Library of Congress Acquires Archives of the American Association of Geographers
From LC:
The American Association of Geographers (AAG)—a nonprofit scientific and educational society founded in 1904—is donating its archives to the Library of Congress. The acquisition will be housed in the Library’s Geography and Map Division, which holds the largest map and geography collection in the world.
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The AAG archives includes books, booklets, articles authored by AAG geographers, correspondence involving the AAG executive directors and the AAG board of directors, conference programs and proceedings, and more. It will join the 380 hours of AAG’s “Geographers on Film” series of videos, which were donated by AAG to the Library several years ago. These materials—with the Library’s History of Computer Cartography Project and items from such important cartographers as Roger Tomlinson, John Snyder, Marie Tharp and Richard Edes Harrison—make the Library of Congress one of the largest and most important repositories of materials related to the history of geography in the United States.
The donation continues the long association that has existed between the Library and AAG. Former Geography & Map Division chiefs Lawrence Martin and Walter Ristow served as president and secretary of AAG, respectively. The current chief, Ralph Ehrenberg, served as AAG’s first archivist.
Ehrenberg said, “The addition of the AAG archives to the Geography and Map Division’s other archival collections makes the Library a center for the study not only of the history of mapping but also of geography, as it developed in the modern era in the United States.”
Read the Complete Announcement
Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Conference Presentations, Libraries, News, Open Access
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.