>> Kathleen McGuigan: Welcome
to this afternoon's session.
Innovations with a
Sanborn Maps Navigator.
The Sanborn Maps collection
from the Library of Congress
consists of over 50,000
historical atlases, with around
32,000 of them currently
available online.
These richly detailed maps
offer many approaches for study
and research for the classroom.
Today, our educator and
residents, Jackie Katz, will
explore the collection and
examine an innovative
application called the Sanborn
Maps Navigator, which encourages
exploration of and engagement
with the Sanborn Fire
Insurance Maps Collection.
So a little bit of housekeeping.
First, we are recording
today's session.
So if you choose to
participate, any of your
comments or
questions will become
part of the
library's collections.
This is for those
who are in the live session and
the live session only.
We will certify your attendance
with a follow up email and that
will be sent by early next week.
And for those viewing the
recording, unfortunately,
we cannot certify
that for credit.
So on to the program for today.
A little bit about Jackie Katz.
She is a high school
science teacher
from Princeton, New Jersey,
and she is serving as
this year's Library of Congress,
Albert Einstein
distinguished Education fellow.
And this is a program that is
sponsored by the US Department
of Energy, and it provides a
unique opportunity for
accomplished K-12 educators in
the STEM fields to serve in the
national education arena.
And for more, I will
put something--
I'll put the link
to that in the chat.
And Jackie has taught
biology and chemistry
at Princeton High School
for the past ten years.
She's built a research program
at the high school based on her
own experience with cell and
developmental biology research.
Without further ado, I will
hand things over to Jackie.
>> Jacqueline Katz: Awesome.
Thank you so much, Kathy,
and very excited to be here
to talk about Sanborn Maps
and innovative tools that could
potentially be very
useful in the classroom.
So I want to get us started
just with some introductions.
It looks like some of us have
started this, but I'd love to
hear where everyone's
tuning in from.
And if you're a teacher or an
informal educator or anything of
the sort, what you
teach, just to give us
an idea of who's in the room.
I see we have some people...
Zooming in from Hawaii.
I'm a little jealous.
Cool.
Well, we're all over the place.
Texas and Georgia
and Wisconsin and D.C.
Well, the good news is, like,
we're all over the place.
Sanborn Maps are also all over
the place, so I'm sure
everyone's going to find a
place to kind of connect with
this collection
as we chat today.
So I'll let everyone continue
to add that to the chat and I'll
just chat a little bit about
our plan for the session.
So over the next hour,
our hope is to touch on
what Sanborn Fire
Insurance Maps are.
If this is new to you and what
innovative tools exist for
searching this collection, as
well as how these tools can be
used in the classroom, right?
Whether it's a formal classroom
or informal learning
sort of session,
we're going to talk about
ways to apply to all of it.
So to get us thinking
about this topic,
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps.
We might as well start by
taking a look at one.
So Kathy has just placed in the
chat a PDF that has a copy of
the image that's currently on
the screen if you need to get a
little closer to it.
So I would like to start with
just everyone taking a look at
this map and typing
any sort of wanderings
they have in the chat. Okay.
And I'm going to put a slightly
bigger version up on the screen.
Okay. But if you just
want to type anything,
this map makes you wonder.
In the chat.
Excellent question.
What are the colors mean?
What's it recording?
When was it created?
All excellent questions.
Why are some of the lines
thicker than others?
Very close observations.
Oh, here we go. So many things
to think about.
Why don't they orient the maps?
North, south. Good question.
What college owns
the college property?
Oh, everyone's already got good
eyes on this map.
I love it.
Awesome. Who created it?
Great. So we're going to dig
into some of these questions as
we go through today's session,
because I imagine, like you're
asking these questions, it is
likely students you work with
would be asking these questions
as well when they see
a Sanborn Fire Insurance
Map for the first time.
So. Let's chat a little bit
about what this collection is,
if it's new to you.
So this is an example
of a Sanborn Fire Insurance Map.
Good question. We're still
noticing lots of things.
I love it. Right.
And it is just one of many maps
that's located in the geography
and map division at
the Library of Congress.
So this division at the library
is the largest and most
comprehensive cartographic
collection in the world.
Right. So they store
about 5.2 million maps
and the Sanborn Maps make
up about 700,000 of those.
And this image right over here
is when I was able to sneak back
in and visit the Sanborn up,
visit the Geography and Map
division, and take a picture of
what this collection actually
looks like on their shelves.
So there's boxes and boxes and
binders and binders of these
700,000 pages of maps,
which is pretty cool.
So basically all of these maps,
like the one we first looked at,
that you see in the PDF as well
as this one pictured here, are
building level maps, meaning
like you saw in our opening
activity, individual buildings
diagrammed, including details
about those buildings.
And I think some of the
questions were about when this
map was created.
The Sanborn Fire
Insurance Maps as a whole
started being produced in 1867.
There's only about 1 or 2 maps
from that early on.
Majority of them start in about
the 1880s and go all the way up
to the present day.
A large portion of these maps
are digitized and accessible
from anywhere in the world.
So our friends in Alaska and
Hawaii, you can also access
many, many of these
maps from the collection.
And it really shows a very
diverse array of locations,
about 12,000 cities and towns
in the United States,
Canada and Mexico.
So this picture on the
slide is one I took while down
in the Geography
and Maps Division.
And the hope was to give you
a little bit of a sense of size.
If you're a classroom teacher
and you ever work with chart
paper or easel paper, that's
about the size of these maps.
So they're not small, even
though they can look that way
sometimes in the digitized
version and they can be found on
like regular thickness paper,
but some of them are printed on
nice cardstock paper.
And this had to do with the fact
that to make these maps,
surveyors had to spread out
across the country and go to
these actual locations
to create them.
So everyone had a slightly
different style to making them,
even though there was like a
standardized manual that got
given out to all of these
different surveyors who worked
for the Sanborn Fire
Insurance Company.
So I want to go back to the map
we started with now that we know
a little bit more about what
the Sanborn Fire Insurance
Map collection is.
And I want to dig into some of
those questions that you brought
up originally with
your wanderings.
So let's just throw
some ideas out there.
I think someone
asked originally,
I wonder what the colors mean.
Anybody want to harness a guess
of what the colors on this map
might mean? You got a thought?
You could just drop
it into the chat.
Okay. Residential, commercial
and government buildings.
Blue for water. Like that.
Building material.
Height of building.
All right. Revisions.
Cool. All right.
I'm seeing a decent number of
votes for building material,
which is exactly what the
colors mean on this map.
And asking questions like that
to students is going to kind of
force them to search for
evidence in this map.
So that's a powerful tool of
kind of bringing maps into the
classroom. Students can use
these maps to find evidence.
Okay. So maybe when you're
first introducing this, just
like we are now, you ask
students to predict these types
of questions, right?
What do the colors mean?
Maybe you want to ask the
students, you know, what these
dotted lines we see in
the streets might be?
What are these blue dots that
are scattered throughout?
Right. And students might have
some context that these are fire
insurance maps so they might
care about, I don't know,
fire hydrants or something.
Or they could just be creating
predictions based on what they
know about the layout of a town
or city, which is always very
interesting to hear what
students think certain things
represent. Of course, after you
kind of noodle these things
around and brainstorm possible
answers, you could show them
the key that exists
for these maps, right?
We said there's 500,000 pages
of maps and surveyors were
spread all across the country
creating these maps.
So there had to be some
standardized methods
involved in this.
So the Sanborn company
did come up with a key to show,
you know, just like you had
predicted, that the different
colors, the different colors
represent different materials
that these buildings
can be made out of.
So we're seeing stone buildings
and concrete buildings and frame
buildings like wood buildings,
iron buildings, so students can
interact with these
maps and also learn
how to use a legend or key.
And of course,
some of these maps
can get relatively complex.
You know, you get to a
city like New York City,
which has lots of different
kinds of buildings.
They may have had
to expand this key a little bit.
So each specific volume of
these maps that you look at
might have a slightly edited
key, which will always be
included with those maps.
And lots of information can be
found on the about the
collection page, which was
created out of
the Geography and Map Division.
And you could go here and learn
a lot about the different
symbols and numbers and
what it all represents.
We're not going to dive into
this too, too much today, but
know the information
is available for you.
And like Kathy just mentioned
in the chat, we're going to
share this slideshow with you
and all of these vital pages are
linked, so you'll be able to
access all of these things
directly from the slideshow.
So let's...
Go back and take a look here.
Right. So now we have the map
we first started with
sitting next to our key.
And of course, this could be a
little overwhelming at first,
trying to make sense of
everything going on on this map.
But what might be useful in the
classroom or when you
yourself are interacting with
these maps for the first time
is to zone in on
a specific section.
So I found this slice of the
map particularly interesting.
And just to give you a little
background on why I chose this
map out of 500,000 pages, right?
This is a map of Princeton,
New Jersey, from 1885.
Princeton, New Jersey,
is actually where I teach.
So it was very interesting to
look at what this map--
What this town looked like
rather in 1885.
And this interest, this part of
the map was so interesting to me
because once we zoom in and
take a look, you'll see there's
a public school located within
this section of the map.
So this is also included in
your Sanborn Map handout, this
kind of zoomed in section here.
And now that we're looking at a
specific zoomed in section with
the key next to it. I want to
give everyone a little bit more
time to think about
what they or to wonder.
Right. What are you now
wondering now that you see just
this zoomed in section of the
map and you have a little bit of
information on how
to interpret it?
So I'll give everyone
a moment or two.
Again, you could view the image
up here on my screen or you
could open the handout that
Kathy popped in the chat again
and just typed out some of your
wanderings based on this new
vantage point we have.
That. Cool. Now we're seeing a
little bit more detail, right?
We're noticing the
numbers in the corner.
We're asking how tall
the buildings are.
I love it.
How do they collect
this information?
It's a great question.
What are the X's mean?
Right.
Could they just look at these
buildings and figure it out?
I love it.
How often is this
information updated?
That's an interesting
question, too.
What are gasometers?
That's actually
where my brain went.
I was like, what on
earth are these things?
Because I have driven down
Witherspoon Street and I'm
fairly confident that I have
never seen a gasometer.
So I was definitely
interested in that.
And my experiences teaching
environmental science made my
ears kind of perk up thinking
about what on earth that is
and why it might be
relevant to my students.
So it actually has to do with
coal production and...
when kind of producing coal for
energy use, gas gets produced
and they actually store the
gas in these iron structures,
which is what a gasometer is.
Go figure.
It's a good-- the pond actually,
I don't think is still there.
That's an excellent question,
but I was thinking my
students might look at this and
start asking some environmental
questions. Right?
Like this used
to be a coal shed.
They used to store iron gas.
Right. Right here across
from the public school.
Do we think that means anything
for the present day soil
or water sources, even
if this pond is not here?
Is there adjacent water sources
that we might be concerned
about? So I really thought that
this could be a great launching
point for my students to ask
some really interesting
questions that they wouldn't
have been able to find.
Right. So through this first
part of our webinar together,
right, we've looked at a
Sanborn Map and we've asked
a lot of questions.
Right. And of course, we could
kind of dive in and try to
answer those questions.
But I think the initial beauty
of these maps is they allow
students to, you know, ask a
lot of questions, potentially
make a lot of connections, and
that could lead your
classroom conversations in
lots of different directions.
And what we want to do now in
kind of the second part of the
webinar is think about how some
of the innovative tools at the
library can help your students
answer those questions or could
help you set up these types of
experiences for your students.
So we're going to look at a few
innovative tools in the next
couple of slides to help us
figure out how we can find
Sanborn Maps and how we can
kind of, you know, get a sense
of the overall dimensions of
the collection.
And one of the main resources,
like Kathy mentioned
at the beginning
that we're going to chat about
is this Sanborn Map Navigator,
which is the product
of a pretty awesome little
division here at the
library called LC Labs.
And we're actually lucky in
that we have an awesome member
of LC Labs here with us who's
going to give us a little
background on what LC Labs is
and kind of why they would build
a tool like the Sanborn Map
Navigator that we're going to be
looking at for the next bit of
our webinar.
So, Eileen.
>> Eileen Manchester:
Yes? Can you hear me okay?
>> Jacqueline Katz: Yes.
>> Eileen Manchester: It is such
a privilege and a treat to be
here with all of you today. I am
a former classroom teacher
and so it's really nice.
It's a little farther away from
what I do for work now, but
so nice to be able to work and
support Jackie and some of the
other amazing educator fellows
at the Library
of Congress hosts.
So yeah, LC Labs is the
name of a small team.
We're situated in the office of
the Chief Information Officer,
and our goal is to really help
the Library of Congress learn
about new ways of searching,
presenting, sort of exploring
the digital collections, but
also just new ways of doing
things so you can think of us
as kind of like an incubator for
testing things in an
experimental way before they
move into kind of a
production level system.
But also what we do a lot is
bring people in who can help
kind of lend their perspective
on what the Library of Congress
could be. And so this project,
the Sanborn Maps Navigator,
was born out of a
junior fellow position.
So this is a summer internship
and fellowship program.
But lots of different divisions
of the library participate in.
And we were very fortunate to
be able to host several even in
2020 when things
had to shift online.
And so Celina is the name of
the junior fellow who actually
created this tool, and I'll
share a little bit more about
her in the chat. And she saw an
opportunity to connect to work
that had been done by one
of the 2020 innovators and
residents named Ben Lee.
So that's another program that
we use to kind of bring people
in, kind of like the residency
that Jackie is doing, but
through the kind of
lens of experimentation.
And he built out a project
called Newspaper Navigator where
he was able to extract all of
the visual content from the
chronicling America database,
which you hear about.
Actually, I won't tell you too
much because I'm realizing now
you'll hear more about it in
the next webinar.
But what Celina did is she saw
an opportunity to take the kind
of place based resources of the
Sanborn Maps and then tie that
to some of these images from
the same place and time in the
newspapers covering that area.
And so it's essentially an
interactive search tool that
allows you to sort of narrow in
place by place, but then also
to-- Yeah, well, you'll hear
more about it from Jackie, but
to kind of also have the
element of surprise, there's a
surprise me button. So we try
to do things like that too, to
kind of really like figure out
what is possible and then also
figure out where the the kind
of constraints that we're
running into to try to like
long term achieve the library's
digital transformation.
So I'll stop there, but I'm
happy to be here to answer any
questions later on
and to just champion
all the work that
you all are doing.
>> Jacqueline Katz:
Thank you so, so much, Eileen.
Very helpful. And you know,
as a teacher coming to the
library, I didn't know
much about LC Labs.
But as I've learned and as
we're going to talk about today,
there's a lot of tools living
on this page that could be
potentially interesting in a
classroom setting, especially
for those more technologically
inclined students, which is more
and more of them
as time goes on.
So like we said, we talked
about Sanborn Maps in general,
and we kind of, you know,
demoed how you can have students
interact with them
in the classroom.
But now we're going to shift
gears and think about how can
you find them and how can
students find them.
So this is where the Sanborn
Map Navigator comes into play.
So when you log into the
Sanborn Map Navigator
and like I said, we're going to
share all these links with you
at the end of the webinar,
you're going to see this
lovely data visualization.
And what's cool about this
right off the bat
is to think about
how like a paper collection
sitting on the shelves
in the Library of Congress
in Washington, D.C.
can be represented
digitally and graphically.
Right?
Sometimes these things
don't align in our minds
thinking about like historical
maps and, you know, computer
software and computer
programming and data
visualizations, which is
basically what we're seeing on
the home page of this
Sanborn Map Navigator.
So it's kind of cool
in that it shows us
the number of Sanborn Maps
in various states that are
part of our digital collection.
So you can see New York,
Pennsylvania, Texas, lots of
maps going on there.
Fewer maps happening out in
Alaska, down in the south.
And out in the west.
But luckily, I think there's
representation from pretty much
all of these states.
So what you can do is this is
an interactive map so you're
able to click to the state.
So in my case, I told you my
slight bias for New Jersey,
right? I'm from New Jersey.
I teach in New Jersey. So I
clicked on New Jersey.
Immediately when you click on
New Jersey, it gets broken up
into counties because the
Sanborn Maps have been organized
based on county.
So now I can see even more data
about which counties are best
represented in the
state of New Jersey.
And when you click on them,
the different
counties are going to
pop up in this window on
the right of your screen.
And Eileen mentioned as well
how this also integrates
the digitized newspapers.
You're also going to get a
randomly selected newspaper
image from that state.
So I'm getting this picture
from Bridgeton, New Jersey, from
1900, which may or may not be
relevant to the activity your
students doing, but it will
definitely prompt some new
questions. So then what I could
do is I could easily interact
with any of these
different counties, and
I'm from Monmouth County,
so if I were to click
on Monmouth County,
it would then
break up into towns and I
would be able to, you know,
select my hometown Red Bank
and see all the different maps
that were made of Red
Bank throughout time.
So I might see, you know, five
different maps made between 1880
and 1945, which is really
kind of powerful
and could be very,
very interesting.
In the case of my Princeton map
that we looked at earlier.
Right. That was the 1885 map,
but that was about one of 8 or 9
maps made of
Princeton, New Jersey.
So I could definitely get a
kind of time scale view of how
the town has changed.
And something else
really cool about this.
Eileen also mentioned it in her
little intro is this surprise me
button. If you just want to go
to the Sanborn Map Navigator and
learn something about someplace
new that you've never visited,
you can click that button and
it's very likely a town will pop
up that you never heard of.
And this could be a great way
to get students just interacting
with the navigator if they've
never used it before, and also
learning about a new place,
even though I know it's like
very tempting to go look up all
the places that you've lived
or been or worked.
And trust me, you can get lost
on this rabbit hole, right?
Thinking about your town.
And what's also
really, really cool
about this is if you are on the
tech side of things, maybe
you're teaching a computer
science class or you have,
you know, like a lot of
our states now, standards
where you need to
address computer science
within your specific discipline.
All of the information about
how Selena, the innovator in
residence that
Eileen referenced,
created this is
freely available.
So if you or one of your
students is particularly
interested in how you take, you
know, a collection of historical
maps and convert it into this
interactive digital tool,
you can find out all about that
on the Sanborn
Map Navigator page.
Okay. And you can get a
lot of the code information
if you wanted to
replicate something similar.
And of course, if you want to
go deeper into this, we'll have
some time for
questions at the end.
Okay, So, Sanborn Map
Navigator is tool number one
in terms of ways you can find
Sanborn Maps to bring into your
classrooms and have those
interesting inquiry based
conversations. Okay.
The second tool we're
going to chat about is
the Sanborn Atlas Volume Finder,
which is again another
example of how we can
take a historical collection
and convert it into a
digital interactive tool.
So this volume finder currently
does not include all
of the digitized maps.
They're slowly being brought
over to this, but you can see
how maps from multiple
different cities are currently
part of this tool.
And what's cool about this tool
is I'm going to show you in a
second is that you can search
present day addresses, which is
useful because you'll notice if
you look at some of these towns
over time, streets have
changed, names have changed,
numbering has changed.
So it's kind of cool
to have this ability
to search addresses. So...
Because I'm temporarily living
in Washington, D.C.
I started with a search of
Washington, D.C.
So from this starting map,
which is on the home page of the
volume finder, again a link
you're going to get at the end
of the webinar, I was able to
click on Washington D.C.
and get this pop up window.
From this pop up window, I was
able to access the volume finder
for D.C. by clicking here and I
was able to type in the address
I was curious about.
And for me, this was my
favorite coffee shop
that I have found in D.C.
So 600 H Street Northeast
popped that in.
Here it showed up
and I immediately saw
that there was a map of this
location between 1903 and 1916.
That's why I'm seeing
this teal color over here.
Okay. And if you're actually on
the Atlas Finder page, you'll
see that this legend over here
is interactive and you can click
on and off the different
colors, which I highly recommend
you do, because currently this
teal color is blocking out
some of the other colors
that are also there.
There's also a 1917 to 1929
edition, as well as a 1959
to a 1961 edition.
So it might look like there's
only one time frame represented,
but there's more color layers
underneath here.
So then what you're able to do
is click on the location.
And get direct information
about where this address is
in the map. So I'm able to see
that in volume two from 1904,
I'm going to be able to find
608 Street Northeast and I can
get there directly
from this volume finder.
So I click here and I get taken
to a Library of Congress web
page, and there is volume II
of the Washington, D.C. maps.
And the first image in that
page that I'm brought to is an
index. And from that index I
can find out that 600 H Street
Northeast is in
image 177. Right.
Just to give you a little bit
of visual, right?
These maps are collections
because D.C. is huge.
When the Sanborn Map was made
in 1904, there was multiple
pages of this map.
So instead of flipping through
170 plus pages, you could go
directly to the right page.
And in my case,
that was page 177.
Here it is. Page 177.
I see it marked up in the
corner.
I see this section of
Washington, D.C.
And if I zoom in on H Street,
which is right here at the top,
I can find 600 H Street.
And I can also see that 600 H
Street was not a coffee shop in
1905. It was a
bicycle repair shop.
Which is pretty cool, right?
And I can see that next to it
where all these different
dwellings, that's what D is
standing for on this map.
And I can see that it used to
be a two storey building.
That's why I'm seeing
this number 2
right here, which is
kind of crazy because
now it's an apartment high rise.
So it's a lot more
than two stories.
But this is just a great way to
dig through those 500,000 pages
of maps pretty quickly to get
what you're looking for,
which would not necessarily be
easy if you were going kind of
directly through the digital
collections page looking for a
specific address.
So we have two pretty
innovative tools.
We have the Sanborn Map
Navigator that helps us,
you know, visualize the
distribution of these maps
as well as to quickly kind of
search down into the specific
county or town we want and also
gives the powerful visual of
looking at maps over time for a
specific location and that cool
link to digitized newspapers
in chronicling America.
And then our second
innovative tool
is the Sanborn
Atlas Volume Finder,
which allows you to do
searches by address, okay,
which is super user
friendly and nice to do.
And it's going to give you
information about the digitized
maps as well as the non
digitized maps that exist
in the library's collections.
So of course, we're from
all over the country.
It's usually easiest to
interact with maps that are
digitally available.
And a good chunk of this
collection you can find online.
But there are way more
here at the library.
And if you were interested
about a specific version,
you could always take a trip
and see the non digitized map
as well. So two innovative tools
that show us interesting ways
that historical map collections
can be visualized and interacted
with. And just the nature of
these tools presents a unique
opportunity in the classroom
for students to think of
innovative questions.
Okay, so.
What I'm hoping to think about
now that we've seen a few ways
you can interact with the maps
in our opening activity, we've
looked at two innovative tools
that organize this collection.
Now I'm curious what sort of
innovative questions do you
think these maps could prompt
if you were to show them to
a learner or a student?
So I'll give everyone a few
moments to think on this
question. All right.
And you might reflect on things
you typed in the chat earlier
like your wanderings.
But I'm curious if you're
looking at a Sanborn map,
what innovative questions
might you start to ask?
I know it can be tricky to put
it into words, but if I scroll
back in the chat, I can see
that there were some interesting
things asked earlier on.
Like...
The question about revisions I
thought was interesting, right?
If you look at a map and you
know that people are going out
kind of on foot.
Looking at these locations, you
know, you might be asking like,
how were revisions made?
Did they make revisions?
Seeing new things pop up.
Let's see. Are there patterns
to town planning
across the country?
Oh, that's a cool question.
Can you see evidence of an
event or a natural disaster?
Love that.
How has non-building space
in neighbourhoods
changed over time?
Oh, that's really interesting.
What impact might that
have on local culture?
How have residential
neighborhoods changed over time?
These are awesome.
Cool. Cool. So.
It's clear that these maps can
take you in so many different
directions and like, who knows
what a student might come up
with? It's never really easy to
predict what they're thinking.
Oh, what happened when the
railroad came?
I love that. Right.
So many questions that by
potentially using the innovative
tools you can answer, right?
You could look at maps for
a specific location over time.
You could see an area pre
railroad, post railroad
and try to figure
out what went on.
So this is awesome.
So I want to quickly show you
some. I'm going to come back to
that questions that I've
gathered by talking to teachers
who use Sanborn Maps
and interacting
with the TPS teachers network
and seeing all the
great things that
educators have posted there.
Here's just a list of some
questions that I've seen pop up
that seem to kind of fit in
that innovative questions
category. So some people in the
chat have touched on this.
How have things
developed over time?
What is valued in
a specific area?
Who is counted?
Because you might notice
when you look at
the Sanborn Map Navigator and
you look down at a county level,
you could see that
certain counties
are better represented
than others.
Why might that be?
Who lived in those
various areas?
Could that have played
something based on what we know
was happening during
the time frame?
What environmental concerns
exist? This kind of hits at
the example I brought up where
we looked at the Iron Gasometer.
Should we be
concerned about that?
Should students maybe go out
and test the soil in that area?
Can we in 2023 find any
experimental evidence of those
gasometers there?
I don't know. Right. And then
you might want to ask yourself,
like, why do they
put them there?
Why didn't they put them
in a different part of town?
All great questions.
As the population increased or
decreased, how do you know?
Right. Here's an opportunity to
connect the Sanborn Map
collection to other collections
or other artifacts, perhaps the
census or statistical atlases
from the time period.
And this kind of links to the
comment in the chat from Lisa.
Population migration. Did a
population in one location
increase while
another decreased.
What does that tell us about
what was going on
during that time?
Has the shoreline changed?
I brought this one up because
when I visited
the Geography and Maps
division a few weeks back,
one of the librarians
there was working on...
adding Cleveland to
the volume finder.
And she had noticed that they
must have extended the shoreline
in Cleveland and you
could see that on the map.
So that's a cool and very
timely question, especially I'm
from New Jersey and there's
been lots of issues with soil
erosion. This could be an
interesting thing to look at.
Not only soil, but,
you know, beach erosion.
How can the layout of a
town or city help explain
a historical event? Okay.
This definitely goes back to
the question about like seeing
an event or natural disaster.
Right? There have been huge
fires in certain cities.
Can you go back and look at the
building materials in those
cities? Could that
have played a role?
Did the building materials
change pre fire and post fire?
Right. Did people
respond to that event?
And then, of course,
what are the pros and cons
of a city/town design?
Right. Moving to D.C. and
expecting to find a grid like
system exactly like New York.
I was, you know, pleasantly
surprised or slightly confused
that that wasn't
exactly the case here.
So what are the pros
and cons of that?
The way D.C. is laid out
compared to how
New York's laid out.
Students can look at these
maps, gain an understanding for
the layout and start to debate
pros and cons, right?
Awesome. How has non
building space--
I love that. Cool.
Awesome. So these are just some
ideas and you'll notice that
some of these are linked and
these are just resources that
are available to help you if
you and your students were to
address those questions.
And many of these resources
that you'll see linked here have
been developed out of the
Geography and Map division,
showing you how to do things
like view the Sanborn Maps and
interpret change over time.
Also, they have organized
several Sanborn Maps around
certain historical events or
important historical places
that you can use as a basis for
the research that you and your
students perhaps do together.
So again, you'll have
access to all of these links.
Okay. So I do want to pop back
because we have a second
question and I want to think
about this second question.
How might you support student
interactions with these maps?
So. What sort of things might
you do to help students,
you know, access these maps.
Cool. Annotate the map with a
historical photo. I love that.
Start them with some,
you know, real place
based learning and have them
find their current address.
I love discuss why and how
they were made for context.
That's awesome. Yeah.
Overlay maps from
different years.
That's cool. There's actually
one of the links that we saw
on the last slide. Actually
has a video to show you
how you could do that,
how you can overlay these
historical maps
over current Google maps
and see how they compare.
I love this. Have them
create a map of their current
neighborhood using the older
maps as reference.
Awesome, right? First looking
together at a section of a map
and then a search--
Then searching for personal
meaning. Love that.
Cool.
So there's lots of ways
to break down these maps and,
you know, help students
interact with them.
And even following the process,
we followed similarly like some
of you have brought
up in the chat.
Start them wondering
about the map.
Get them predicting what the
different things might mean.
And then and then
layering things on,
then showing them the
key, then giving them
a little bit more background
about what they're looking at.
Awesome.
Very cool. So...
What I just want to end with
thinking about is once you do
these things to get students to
interact with these maps, right,
the various things you've
suggested, get them to layer one
map on top of another, get them
to discuss the how and why,
get them to find
their current address.
They're going to ask lots
of different questions.
So similar to how I pulled
questions from various
conversations with educators
about how they have used the
maps in their classroom.
I've also asked them what sort
of questions have they overheard
their students asking when
interacting with these maps.
So here's just a few
of those questions.
Right. And this has come up
in our conversation, right?
How are these maps made?
This is something students have
been interested in.
Why did insurance companies
need this information?
Why are certain areas
labeled by nationality?
So on some of these maps you'll
see labeled like Chinatown or,
you know, Koreatown.
And why-- Why was that
necessary to add to these maps?
Might be an interesting
conversation in your classrooms.
How did the Sanborn Company
pick the areas to map?
Because it's not
all over the country.
We saw in the newspaper
Navigator that there's some
concentrated in one
area over the others.
Many questions about do we
still have this feature today or
whatever they noticed?
A decent number of questions
about is it safe for factories
to be converted into dwellings,
which I thought was very
interesting for students to ask.
And then again, this kind of
came up when we looked at our
map, someone asked, I think,
is the pond still there?
I have certain bodies of water
appeared or disappeared.
How did that happen?
So this just gives you a taste
of like what these maps could
inspire in your students. The
different things they might ask
when looking at it, which is
really very cool because if
they're asking questions,
they're probably engaged.
And this can kind
of take the class
in a lot of
different directions.
Oh, I love this idea to
read a historical diary
or local history book to
find a map of that time.
Again, add context
to these maps, right?
They are historical.
There's plenty
of other artifacts
you could connect to them.
We mentioned
statistical atlases.
We mentioned chronicling
America to help build up the
story around these maps.
Awesome. Well, I want to give
us some time in case there are
any questions about anything
we talked about in including
how we started with
just kind of ways
to interact with
the maps as students.
If you have any questions
about the tools we looked at,
which was the
Sanborn Newspaper Navigator
and the volume finder, if
you have any questions about
either of those
or anything about
our last piece of
our conversation,
but feel free, drop any
questions into the chat and...
Awesome.
All right. So I'm
seeing a question.
Are there any long term plans
for these digital tools?
Will they be on the Loc
website permanently?
Eileen?
>> Eileen Manchester:
Yeah, I can speak to the
Sanborn Map Navigator,
and I think the other one,
there's some other colleagues
on the call who might
be able to speak to that.
So right now, this falls
under the category of kind of
labs like experimental tools.
However, we are currently going,
exploring through internally
some publication mechanisms
that might allow
something like this to stick
around a little bit longer.
There are no immediate
plans to get rid of the tool.
And I think the affordances
of GitHub are actually quite
promising, but just kind of
under investigation right now.
So it's sort of up in the air.
But hearing from people that
are using the tool actively
really helps inform
that conversation.
So if you are, please let us
know and I can put our group
email in the chat as well.
>> Jacqueline Katz:
Thank you. Thank you.
And I'm pretty certain the
volume finder is a part right
now of the geography and maps
page, and they're continually
working to build it out.
So I think it's it's going to
be around for a while.
>> Tim Signage:
Hey, I'll just jump in.
This is Tim Signage and
Geography and Map division,
just to echo. Yes, the
Sanborn Volume Finder tool.
We want to keep it around for
the long haul and it is
expanding. So I believe Kansas
City, I believe is perhaps next.
So we've been going
through mapping the volume
extends for major U.S. cities.
I note someone asked about
Phoenix that may be
on the horizon as well.
But yes, we definitely want to
keep that project going and
expanding to more cities.
>> Jacqueline Katz:
Thank you very much.
So I'm also seeing
Brittany's question.
How could a public librarian
utilize this resource?
I think I'm sure there's a ton
of humans on this call that
might have great ideas.
But my initial thought is,
you know, thinking about where
your library is located and,
you know, getting patrons to
interact with that, I'm
thinking it would be very
interesting for people to come
into a library and, you know,
see what that particular
location looked like years ago.
And of course, all
of this is freely available
for you to access as well as
any of your patrons as well.
Cool.
Oh, awesome.
Oh, yeah, I see
a reference about Jeffrey
Yu Warren's work.
Speaking of Sanborn
Maps and innovation.
That's a great point.
If anyone wants to pop on
and bring that up because that's
a awesome example of innovative
ways to use Sanborn Maps.
>> Kathleen McGuigan: Eileen,
before you get started on that,
I just want to make one
plug for next week's webinar.
As we're heading up to the end
of our-- next week's webinar
will be on the Newspaper
Navigator as it relates to
Chronicling America.
And it's a database
of historic newspapers.
So I suggest that if you are
interested in that
innovative tool to sign up
through the link that I just
posted into the chat.
I'm going to go ahead and post
the slides for today and I'm
going to hand things
over to Eileen.
>> >> Eileen Manchester: Yeah.
And totally welcome anyone else
to come off who wants to
chat about this project.
So I mentioned the Innovator in
Residence program.
This is a recurring competitive
residency that my team sort of
sponsors. And this year's
innovator, Geoffrey Warren,
is an artist and an educator.
I think he works primarily with
kind of informal educational
settings and he is using
Sanborn Maps alongside other
photographic and sort of visual
materials to create relational
reconstruction. So like 3D kind
of environments that reconstruct
a historic site, especially
those that are no longer in the
physical environment. So he has
a special interest in historic
Chinatowns and other
neighborhoods and spaces that
are important to Asian
communities and Asian American
communities. And so I posted a
link to a blog post that kind of
introduces his work and would
highly encourage you to,
you know, go to our
website to find out more
if that's of interest.
And thank you to Jennifer
for shouting that out.
>> Jacqueline Katz:
Thank you. Thank you.
Great.
Scrolling through.
Well, this is awesome. I very
much appreciate everyone's
interaction throughout the
webinar and they're great
suggestions and questions and
it just makes me more excited to
think about what students
might think and ask.
So like Kathy mentioned, she
dropped the slides in the chat.
These slides have links, so
typically it's the image on the
slide that is hot linked.
So if you click on that, you
will get to the website being
referenced and we would love to
see you next week as we talk
about some other
really cool tools.
And next week we'll be focused
on tools used to explore
chronicling America, which are
our digitized newspaper.
But I'll hang on the call if
anybody has any extra questions.
But I thank you very much for
joining us on this sunny
Wednesday afternoon in
Washington, D.C..
Have a good one.
>> Bob Loomis:
Hey, this is Bob Loomis.
I posted a question just a
moment ago, but I was just
curious about the commercial use
of some of these
maps and images.
You know, say you
had a property that was
historical and you wanted to
sell prints with these on it.
Other legal restrictions on
doing something like that.
>> Jacqueline Katz: I am
not entirely sure the answer
to that question.
But I could pass it along
and try to find out for you.
Unless there is someone left
on this call who could
better speak to that.
>> Eileen Manchester: One thing,
I'll share a resource, Jackie,
to the Ask a Librarian
resource that might be a way
to directly get in touch
with some of the folks
who are positioned
to potentially
answer that question.
>> Jacqueline Katz:
Awesome. Thank you, Eileen.
>> Bob Loomis: Thank you.