The Evolution of Bibliographic Control of Maps

Although maps have been used for thousands of years, they have not been maintained or organized as well as printed books until relatively recently. Maps were often treated as ephemeral material. Early attempts at map cataloging are much more scattered than book cataloging, and printed catalogs of early libraries often omitted the mention of maps. It was only after map use became commonplace and thematic maps increased in number that cataloging and classification attempts began in earnest. The classification and cataloging of maps started to come together in the early part of the twentieth century. This article will examine how maps were organized in early collections and some of the advice provided for catalogers of map collections from the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth.