? (I don't really want to give them away, but I would like to see them digitally archived)

how did they know ...

[Raiford]

I guess a cartographer is a cartographer regardless of what era you live in and the explorers also had the spirit of scientists as well. It amazes me that the coastlines of some regions such as Cuba have all the little nooks and crannies included. It amazes me how this was done without the aid of aerial observation. It may not be entirely accurate, but it was a grand attempt.

works for me

[mattdm]

Hmmm; the maps of Boston seem just about as good for getting around here as any I've seen at a bookstore recently....