The Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library is a special collections center in Boston, Massachusetts with research, educational, and exhibition programs relating to
historical geography
Historical geography is the branch of geography that studies the ways in which geographic phenomena have changed over time. It is a synthesizing discipline which shares both topical and methodological similarities with history, anthropology, eco ...
. It is the steward of the
Boston Public Library
The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also the Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse'') of the Commonwea ...
’s
map collection
A map collection or map library is a storage facility for maps, usually in a library, archive, or museum, or at a map publisher or public-benefit corporation, and the maps and other cartographic items stored within that facility.
Sometimes, ...
, consisting of approximately a quarter million geographic objects, including maps,
atlases
An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth.
Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographi ...
,
globes
A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model globe of ...
,
ephemera
Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...
, and
geographic data
Geographic data and information is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth (a geographic location or geographic position).
It is also cal ...
. It is located in the McKim Building of the Central Library in
Copley Square
Copley Square , named for painter John Singleton Copley, is a public square in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, bounded by Boylston Street, Clarendon Street, St. James Avenue, and Dartmouth Street. Prior to 1883 it was known as Art Square due to i ...
.
The center was founded in 2004 with a $10 million endowment as a public-private partnership between the
Boston Public Library
The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also the Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse'') of the Commonwea ...
The center manages the geographic collections of the Boston Public Library as well as material collected by Norman B. Leventhal during his lifetime, known as the Mapping Boston Collection. Its holdings stretch chronologically from the
15th century
The 15th century was the century which spans the Julian dates from 1 January 1401 ( MCDI) to 31 December 1500 ( MD).
In Europe, the 15th century includes parts of the Late Middle Ages, the Early Renaissance, and the early modern period.
M ...
to the present, and geographically cover the world, with a focus on Boston and
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
. The center also holds
depository library
Legal deposit is a legal requirement that a person or group submit copies of their publications to a repository, usually a library. The number of copies required varies from country to country. Typically, the national library is the primary reposit ...
maps and atlases produced by federal, state, and local agencies, as well as data sets used in
geographic information systems
A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with software tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing those data. In a b ...
.
Four named collections of distinction include:
*
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
-Era Maps
* Boston and New England Maps
* Maritime
Charts
A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent t ...
and Atlases
* Urban Maps
Portions of the Mapping Boston Collection are on exhibit and available for viewing at the
The center offers digital collections consisting of more than 10,000 objects, primarily with rights status in the
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...
.Andrew Ryan, "By Web, a Detailed look at our past," ''The Boston Globe'', 24 March 2007, p B10. In 2013, the center received a $40,000 grant from the
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
to promote digital access to 3,000 cartographic images held by multiple institutions that document the period of the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
(1750-1800). Digital collections appear in a online repository built on the
Blacklight
A blacklight, also called a UV-A light, Wood's lamp, or ultraviolet light, is a lamp that emits long-wave ( UV-A) ultraviolet light and very little visible light. One type of lamp has a violet filter material, either on the bulb or in a sepa ...
search interface, a custom discovery tool calle Atlascope and on the
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
.
Selected publications
* ''America Transformed: Mapping the 19th Century'' (2019 OCLC: 1126349476 * ''We Are One: Mapping America's Road from Revolution to Independence'' (2015 OCLC: 918876662 * ''Torn in Two: 150th Anniversary of the Civil War' OCLC: 726743324
Gallery
A small sample of maps in the collection.
Cosmographia._-_Norman_B._Leventhal_Map_Center_at_the_BPL.jpg, World Map by Claudius Ptolemy, 1482
Secunda_etas_mundi_%3D_-_Norman_B._Leventhal_Map_Center_at_the_BPL.jpg, World Map by Hartmann Schedel, 1493
Orbis_typus_uniuersalis_iuxta_hydrographorum_traditionem_-_Norman_B._Leventhal_Map_Center_at_the_BPL.jpg, World Map by Martin Waldseemèuller, 1513
Typus_orbis_terrarum_-_Norman_B._Leventhal_Map_Center_at_the_BPL.jpg, World Map by Abraham Ortelius, 1570
Turgot map of Paris, sheet 18-19 - Norman B. Leventhal Map Center.jpg, Paris by Louis Bretez, 1739