For Immediate Release PR Contact: 312.665.7100 or media@fieldmuseum.org The Exhibition at a Glance Exhibition Title: Maps: Finding Our Place in the World Public Opening: Friday, November 2, 2007 Media Preview: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 9 a.m. CST Overview: From clay tablets to sea charts, from satellite navigation systems to tantalizing sketches of worlds real and imagined – maps tell us much more than how to get from where we are to where we want to be. They help us visualize the places we inhabit, see and study the unknown, understand our place in the world as it is and shape it for the future. This rare exhibition of the world’s greatest maps features more than 130 exquisite original maps, globes, and artifacts, along with examples of cutting-edge technology and engaging interactive displays. Maps: Finding Our Place in the World is a once-in-a-lifetime journey through landscapes of time and space, science and imagination. You’ll see maps created by traders and navigators, by scientists like Ptolemy and Leonardo da Vinci, and by dreamers from J.R.R. Tolkien to Internet pioneers. You’ll learn how early maps were made, see how the technology changed over centuries, and try out the latest advances in digital mapping. At once historical, cultural, and futuristic, this exhibition is for anyone who has opened a map, an atlas, or a GPS program and wondered: Who made this fascinating object? How did they do it? What stories does it tell? Location: The Field Museum 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive Chicago, Illinois 60605-2496 312/922-9410 General Information 312/665-7100 Public Relations (not for publication) Organizers: Maps: Finding Our Place in the World is organized by The Field Museum and The Newberry Library. Sponsor: Presented by NAVTEQ. Admission: Tickets to Maps: Finding Our Place in the World include Museum admission and are priced at $19 for adults, $14 for seniors and students with ID, $9 for children 4-11. Discounts are available for Chicago residents. Visit www.fieldmuseum.org or call 312-922-9410 for details. To purchase tickets call 866-FIELD-03 (866-343-5303), visit www.fieldmuseum.org, or come to the Field Museum box office. Special rates are available for tour operators and groups of 15 or more. Call the Museum’s Group Sales office toll-free at 888-FIELD-85 (888-343-5385). Public Programs: The Field Museum is offering a variety of public programs to complement the exhibition.  For up-to-date information visit www.fieldmuseum.org or call 312-665-7400. Companion Book: Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, edited by James Akerman and Robert R. Karrow, Jr., with an introduction by Karrow. This colorful and fascinating book is for map-lovers and for those who don’t yet know they are map-lovers. While its chapters reflect the themes of the exhibition, it is not a catalog but a fascinating expansion of the exhibition’s ideas and objects, meant in part to stretch the reader’s idea of “mapness.” Of its 200 color illustrations, only 20 are of objects in the exhibition. The book offers countless revealing and sometimes amusing insights into the meaning and unsuspected power of maps. Published by The University of Chicago Press, fall 2007. Available at The Field Museum, $55. <<Return to Maps: Finding Our Place in the World Press Kit