In 2003, the Society’s books and manuscripts department received a State Historical Fund grant to conserve and catalog the flat and rolled map collection held in the Stephen H. Hart Library. New map cases were purchased to house portions of the collection and a large section of the area recently vacated by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education was allocated for storage.

Curators completed an inventory of the map collection, in which older catalog records compiled during the 1980s—as well as catalog entries made by volunteers during the past few years—were checked against the actual maps for accuracy. Approximately 2,850 maps have been cataloged. Many of these are literally one-of-kind, hand-drawn or locally produced, and are of immense value to the historians and other researchers who use the library. The entire collection has been cataloged on a national database, OCLC, and these catalog records have then been downloaded into the Hart Library’s online database, where they can be perused by anyone in the world with an internet connection. This will mark the first time that the entirety of the Society’s map collection will be available to researchers.

Not only is this important resource cataloged and accessible to the general public, but the new map cases have alleviated many of the storage concerns that have plagued this collection in the past. A large number of topics—including mining, railroads, trails, historic sites, and various Colorado cities and towns—will now be available for viewing and research. The Society hopes that this collection will enhance future research done on the many and varied aspects of Colorado’s past.

By PATRICK  J. FRAKER, Associate Curator, Books and Manuscripts

The articles in this section were published in the Colorado Historical Society's monthly newsletter, Colorado History Now.