Maps and their textual associations in a digital collection: a report from the Early Washington Maps project

This presentation was given in London at the 2002 SHARP conference.Maps after their removal from books, reports, or archival collections, have often been divorced from their original textual environment. This separation, whether initially made for resale, preservation, or storage, between the map and text has resulted in a loss of illustrated information for readers interested in the original text or in a loss of the textual association for those retrieving the map. This presentation will discuss some the technical possibilities put forth during the first year of the Early Washington Maps project to retain these associations through descriptive information and image linking, as well as attempts to provide access to maps still residing in books. Early Washington Maps: A Digital Collection is a two-year grant funded project between Washington State University Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections, the University of Washington Libraries, and the Tacoma Public Library, to create a web searchable database of over 600 maps with virtual access to high-resolution MrSID files