>> Amelia Raines:
Good afternoon.
Thank you all so
much for joining us today.
My name is Amelia Raines.
I am a reference librarian in
the geography and map division
at the Library of Congress.
And I'm joined today by Celia
Roskin, an educational resources
specialist here at the Library
of Congress.
And we'll also be joined in the
Q&A by Kathy McGuigan, a
supervisory educational
resources specialist.
So do you want to use maps in
your teaching?
Are you interested in learning
about how to find and use
historical maps online?
Today's presentation will equip
you to do all of these things,
taking advantage of the free
resources provided by the
Library of Congress.
First on our agenda today.
I'm going to take you on a
whirlwind tour of the geography
and map division, which is the
part of the library that focuses
on maps.
We'll look at the variety of
materials included in the
Library of Congress, map
collections, and then go into
several ways to access them
online.
I'll also go over some of our
curated digital collections and
research guides that might be
of particular use to you in the
classroom. And I'll tell you
how you can get in touch with
our librarians so that we can
help you find the resources you
need, because that's what we're
here for.
And then after that, Celia will
show you some of the amazing
resources that the library has
put together specifically for
teachers. She'll talk about
tools they've developed for
teaching with and analyzing
maps and other primary sources,
classroom materials like
primary source sets and how to
get tapped into all the awesome
programming the library puts on
for teachers and educators.
At the end. We've set aside some
time for you to ask questions of
both of us about anything
related to maps and or teaching
with the library's materials.
Feel free to use the Q&A
feature in Zoom to ask your
questions at any time, and then
we'll tackle as many as we have
time for at the end.
If we don't get to your
question today or if you have a
question that's more involved
or is too specific to get into
right now, we strongly
encourage you to send it to us
via Ask a Librarian.
And there's a link at the
bottom of the slide to all of
our different Ask a Librarians
for different resources around
the library. And then just a
quick note about links in the
chat. As the webinar goes on,
we will post links to resources
that we talk about and you can
find those in the chat feature.
If you want to save those
links, you may need to click on
them to open them in a new tab
and then copy the link from
there. Zoom doesn't always let
you copy directly from the chat.
We'll also have a handout that
we'll send after the webinar
with links to everything that
we talk about here.
And then I'm going to jump the
gun and answer the very first
question somebody has put in,
which is, is this being
recorded? Yes, this is being
recorded.
It will go up on the library's
website.
Usually it takes about a couple
of weeks because they've got to
finalize the transcript and
upload it to the website and
everything. So in the follow up
email, there will be the link to
the place where you can access
this recording once it's
available. Okay, Now, before we
get too deep into things, I want
to give you a sense of scale.
Sorry for the map joke.
Would anybody like to guess how
many maps and other cartographic
items like globes and atlases
are housed in the geography and
map division collections?
See some guesses in the chat.
Okay. Somebody says 2 million.
That's quite a lot of maths.
5 million. Oh, my gosh.
50,000. Maybe a more reasonable
number.
Another 5 million.
1 million.
Are you ready for the real
answer? We hold almost 6 million
cartographic items.
The vast majority of these
items live in our stacks.
In the basement of the Madison
building, which is one of the
three Library of Congress
buildings on Capitol Hill in
Washington, D.C.
Our public reading room
processing and cataloging areas.
Special Collections Vault and
Scan Lab are also in the Madison
building basement.
And here it's a really nice day
today.
So I'm really bummed that I'm
in a basement and can't get
outside. But I will soon
enough.
The Geography and Map division
collections occupy the largest
contiguous collection space in
the Madison building.
It takes up one full city
block, one full side of the
building. And if you laid the
Washington Monument on its side,
it would fit end to end within
the stacks.
Now you'll notice that I said
we have almost 6 million
cartographic items rather than
6 million maps.
Most of the materials in our
collections are, as you would
expect, maps, primarily single
maps covering a single
geographic area on one sheet of
paper or a vellum or of some
other material. Maps in our
collections cover a wide range
of geographic areas, everything
from world maps to maps of
individual towns and everywhere
in between.
Our collections also contain
atlases, which are bound volumes
of maps on a particular topic
or covering a particular
geographic area.
We have world atlases, atlases
of historical events, geology,
oceanography and a whole
variety of other topics.
On our website, you'll find a
large collection of 19th century
county atlases showing land
ownership and sometimes fun
illustrations of buildings and
farms.
Set maps are another type of
map in our collections.
These are where you have a
large area that's been broken up
into multiple sheets and
they're all done at a uniform
scale, each covering a smaller
area in greater detail.
For example, these two images
come from a set of almost 500
sheets showing trenches in
France during World War 1.
The image on the left is an
index map which shows the area
covered by the full set of 500
sheets.
And then on the right, you see
one of those individual sheets.
In addition to maps and
atlases, our collection includes
globes like the two that you
see here and maps on other 3D
objects. The globe in the top
right
was made during World War 2
it's about 50 inches in
diameter and lives in our
reading room. The globe on the
left is about six inches across
and it's a celestial globe
showing the stars and
constellations. In the bottom
right corner, you can see one of
our several 18th century powder
horns featuring maps.
This particular one has a map
of the Hudson River.
Now, while we have nearly 6
million items in our collections
here in Washington, D.C., we have
a growing number of maps
available online.
Currently, those represent just
a fraction of our total
holdings, and in particular,
you'll only find items that are
out of copyright or that we
have permission to make
available to the public through
our website.
So I want to dig into these a
little bit and show you some of
the highlights of our online
collections.
So let's go straight to the
website.
And right now we are at the
Library of Congress home page.
Which is located at "loc.gov"
If you want to search all of
the library's online collections
and resources, you can do that
from here.
And you can also look at
specific types of resources.
So you can choose everything.
Or today we're just going to
look at maps.
I'm going to select maps and
then click the 'Search' icon.
And now I get all of the
digitized maps.
This page can also
be accessed directly
by going to "loc.gov/maps".
It's easy enough to do a
general search in the map
collections. Type your search
term into the search box and
hit 'Enter' or click the 'Search'
icon.
Let's search for Minnesota.
So now you see a last -- list of
maps of Minnesota with images
and short descriptions.
You can sort this list by date.
Let's say I want to see the
oldest maps first.
I'm going to select date 'Oldest'
first and then click 'Go'.
You can also sort by relevance.
That's the default by title or
by call number.
Along the left side of the
screen here or at the bottom, if
you're searching on a phone,
there's a list of facets that
you can use to narrow your
search results.
The very first one tells you
that you're working with 997
results that are available
online.
This all items button will get
you catalog records for maps
which aren't online.
So let's leave that for now.
We'll look at the catalog in
just a minute briefly.
Scrolling down a bit in the
facets, you can choose a
specific date range.
So if I only want 19th century
maps, I click on '1800 to 1899'.
And now I've got a smaller list
of 371 results.
And then from here you see the
options for narrowing your
search results get even more
specific.
In addition to date, you can
narrow your results by location.
This field isn't perfect, but
it is helpful if you're looking
for just a specific county or
town.
Although if you are, I'd
recommend just adding those as
search terms appear in the
search box.
You can scroll down and look at
other options for narrowing,
including contributor as in
typically author or publisher.
You can narrow by subject or by
language.
Once you find a specific item
that you'd like to see.
Click on either the image or
the title to take you to the
item page. You'll see the image
and then underneath it metadata
from the catalog record.
Now if you want to zoom in.
Click on 'View Enlarged Image'.
And you can zoom in using the
plus and minus buttons up here.
Using the scroll wheel on your
mouse or two fingers.
If you're on a phone, you can
also make the item full screen.
You can rotate it.
Or clip a section using the
scissors.
Just for a quick example.
Draw your box over what you
want to clip
and then click on 'Clip Image'.
Now, if you want to
download the whole thing, use
this download menu to the lower
left of the image.
This dropdown menu lets you pick
a file, type and size and we
have a few different options.
The Tiff file is the highest
resolution,
but it's also a very large file,
so choose the one you want and
then click on 'Go To Download'.
If you choose one of
the smaller options like the
JPEG, which is what I did, it
will open the image in a new tab
and then you can right click to
save it.
Now, if you're interested in
resources that we have that are
not available online, the best
place to start is by searching
the Library of Congress
catalog, and that is located at
"catalog.loc.gov".
To search for maps.
I definitely recommend starting
with the advanced search.
Click on this 'Add Limits' right
here.
And then set your type of
material to map.
So I'll do a quick sample
search here just to show you
what this looks like.
Each of these individual items,
links to a catalog record that
tells you more information
about the item.
And then also under item
availability, it tells you where
to request it in the library.
If you're interested in
something you find in the
catalog, but you can't come to
D.C., contact us through.
Ask a Librarian to talk about
access options.
We also have a lot of maps that
aren't individually cataloged,
so if you don't find what
you're looking for in our online
collections or you're planning
on visiting the reading room, I
recommend checking out one of
our general virtual orientations
to the geography and map
division, where we go into a lot
more detail about how to access
maps that aren't online.
Our next live one is coming up
in October, and we have a
recording of a past event on
our website.
I will post that link in the
chat here.
Okay. Going back to our online
collections, "loc.gov/maps".
We've talked about how to do a
general search, and now I want
to highlight a few curated
collections that may be
particularly useful in your
classrooms.
So right up here, we've been
under search maps, but there's
also a tab up here called
Collections With Maps.
And here we have collections of
digital materials, sometimes
just maps and sometimes
gathering material from around
the Library of Congress on a
variety of specific topics.
So these are -- these are all
really interesting.
But there are a few that I want
to highlight, starting with this
discovery and exploration
collection.
Click on either the image or
the title to go to the
collection. Some highlighted
materials appear across the top.
And then there's a bit of info
about the collection right here.
Now, this specific collection
is focused on the period of
history often called the
European Age of Discovery from
the 15th century to the 17th
century
mostly, although there are some
materials in here outside of
that time period, like maps
relating to the Lewis and Clark
expedition in 1803.
To see the maps themselves,
click on Collection Items at the
top. This looks and functions
just like the general search
page. You can see there are 214
items in this collection.
You'll notice a few of them
aren't maps, but most of them
are. You can sort them over
here, just like we did before.
Narrow them by date or by other
criteria
down here. And view any
individual item by clicking on
it. You can also going back to
the collections page, you can
also search the items in just
this collection using the search
bar at the top, you see how
it's changed from maps to this
collection. So if I wanted to
find Lewis and Clark
specifically. Then you'll see
items from that specific
collection, from that discovery
and exploration collection
related to Lewis and Clark.
And then finally this Articles
and essays tab at the top here
has articles written by library
specialists on specific maps or
on themes related to the
collection.
Some collections have several
of these.
Some just have. Some have none.
It just depends.
The essays for this collection
highlight two incredibly
important 16th century maps.
Diego Gutierrez's 1562
"Map of America"
and Martin Waldseemüller
his 1507 "Map of the World",
which was the first time the
word America appeared on a map.
Let's go back to the
collections with Maps page.
So I can get there
directly by going to
"loc.gov/maps/collections",
or I can
just go to the search maps page
and then click on 'Collections
With Maps'.
And let's see what
else there is.
Well, we collect maps of the
entire world and outer space.
Our digital collections are
primarily focused on maps of the
U.S. as America's National
Library.
It made sense for this to be
one of our priorities.
So if you're teaching us
history, you are seriously in
luck. The American Revolution
and its era collection includes
1435 maps and charts of North
America and the Caribbean from
the second half of the 18th
century.
This collection is based on a
bibliography of maps published
in 1981, and then additional
maps have been added in recent
years. Once again, you have a
selection of featured items
across the top, and then you
can view all items in the
collection by clicking on
collection items.
This collection includes maps
published both within North
America and the Caribbean and
in Europe.
So you can see multiple
different perspectives on the
same geographical location
during this important historical
period. It also covers a broad
area.
We're not just focusing on
Boston and Philadelphia, but
including the full span of
North American colonies in the
1700s. So if you're teaching
about patterns of immigration,
travel and trade during that
period, these maps can be a
great resource. There's an
accompanying essay on the
mapping of North America
during the period
of the Revolutionary War
and also is a nifty tool
where you can view maps of a
specific state.
So if I wanted to see maps of
Ohio, just click on 'Ohio' and
then it takes you to the list
of everything.
That was not a good choice.
Ohio doesn't have a whole lot.
Let's try Mississippi.
Also not a good choice.
The traditional choice. Let's
go with Pennsylvania.
And you can see we've got a lot
more.
So moving forward in American
history and I'm going to go back
to the Collections of Maps
page.
We have two online collections
related to maps
of the Civil War.
The first one is just called
conveniently "Civil War Maps",
and it pretty much does
what it says on the tin.
These are maps made during or
about the Civil War period,
documenting everything from
battles and campaigns to
railroads and changing borders.
So let's look at a couple of a
couple of examples from this
featured gallery at the top.
This is a cool map of
"Fort Henry",
a Confederate fort in
Tennessee.
Which was drawn by general
Cullum of the "Union Army".
The map was either drawn
or annotated after
"The Battle of Fort Henry"
in February 1862.
Because this road over here is
marked road by which the enemy
retreated. And then there's a
key.
Over here that explains the
layout of the fort itself.
And if I zoom in, you can see
these letters refer to actual
little individual buildings
that are in this civil war fort.
Meanwhile. Let's see.
I think this was it.
This is a map made by a general
publisher in Pennsylvania, and
it was made for a popular and
presumably northern audience.
It's a political map of the
southern states from 1862.
And in addition to cities,
counties and railroads, the map
shows forts and dates of
battles.
Like down here.
"The Battle of Fort Sumter" in
April of 1861.
So jumping back to that list of
collections, the Hotchkiss
collection right here is
another Civil war related
collection. Jedediah Hotchkiss
was a topographic engineer in
the "Confederate Army", and this
collection of sketchbooks, maps
and manuscripts was purchased
by the Library of Congress
from Hotchkiss granddaughter in
1948.
These 350 items include many
detailed battle maps which were
used by Robert E. Lee and
Stonewall Jackson.
One of our most popular
collections is this collection
of 19th century railroad maps.
These maps are fascinating
windows into a dynamic period of
American expansion, industry
and migration.
Again, just looking at a couple
of examples.
Some show the full expanse of
the American railroad network.
Like this one from 1861.
While others are focused on
specific railroad routes.
Like this one of the Pittsburgh-
Marion and Chicago Railway --
Railway from 1887.
Like the "Revolutionary War Map
Collection",
there's a tool under
articles and essays.
Where you can look for maps of
a particular state.
And then the final collection
that I want to highlight today
is the "Sanborn Fire Insurance
Map Collection" right here under
"Sanborn Maps".
"Sanborn Maps" are a series of
extremely detailed maps of about
12,000 U.S. cities and towns
which show building level
detail. The maps were made for
the purpose of assessing fire
insurance rates and the
information that they show fits
with their purpose.
Each individual building is
color coded depending on the
building material that it was
made of.
And then other notations tell
you how many doors and windows
each building had.
What the roof was made of and
what the building's purpose was.
Most towns included in the
"Sanborn Map" collection were
mapped multiple times over
several decades.
So you can see how an
individual town has changed and
even sometimes how an
individual building has changed
over time. So...
Yes. If you want to learn more
about "Sanborn Maps", we have a
webinar from August of 2022
that goes into much more detail.
I will post that link in the
chat as well.
And then there's another
webinar specifically on teaching
with "Sanborn Maps" available on
the Educator Webinar's website.
Celia is going to tell us more
about the resources on the
LC teacher's page.
But in the meantime, here's the
list of past webinars.
And if you scroll down to I
think it's the third one, it's
all about "Sanborns".
In addition
to the collections that I've
highlighted here, there are
several other digital
collections focused on maps
that I'd encourage you to check
out. There's a collection of
maps relating to the
"African-American Colonization
Project in Liberia" in the 1830s
one about the
"Louisiana Purchase",
a collection of World War two
situation maps and a whole lot
more.
Next up on our agenda is another
important resource.
Our research guides and these
can be found at.
"guides.loc.gov/geography-map",
and I've put that link
in the chat.
The library has a vast
collection of research guides on
all sorts -- all sorts of
different topics, and these are
specifically ones focused on
maps.
Our most popular guide is
Native American spaces.
This guide describes maps and
resources in our collections
that relate to or contain
information about indigenous
peoples of the United States
and North America.
The guide has multiple sections
covering different topics.
And includes a combination of
digitized maps that are
available online.
Descriptions of maps in our
collections here in DC and
references to books in our
reading room reference
collection. You'll notice that
each page of the guide has this.
'Ask a Librarian' button if you
or your students find something
on here that you're interested
in, but it's not available
online. Feel free to contact us
to ask questions about it.
The next guide I want to show
you is all about fire insurance
maps like the "Sanborn Maps" we
looked at earlier.
Those are the ones that show
individual buildings.
This guide provides historical
information on
"Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps"
and walks you
through how to find them for
your town. There's also a
really useful section on
interpreting "Sanborn Maps" to
help you figure out exactly what
you're looking at and what all
of the different symbols mean.
Another cool guide is "All
Aboard", which focuses on
railroad maps.
This is a good companion to our
online collection of railroad
maps. The guide provides a lot
of good background information
on railroads and railroad
mapping and describes related
resources from all around the
Library of Congress.
Other research guides focus on
American women and maps and
cartography.
Important cartographers
like Abraham Ortelius
or the Bleau family.
And geographic regions like
Afghanistan and Russia.
But the last thing I want to
specifically highlight is our
new series of maps by state
guides to maps of individual
states. The only two published
so far are for Alaska and
Hawaii. So if you're in one of
those states, you're in luck.
And if not, stay tuned because
we're working on more of these
and are hoping to cover every
state eventually.
Each of these guides gives an
overview of maps, atlases, rare
materials, special collections,
online resources and reference
resources for that state.
There are galleries of
digitized maps as well as links
to materials in the library
catalog.
We also link to external
resources where you can find
more -- more cartographic,
geographic and historical
information about that state.
Now, before I turn things over
to Celia, I want to show you a
few of the other cool digital
map related projects that the
library has been working on
besides digitizing the physical
maps in our collection.
And the first of these is
"StoryMaps".
You can find the link on our
home page, but we're actually in
the process of updating that.
So for now, I'll just post the
link in the chat.
"StoryMaps" are multimedia
digital exhibits that tell the
stories of the library's
collections.
They're made by staff from all
around the library, so they
cover a wide variety of topics,
from piracy trials to Mexican
fieldworker communities to the
Underground Railroad.
One of my favorites all the way
at the bottom here, and it's
called "Behind Barbed Wire".
Let's take a quick look at it.
This StoryMap presents
selections from
"Japanese-American
Internment Camp" newspapers,
along with photos
and interactive digital maps
showing the locations of camps,
newspapers and other data.
And it does involve a lot of
large image files.
So sometimes it takes a minute
to load.
So this was put together by
staff in the library's serial
and government publications
division, but it does include
materials from their division,
from the prints and photographs
division, as in these photos
here and other things as well.
So I just want to show you some
of the maps.
This is a map showing the
address of Japanese-Americans
who were evacuated to the
camps. You can scroll through
and see other maps of
newspapers and other...
I think the newspaper one is
further down, but other
locations related to "Japanese
Internment Camps" and their
newspapers. So "StoryMaps" cover
a wide variety of topics,
include a lot of useful
collections and resources, and I
highly recommend checking them
out. We've been looking at other
ways to map our collections as
well.
So back on that collections
with maps page, where we've been
spending a lot of time.
One of the collections that we
didn't look at earlier is a
collection of "Panoramic Maps"
or "Bird's Eye View Maps".
These are really fun.
This happens sometimes.
Sometimes the library servers
take a minute, so if you ever go
to a page with a page on the
library's website with resources
and it doesn't load.
Give it a second. Try to
refresh the page.
It's a large server with a lot
of large files on it, so
sometimes it does take a
minute. While I'm waiting for
that, I bet I can get to this
map directly.
Yes.
Okay. So.
There we go. So in this
"Panoramic Maps" collection.
So these are fun illustrated
maps, mostly of U.S. cities and
towns. And these are mostly
from the late 19th century.
In this collection description,
there's a link to view from
above where you can explore the
"Panoramic Maps" collection
mapped. So this is a map.
A heat map, essentially showing
you where all of the
"Panoramic Maps"
that we have are located.
So if you want to zoom in on a
particular city and see whether
there's a map. You can click on
the number and then it'll show
you a little preview of the
map, and then you can go
directly to the page on our
website.
These maps were made in part to
attract people and businesses to
the towns that they depict,
which is why I assume they made
Phoenix, Arizona, much greener
than it is in real life.
Okay. So I realize this has
been an overwhelming amount of
information. So if you have any
questions, you are more than
welcome to contact us.
And the best way to reach us is
through.
Ask a librarian.
If you go to "ask.Loc.gov".
This shows you the
Ask a Librarian forms
for a variety
of different library topics.
You'll notice one of them is
teacher resources, and I think
Celia is going to mention that
later. And then one of them is
maps and geography.
So I'm going to post that link
in the chat for you.
So you've got it.
If you ever have questions
about maps, feel free to fill
this out. Students are welcome
to send in questions as well,
but please note that we can't
do extensive research on behalf
of patrons and we can't
complete student assignments, of
course. All right.
So one quick note about
scanning.
I'm going to skip ahead through
my backup screenshots because
they mostly worked.
Quick note about scanning. If
you want a scan of a map in our
collections that isn't already
online, there may be some
options for accessing it.
The rules of thumb are that if
you want to scan for research
purposes of a map that's not in
copyright, we can usually do
that and just send it to you by
email.
If you need multiple scans or
if you need a print, you can
order them through the
library's duplication services
office or you can come in and
do it yourself or have somebody
visit the reading room for you.
If a map is in copyright
though, then the only option is
to do it yourself. Because only
you know for sure whether your
intended use of the item
violates copyright or not.
We have the Copyright Office up
on the fourth floor of this
building. We don't take any
risks with copyright.
Now, if you want to hear more
about cool maps
at the Library of Congress,
check us out on Twitter
or rather X "@LOCMaps"
and subscribe to our blog,
"World Revealed", where we
highlight really cool maps in
our collections and tell
interesting stories about them.
So I'm going to post both both
of those links in the chat.
And then I'm going to turn
things over to Celia to talk
about the library's awesome
resources and tools for
teachers. And we will still
have some time for questions at
the end. So please keep putting
them in the Q&A feature and we
will get to them when we are
done.
All right, Celia, take it away.
>> Celia Roskin: Awesome.
Thank you, Amelia.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Again, my name is Celia Roskin.
I'm an educational resources
specialist here in the
"Library's Professional Learning
and Outreach
Initiatives office".
And I work on our events team,
which means I get to work with
teachers and educators in a
variety of ways through
professional development and
teaching people how to use
resources here at the
Library of Congress.
And I'm thrilled to be speaking
with you all today about the
benefits of teaching with maps
as primary sources in your
classrooms and offer
information on the resources
that the library has to offer
when going about teaching with
primary sources.
So if we want to advance to the
next slide, please.
So I want to start us off with
a brief primary source analysis
activity. And starting now, I
want you to take about 30s to
examine this image.
Just examine the image.
All right.
I mean, if you want to put our
first prompt.
So Amelia has put our first
prompt up on the screen.
I would love for you to use the
chat feature and answer the
prompt. Describe what you see.
So using the chat, describe
what you see.
Great.
Sailboats in the distance.
River in the background.
Capital of the U.S., Capital,
Washington Monument.
Oh. "Bird's Eye View" of the
Capital.
More trees near the capital.
Great. These are some great
observations.
You can keep putting them in
the chat.
We'll move on to our next
prompt, which is, why do you
think this map was made?"
I'm giving you a little bit
more information here and
telling you it's a map.
Why do you think this map was
made?
If you could use the chat
again.
Is there great.
Put the Capital in
context to show position of
power promotion.
The Centennial.
To make money.
[Chuckling]
To show off.
Tourism. These are some great
guesses.
All right. And we'll move on to
our last question or prompt,
rather. What do you wonder
about?
What questions do you have
regarding this map?
I wonder why we call it a
map.
How different is this map from
what's actually built?
What year was it published?
What season?
How large is the original
image?
Great. I love all of these
noticings and wonderings that
you're having about this map
and keep them coming in the
chat. I'd love to hear all of
your thoughts, but to move us
along, I'll just give a little
bit more context.
So you just participated in a
brief exercise that you can use
with your students, and we call
this an observe, reflect,
question exercise.
You may have also heard of this
analysis technique referred to
as See, Think, Wonder.
And these approaches are both
great.
It really depends on the
language that you want to use
with your students and what
works best for them.
But we use this analysis
technique to introduce primary
sources because by showing
students the primary document,
asking questions and
encouraging them to think deeply
about a primary source, you're
developing your students
observation skills and you're
enhancing their critical
thinking skills as well.
If I had more time, more than
15 minutes, I would have taken a
lot longer with this activity.
So you can definitely expand on
this and this is a great way to
get your students engaged and
interested in primary sources.
So I want to give you a few
answers to some of your
questions now by showing you
the bibliographic information in
my next slide.
So the print is kind of tiny.
So you may have to make your
screen a little bit bigger and
we'll also have the link in the
chat.
But this map is called
"View of Washington City".
And on the screen, you'll find
some of the bibliographic
information for this map.
It extends far past the
screenshot that I have here, but
some standout observations that
you might already be making.
And you can see here, you can
see the map's creation or
publication date, which is in
1871.
You may also note that this is
what we call an
"Aerial Map" or a
"Bird's Eye View Map".
And aside from the immediate
bibliographic information that
you see here, you can also see
off to the right that there are
some links to collections that
this map is a part of.
So if you look at the top right
hand upper corner, you'll see a
part of title and you'll see
that this map is a part of
"Panoramic Maps" and cities and
towns.
So that's a great way to start
exploring some other maps that
are similar to the one that I
showed you.
Another great place to start
your search and start looking is
under the subject area down at
the bottom right hand corner of
your screen where you'll see
that you could see some other
maps with aerial views, other
District of Columbia maps,
et cetera. So this is a great
way to start your search in the
library's collections.
Aside from what Amelia already
told you.
So, as I mentioned before, I
work for a team at the library
that works with educators in
many facets.
And if we could move to the
next slide, please.
Like geography and maps.
We do have our own website and
this is the front page.
You can navigate to us by going
to "loc.gov/teachers"
or again, you can
easily navigate to our website
off the library's main page.
You just have to click on the
teachers tab.
And our website, no
surprise, is dedicated to
teachers and teacher resources
that the library has to offer.
So this includes ways to get
involved
with the
Library of Congress
professional
development opportunities,
strategies and resources for
using primary sources in your
classroom or in your other
education-based environments.
And whether you're new to using
primary sources or not.
We like to think that there
really is something for
everything here on our website
and something for every type of
educator. So I want to take us
back to thinking about that
initial activity that we did at
the beginning of my presentation
where I had you participate in
that observe, reflect and
question analysis activity.
And we find that the strategy,
again is a really effective
introductory activity to use
with learners, and we want to
support you in facilitating
that activity in your classroom.
So on the front page here, if
you'll advance.
Amelia, I have a little arrow
pointing to our primary source
analysis tool, which we have
available on our website.
And if we click into the tool
and on my next slide you'll see
that our website will redirect
you to a page with an analysis
tool and tools, rather, that
are created specifically for the
different types of formats that
you might be using in your
classroom, from manuscripts to
newspapers to motion pictures.
We try to have a tool for
different types of formats that
you might be using with your
students.
We also have a teacher
dedicated tool which you see
here under teachers guides, and
we also have a student facing
tool which is under primary
source analysis tool for
students at the top of this
page here. And circled here,
you'll see that we have a map
specific primary source analysis
tool for teachers.
And when you click into this,
it will bring up the teacher's
guide for analyzing primary
sources PDF.
Which you can see here.
And as you can see, there are
three columns here with probing
questions that we've created
that you as a teacher can ask
your students when introducing
a new primary source.
We've listed possible questions
for you to ask, but feel free to
create your own or work outside
of what we laid out for you
here. This really is supposed
to act as a template or a
starting point for you and
highlighted here.
You'll see the questions that I
asked you in the beginning
during that analysis activity
that I took you through, and
they came straight from this
template.
So I'd say it's a really useful
source to kind of get your feet
wet and get started using
primary sources and analyzing
them with your students.
On the other side of this, we
also have a student facing
primary source analysis tool.
Again, if I had had more time
and I could have given each of
you this handout, I would have
asked as we went through that
observe, reflect, question,
activity for you to write down
your observations, your
reflections, your questions that
you had in relation to the
source that I put in front of
you. This is found on our
website and this is especially
helpful for students who are
new to primary source analysis
and need to kind of organize
their thoughts in these buckets.
And we offer this online as a
fillable PDF, or you can print
them out and use them in your
classroom as well.
Couple more things that I want
to highlight from our website.
If you click into our classroom
materials page, which is circled
there at the top, we have ready
made resources for you to easily
implement in your classroom.
They're very teacher ready, and
I want to specifically highlight
our primary source sets, which
are sets of curated, carefully
selected copyright free
materials from the library's
collections, and these aim to
cover many frequently taught
topics in your classrooms.
And this ranges from historic
figures like Abraham Lincoln,
like you'll see on this front
page here to turning points in
history and other historic
events that we see in a lot of
state standards and curriculum.
We also have a wide range of
sets and they include a set for
each of the 50 states as well.
So if you're looking for
primary sources related to the
state that you live in or the
state that you're from, you can
find this here as well.
And you can also easily search
within the primary source sets
by typing in a keyword in the
search bar.
So for example, you'll see here
that I typed the word map into
the search feature and we have
several primary source sets that
appear with this keyword, I
think 17 to be exact.
And while some of these sets
are map specific, like maps from
the "World Digital Library",
some of these may also
just include a map in the set.
So we really encourage you to go
searching around the primary
source sets that we have
available.
And once you click into these,
you'll find a wide variety of
primary sources that have been
curated and put together by
folks on our team here in
"Professional Learning and
Outreach Initiatives".
And then once you scroll to the
bottom of each of those pages,
you'll notice that there are
teaching notes and additional
ideas for how to incorporate
these primary sources in your
classroom. So it's a really
great resource and I definitely
recommend you checking this
out.
If you're finding that there is
not a primary source set around
a topic that you're really
looking for, that you're really
interested in, and I'd say,
don't worry.
We have folks on our staff who
are curating and creating new
sets and they're published
throughout the year.
So stay tuned and look out for
the new primary source sets that
we're adding all the time.
But we also want to hear from
you and hear what you want in
your classroom.
So keep that in mind as well.
If you're still looking for
more teacher resources and how
to use some of the library's
resources in your classroom, I
also want to direct you to our
blog, which is teaching with the
library blog.
You can keep up with the
resources and teaching ideas
that our team is constantly
putting out through our blog
page. And each week we put out
a new post, one new post,
several new posts with teaching
ideas, and we give you tips on
how to use Library of Congress
materials across disciplines.
So like the primary source
sets, it's pretty easy to search
through our blog and find posts
on specific topics that you or
your students might be
interested in.
And here you'll see an example
of a search that I did for the
keywords, geography and maps.
And we have specific blogs that
will come up that fit those key
terms. On the right here you'll
see an example of a post from
one of our former teacher and
residents guides on how to use
resources like the "Fairyland
Map" in your everyday teaching.
So we have some really fun
resources in there.
I definitely recommend checking
out our blog page.
And finally to wrap up, I just
want to go over a few more
resources that we have
available to you, like Amelia
was saying. Each division at the
library has an Ask a Librarian.
We are no different.
So if you have any questions
about our content or you want to
connect with our staff here
about how to use primary sources
in your classroom or
opportunities that we have for
teachers here at the library,
please reach out to us.
You can also find us on
Twitter "@TeachingLC".
And the last thing that I want
to highlight for you is actually
not an initiative from our
office,
"Professional learning
and Outreach Initiatives".
It's a library wide initiative,
which is which are these free to
use and reuse sets, which I
have pictured up here on the
screen. These are curated sets
of materials similar to the
primary source sets, but like I
said, this is a library wide
initiative and divisions across
the library and experts across
the library put together these
sets that are copyright free and
free to use free for you to use
in any way that you'd like.
And this is great, a great
resource for teachers.
They have some really great
sets on maps.
One example that I pulled is
maps of cities from the free to
use and reuse set.
So I definitely recommend going
and taking a look at those.
They are on the library's home
page at "loc.gov"
And if you scroll all the way
to the bottom of the page,
you'll find the free to use and
reuse sets.
So that's it for me.
Thank you so much, Amelia, for
inviting me to speak today.
And I'll stick around for the
Q&A.
But if anyone wants to connect
or ask more questions about the
resources that we have for
educators
here at the
Library of Congress,
please again use Ask
a Librarian or feel free to
reach out to me via my email
at "croskin@loc.gov".
I think I'll turn it back over
to Amelia.
>> Amelia Raines: Thank you,
Celia. That was awesome.
I am super excited to learn
about all of the resources that
the library provides for
teachers, and I hope that they
are helpful for everybody else
as well.
So I just wanted to end with a
plug for our next geography and
map division Virtual
Orientation, which is on
Tuesday, October 10 at 3 p.m.
and that is a general
introduction to the geography
and map division. All the stuff
that we have both online, again,
largely mainly online, but also
talking more about the in-person
stuff and how to search those
as well.
So I would love to invite you
all to register for that.
I'm also going to put in the
chat right now the link to the
handout that you are also going
to get in the follow up email
with all of the links for
everything that Celia and I have
talked about today.
And you will also get the
registration link for the the
upcoming webinar in your email
as well as well as a short
survey that we hope that you
take just a minute to fill out
and it will help us put
together better resources that
are more useful for people in
the future.
So with that, Kathy, let's dive
into the questions.
>> Kathy McGuigan:  I have
some questions for you.
Amelia will start with you.
Sarah asked the beginning of
the program, do any of the maps
have downloaded -- have download
options compatible with GIS?
>> Amelia Raines:  That is
a great question.
Generally speaking, no.
So we do not currently
georeference any, you know, any
of the historic maps that we
digitize.
They're just image files.
You can take them and do
exciting things in GIS software
with them, but you'd have to do
the geo referencing and stuff
yourself. We are sort of trying
to grow our GIS materials and
actually if you come back in
December, we're going to have a
virtual orientation that's all
about GIS and geospatial
materials that we have
available for the public from
the geography and map division.
But currently that is not
really something that most of
our collections have.
>> Kathy McGuigan: Perfect.
Thank you.
The next question is yours too
Amelia.
Is the map division open to the
public if you are in...
And I know the answer to that
one, which is yes.
If you are in the DC area and
would like to browse the some of
the maps that are not available
online, can you come to the
library and look at them?
>> Amelia Raines: Yes,
absolutely.
Yes, please.
We have a public reading room
in the basement of the Madison
building. It's the geography
and map reading room.
There's a giant globe out
front, so you won't miss it.
And we are open Monday through
Friday, 8:30 to 5.
In order to come to the reading
room, you will need a
Library of Congress
reader card,
which you
can get in the building.
And yes, so we welcome we
welcome the public.
Come on in request some maps.
Take a look at some maps.
Talk to us about maps.
Yeah, absolutely.
>> Kathy McGuigan: Fantastic.
And I have another
question for you.
Does the Library of Congress
have translated maps available?
>> Amelia Raines: Translated
maps.
I think the answer is probably
no.
If you're wondering if we
create translations of maps in
languages other than English
that are in our collections,
then the answer is no. That's
not something that we do.
There are sometimes you'll find
maps that there are multiple
editions in multiple languages,
especially like some of those
sort of seminal historic maps.
You know, often you'll see them
in Latin, but sometimes they
were published in other
languages as well.
So if you're --
if you have a map
that you are really interested
in, but it's not in a language
you speak, ask us.
Maybe we'll find one.
But we don't have translators
on staff to actually be
translating those materials.
>> Kathy McGuigan: Right.
And then there is a
question specific to the
"View of Washington City".
And I'm going
to give this to Amelia.
The question is, why is the
"View of Washington City" a map
and not just an illustration?
>> Amelia Raines: That is
a good question,
and that is
something that we don't
really have a super clear
answer to.
So in that "Panoramic Maps"
collection that we looked at
briefly, you'll notice most of
the materials belong to the
Library of Congress geography
and map division, which means at
some point somebody said this
is a map, but some of them
belong to and live in the
library's prints and photographs
division because somebody
looked at it and said, Well,
this isn't a map, this is a
print, this is an image.
So depending on your
perspective, frankly, and
depending on whether it --
whether you think
that it fulfills the
functions of a map, whatever
you imagine those to be, which
is a whole discussion that I'd
love to have.
You could -- you could call it a
map or you could call it an
image. That's a that's a bit of
a subjective question.
You'll find things in our
catalog that are cataloged as
maps, and maybe your opinion is
that they would be better
cataloged as images or views
and then you'll find the other
way around. It just sort of
depends, right?
>> Kathy McGuigan: And to --
 to piggyback on that,
Dan asked
a question and this is for
Celia, and I have already
looked up the answer to this.
But the question is, should
there be a --
an analysis tool for -- for
drawings and paintings and...
Go ahead, Celia.
>> Celia Roskin: Oh,
if you've already looked it up,
you're probably
a more qualified...
>> Kathy McGuigan: Well,
I -- I just -- I think that the,
you know, in determining what
the source is, we don't
necessarily the way that the
library organizes its
collections photographs and
prints is the -- the division
where that would fall under.
And when we develop the
analysis tools, we worked with
curators in the divisions to
talk about what do they do, how
do they examine resources when
they come into the -- into the
library, into the collection,
into their hands.
And so we did extensive
interviews with the curators and
the subject matter experts to
identify what were some of the
-- the specific questions that
they use in looking at the
materials they examine.
And so that's where those
analysis tools came from.
So I put the link to the
analyzing photographs and
prints, and that is what you
could use for drawings and
paintings. And as
Amelia points out,
even with the
"Bird's Eye Map"
and the looking at the "View
of Washington City", it can --
it can go between the two
categories.
All right.
So if let's see, I have one
last question from Jeremy.
If the library doesn't have
a specific map of a state or
municipality, what is the next
best option for a researcher or
and or educator?
Would it be the "State Archive
Library Commission"?
>> Amelia Raines: Yeah,
that's a good question.
There are some other good
sources for digitized maps.
So the
"David Rumsey Map Collection"
and the "Rumsey Map
Center" at Stanford Library
have a massive free digital
collection that has a ton of
maps.
So that might be a good place
to look.
You know, even things like
"Wikimedia Commons", which pulls
from a variety of different
sources, are other places to
find maps. In particular, if
you're looking for maps of like
-- of individual towns or of
counties that we don't have.
I send people frequently to the
county, either to the county
historical society or to their
local public library.
Depending on -- depending on the
town where they're in or the,
you know, the state or the
county
different institutions in those
places may have different
resources, but the public
library, honestly, is always a
very good place to start. If
you're looking for a map of your
town, they've probably had that
question before.
They probably know where they
can find one.
And then county historical
societies and state historical
societies often have a lot of
really, really good, locally
specific information that's a
lot richer than what we may have
at a massive institution like
the Library of Congress, which
collects for the entire world.
>> Kathy McGuigan: Yeah.
And I would just add as a
user to that question, also,
university libraries will tend
to have more localized
collections sometimes as well.
That's it for the questions I
have.
Unless I missed something in
the chat.
And if our guests want to ask
any questions, you can put those
into the chat.
But otherwise, I think we have
addressed all the questions that
came in.
>> Amelia Raines: Thank you
so much, Kathy.
And just a reminder, if anybody
has a question that you think of
the minute that we close this
webinar or that's too big to get
into here, contact us through.
Ask a Librarian. We love to
answer questions.
It's literally what we do all
day. So feel free to ask
questions about maps, about
teaching, about other parts of
the library. Yeah.