Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Boston maps around Revolution - Johnny Tremain

A patron wanted a map of Boston around the time of the Revolution, so her son could see the places in the book Johnny Tremain. I didn't find anything big/clear enough in books, but there was a nice map online at the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library: http://maps.bpl.org/ex/collection/ . The reader allows you to zoom in and print what you see (that zoom level). That was what she needed, to be able to see street/place names. I printed the map as several pages, and taped them together for her.

Here's a description of the collection (it's not just Boston): 200,000 historic maps and 5,000 atlases documenting the evolution of the printed map from the woodcuts, copperplate engravings, and lithographs, of centuries past to the latest computer technologies of Geographic Information Systems. The geographical focus of these maps, atlases, and globes is the World, Europe, and America, with a particular attention to New England, Massachusetts, and Boston from the 15th century to the present day.

No comments: