Blog Posts by Subject: Geography

Postcards are a fantastic visual resource for a place’s past that are often underutilized by scholars. They offer rich evidence of culture and architecture as a visual record of the past.

Thomas Jefferson recorded, measured, and calculated things obsessively. He kept copious notes in his account book on the distances he traversed and the roads he traveled.

Whether your desire is to visit a faraway locale for a taste of the local delicacies, or just to shake up your weeknight cooking with some new, unfamiliar spices, there is so much inspiration to be found at the library.

The first guidebooks to New York City were written by the navigators, explorers, crewmen, trail-makers, and settlers who sailed west from Europe across the Atlantic Ocean in the 16th and 17th centuries.

New Russian-language books on European and Asian history and culture.

As an Armenian-American keenly aware of the devotion to lost homeland of my ethnic compatriots, I’ve always been on the lookout for Armenians among the researchers from many large ethnic groups who have found their way to the Map Division. April 24 is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide, and one way to honor those who were not able to find refuge is to learn all we can about them and celebrate our link to them.

In Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a Day, Doug Mack takes a decades old travel guide and puts it to the modern-day test. Arthur Frommer's 1963 edition of Europe on 5 Dollars a Day (we still have several of these in our collections available for your perusal) was the book that got regular Americans, including Mack's mother, excited about crossing the Atlantic for the first time. Mack decides to use it without consulting 

Blogging for NYPL has been such a rewarding experience: sharing resources, programs and services to the digital community and beyond. In the past three years or so, I've blogged about some unconventional topics like Linsanity to the more serious ones like The Jews of Shanghai.

Researching on these topics introduced me to a variety of digital and print resources that I would 

Digital Schomburg's online exhibitions on various aspects of the black experience have truly become a global phenomenon. They are attracting visitors from all over the world. From Argentina to Zimbabwe and Montenegro and the Maldives in between. What do they know that perhaps you don't?

In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience remains the most visited curated exhibition of The New York Public Library. With a few clicks, visitors from 206 countries and territories, including Kazakhstan, Tonga, Suriname, Mongolia and Malawi, 

As New Yorkers get ready for Back to School this week, I'll be loading the trunk of my car with library books and heading off with my family for our own version of school.

We call it "homeschooling at the library." With a library card and our library books, we can take our school anywhere. Next week it will be to New Hampshire and

Something MAPnificent is happening at Mulberry Street Library through August 27, 2012. MAPnificent features paintings, works on paper and sculpture that reflect the artists' concerns for the current state of our society, conveyed though charts and diagrams, and their admiration of the map as a symbol of longing and the unknown. Includes works by Elaine Angelopoulos, Joseph Burwell, Marie Christine Katz, Paul Fabozzi, Peter J. Hoffmeister, Alastair Nobel, and Amy Pryor.

The mastermind 

Six Hundred Sixty One, handcut roadmaps, by Peter J. HoffmeisterOn view at Mulberry Street Library through August 27th is the multi-artist collaboration called MAPnificent. MAPnificent features paintings, works on paper and sculpture that reflect the artists' concerns for the current state of our society, conveyed though charts and diagrams, and their admiration of the map as a symbol of longing and the unknown. 

Two of the artists featured 

In 2010, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) awarded The New York Public Library's Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division a three-year grant for its New York City Historical Geographic Information Systems project, which builds digital cartographic resources from NYPL's historical paper map and atlas 

Fresh from my mid-winter cruise, and a bit disappointed because the ship did not make one of its appointed stops in the Cayman Islands due to stormy weather, I was looking for something new to read, especially if it had to do with travel. Back on terra firma, and ignoring my "For Later" shelf (books to read later), a feature which I use on the New York Public Library's newly acquired interface to the catalog, Bibliocommons, I picked up Paul Theroux's

Rose de Rose and her mother, 1928When socialite Rose de Rose accompanied her mother on the 1928 round-the-world cruise aboard Empress of Australia, it was one of Canadian Pacific’s most luxurious vessels. By the 1920s, Canadian Pacific had diversified from rail travel to launching its own fleets of ships — first for the movement of goods, and then for travel and leisure. The very popular round-the-world cruises were offered on its three luxury ships — the Empress of Britain, the Empress of Canada, and the Empress of Australia.

The

Hope your school year is off to a great start! Below, you'll find a list of resources which offer background information in a variety of formats about the geography, history, and culture of New York City. We hope these highlights get your second graders thinking about their community, New York City, and maybe even a bit beyond. Feedback is greatly appreciated. Feel free to leave comments and suggestions below!

Nonfiction

There are so many places to visit during a unit on geography! For international exploration, try

I had not slept for 34 hours. After a bad flight and two long bus trips, I was hiking, ecstatic, in a muddy mine. I touched the walls from top to bottom. Perhaps “he” had put his hands there too. I was walking in the steps of Galanga, renamed Francisco, and known as Chico Rei (King Chico).

Story -or legend-has it that 270 years ago, Chico Rei, believed to have been a ruler in Congo, his family, and others were forced aboard a slave ship. The Middle Passage took his wife and children, but he and one son survived. They landed in Brazil and were sent to Vila 

Crystal clear, turquoise water. White powdery sand. Intoxicating rum punch.

Second degree sunburn.

What do all these things have in common? Just a smattering of experiences I recently acquired during a six-day trip to Barbados.

The Serrano ham-shaped island, about twice the size of Washington, D.C., is home to a population of roughly 280,000 people, making it one of the more populous Caribbean islands. Tourism plays a prominent role in the economy, as does manufacturing, but the nation still holds to the legacy of the sugar cane harvest 

The Maine of my imagination finally became a reality this summer, with a brief road trip to the land of many lobster.

After the fourth hour of highway driving towards our destination, entertainment hit a plateau. "What's the state motto of Maine?" I wondered aloud to my co-pilot.

"Dirigo," it was revealed in Google. "Which means 'I direct.' But the license