While most of the atlases, books, and periodicals in the Map Division collections are described in and discoverable via the online Research Catalog, most of the separate maps acquired by the library up to 1970 are not. Those maps were described for the division’s card catalog (as you see above), which was maintained up to 1970.  After that time, the card catalog was "frozen." No more records were added, the cards were photographed, and the card images were compiled and published in a 10-volume Dictionary Catalog of the Map Division by G.K. Hall & Co. in 1971.  

A thorough search of the Map Division’s holdings must include a consultation of this catalog.  It is available in the Map Division (Room 117 of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building), in the General Research Division (Room 315), in many large research libraries throughout the world and, now, in digital form, thanks to modern technology and behind-the-scenes human efforts.

Images of pages of each volume of the Dictionary Catalog are hosted online by the HathiTrust Digital Library.  When searching, note the links in the NYPL online Research Catalog to the HathiTrust versions for the various volumes.

The online availability of this old catalog is a cause for celebration, as it enables remote researchers and casual browsers the opportunity to gain a fuller grasp of the NYPL map holdings.

The “dictionary” in the title means the catalog is arranged in one alphabet, with entries for authors (personal and corporate authors, as well as many publishers) and subjects (geographic and topical subjects) interfiled in that one alphabet.  

There are very few title entries in this catalog because most of our users are interested in finding maps of the area they cover, the subject they portray, or the mapmaker who created them, as well as the date of their creation or the time period they illustrate.  Also, many map titles are not distinctive but rather very generic (for example, "Map of Africa" or simply "Switzerland") so librarians at the time did not consider it helpful to list maps by title in this type of catalog.

Beyond the single alphabet arrangement, it’s helpful to know that when searching for maps by geographical area, look for the name that corresponds most specifically with the area of interest.  For example, look under "P" for a map of Paris; don’t look under "F" for France unless you want a map of all or most of France.

When you look up a place like New York City, as you might imagine, there are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of maps listed. So how do you make sense of the arrangement of these many descriptions to find what will be most relevant to your needs? Here are some pointers to help.  

Tips for Using the Dictionary Catalog

When you look under a place name like New York City (also the name of a government jurisdiction), the first entries are "author" entries, that is, government agency corporate author entries, with the place name/jurisdiction followed by the agency name.  Examples are:

• New York City.  Elections Board.
• New York City.  Estimate and Apportionment Board.
• New York City.  Finance Dept.
• New York City.  Fire Dept.

These are entered in alphabetical order; if there are many entries under one agency, they are listed in chronological order. Note that in this old-style catalog, agency names are inverted so the keyword in the agency name comes first. So, "New York City Board of Elections" is listed and alphabetized as "New York City. Elections Board." as you see above.  

After the place name "author" entries for government agencies, there may be some special subject entries for a place, such as:

• New York City census districts
• New York City election districts
• New York City farm maps
• New York City guidebooks
• New York City maps bibliography

Subject or thematic material may be listed also, or instead, directly under a topical subject (about which, see below), subdivided by place.
 

The listings for atlases then follow any special subject entries, by date.  So, you will see, at least under New York City, headings such as:

• New York City Maps 1860 (Atlases)
• New York City Atlases 1867
• New York City Maps 1879 (Atlases)
• New York City Maps 1885 (Atlases)

Ignore the confusing interchangeable use of the terms "Maps" and "Atlases." Just remember that this series of entries, in chronological order, represents atlases, or collections of maps published in book form.

Following the atlas listings under a particular place name are the map listings in chronological order. Here, you will usually see on the top line of the "card" just the place name and a date:

• New York City  1639
• New York City  1660
• New York City  1695
• New York City  1767

These map listings by date are really the heart of the Dictionary Catalog. If you come to a series of "cards" like this for a geographic area you’d like to see on old maps, it's the Map Division equivalent of striking gold. Or, at least the first step in that direction.

For a place like New York, where we have an especially large collection of maps and categories of map, there may be additional listings, usually by date, such as:

• New York Harbor
• New York City, part of
• New York City & vicinity

Following all these various New York City headings are entries for New York Province and New York State, pre- and post-Revolutionary War maps depicting the area of New York State.

There are also non-government corporate headings (companies or institutions that may have authored or published maps, or that may be the subject of maps) that begin with "New York," such as:

• New York Central Railroad
• New York Convention and Visitors Bureau
• New York Herald

These are found at the very end of the entire New York part of the alphabet.

Entries under any particular personal author, publisher, or non-government corporate author—just like the government agency corporate authors—are listed in order by date, not alphabetically by title.  For example:

• Dripps, Matthew.  1851
• Dripps, Matthew.  1852
• Dripps, Matthew.  1854
   
• Hagstrom Company.  1951. Hagstrom’s map of …
• Hagstrom Company.  1953. Finest, most complete …
• Hagstrom Company.  1954. Atlas of …
   
• National Geographic Society.  1961
• National Geographic Society.  1962
• National Geographic Society.  1963

Under topical subjects, such as Election districts or Geology or Railways (or Insurance (Fire) or Property, Real -- old NYPL subject headings for fire insurance and property atlases), catalog entries are listed by place.  Search creatively and persistently, because sometimes you will come upon inconsistencies. Listings by place may be alphabetical and somewhat hierarchical, by continent and then, alphabetically, by country and places within each country; or alphabetical by most specific place, whether city, country, continent, or other geographic region.

Analytical Records

Another feature of the Dictionary Catalog that contributes to its continuing usefulness, despite the existence of the library’s online catalog, is the presence of analytical records that index individual maps within the Map Division’s 17th and 18th century world atlases, and the pre-1600 atlases of the library’s Rare Book Division. With perhaps a few exceptions, these analytics have not been entered into the NYPL online Research Catalog.

As former chief of the Map Division, Gerard L. Alexander, noted in the introduction to the Dictionary Catalog, "maps and [relevant] articles contained in non-cartographic books and periodicals housed in other divisions of the library are [also] represented by analytical cards" in this book catalog. Many of these analytical records are handwritten, so it can be a challenge to read them. (Map Division librarians can help you with that.) But they are charmingly evocative of the library’s earliest days.

For example, if you are looking for a map of Paris from 1701, you will be glad to discover that Nicolas de Fer’s Atlas Curieux includes one in its first volume.

 

Likewise, if you are doing a comprehensive search for early maps of Jamaica, the Dictionary Catalog will help you find maps of 1678 and 1721 in atlases by Frederik de Wit and John Senex, respectively.
 

For even earlier maps of Sri Lanka or Ceylon, you can learn through the Dictionary Catalog of the Map Division that such maps exist in the Lafreri and Ptolemy atlases from the 16th century, in the Rare Book Division.

 

What if you want to read about particular maps? Besides the many cartobibliographies and other books on the history of cartography in the library’s collections, you can find citations in the Dictionary Catalog for articles about maps that appeared in the library’s periodicals published before 1971.  

Here is an example of an article that appeared in a 1957 issue of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography about Scull and Heap’s 18th century map of Philadelphia.

Whether you use the Dictionary Catalog remotely, or at the library, the Map Division’s librarians are ready to help you interpret the cards and find what you are looking for.  

Simply email us at maps@nypl.org, or come see us in Room 117 of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of The New York Public Library.  Remember that many treasures await you at the library, including those not yet online—but an additional key to some of those treasures is now available online. If you are looking for old maps, make the most of it!