"We must encourage every thing that tends to enlighten and polish the human mind.... We purpose to lay the foundation of a library which we hope to see go on increasing until it becomes the pride and boast of our city."

~Walter L. Newberry, 1841

The Newberry Library, one of the top research libraries in the nation, is home to a world-class collection of books, manuscripts, maps, music and other printed materials. Since its founding in 1887, the Newberry has been a beacon for the study of the humanities in Chicago. Today, the Library's evolving collections focus on Western Europe and the Americas and include more than 1.5 million books, 5 million manuscript pages, and 500,000 historic maps.

The Newberry offers exhibits based on its outstanding collections, musical performances, lectures and discussions with today's leading humanists, seminars and workshops, and teacher programs. Explore your family's genealogical history, read original manuscripts from noted authors, pursue an art project, or research the history of Chicago — all at the Newberry.

The Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography
founded in 1972, supports the mission of the Library as it relates to the field of the history of cartography. The Smith Center seeks to advance knowledge of the history of cartography, defined as the history of the creation, use, and interpretation of maps and the relationship between mapping and other facets of human history, geography, and culture. The Smith Center promotes the use of the Newberry's cartographic collections by scholars, educators, and the general public through conferences, exhibitions, fellowships, institutes, lectures, publications, seminars, consultations, and workshops.

Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms, an educational resource developed by the Newberry Library for K-12 teachers and students, supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

If you are interested in learning more about the history of cartography, see also the Map History / History of Cartography site (not maintained by the Newberry Library). This site indexes valuable internet sources on map collections, conferences and meetings, exhibitions, fellowships, prizes and awards, journals and periodicals, map collecting, and map interest societies.

Maps: Finding Our Place in the World is organized by The Field Museum and The Newberry Library.

Maps Exhibition Curators

Jim Akerman is Director of the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library, Chicago, a post he has held since 1996, having worked at the Newberry since 1985. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography from Penn State (1991). His publications and research interests concern the history of transportation and tourist mapping, popular cartography, and atlases, and the use of historical maps in education. He directed the creation of "Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms," an award-winning Web site supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that uses digital images of original maps from the Newberry's collections to teach the geographic dimensions of American history. He is the editor of Cartography and Statecraft: Studies in Governmental Mapmaking in Modern Europe and its Colonies (University of Toronto Press, 1999) and Cartographies of Travel and Navigation (University of Chicago Press, 2006).

Robert W. Karrow, Jr. is the Newberry Library's Curator of Maps and Curator of Special Collections. Dr. Karrow began his professional career at the Newberry Library in 1971. First employed as Map Cataloger, he became Curator of Maps in 1975. He continues to hold that position and was also named Curator of Special Collections in 1989. He earned a Ph.D. in history from Loyola University of Chicago in 1999 and is the author of numerous articles and chapters in books, as well as a standard reference work, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and their Maps (1993). Dr. Karrow's areas of special interest include early modern cartography, surveys of the American West, and the technologies of surveying and mapping.

The curators also edited the companion book for the exhibition, Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, now available for sale in the On-line store.


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Detail at top: Royal Collection © 2006 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II