About:

Among the least appreciated forms of material culture documenting seafaring, charts were among the most useful tools for the mariner since the earliest medieval portolans or sailing guides were produced by Mediterranean cartographers and pilots. Yet it was not until the late 16th Century that what we today recognize as charts began to appear. When Gerardus Mercator presented a global map on a flattened projection it allowed mariners to more easily plot courses to their destinations. The addition of depths, coastlines and dangers over time proved invaluable for any mariner venturing out on the open ocean.

This collection consists primarily of American and British charts from the 19th and 20th centuries which makes up up fully two-thirds of the collection. Other countries represented include Australia, Canada and France. Many of the charts were used aboard ships and yachts and may therefore be in tender shape as they were not meant to last forever. Major groupings within the collection were compiled by Irving Johnson, Don Hinkley, Rod Stephens, Sandy Weld, Yacht broker Gerald Ford , Captain Richard Mears and others. Additionally, there are numerous maps in the collection, mostly of Connecticut and the northeastern United States.

Arrangement
This collection is arranged according to the Boggs and Lewis map classification system developed by the Library of Congress in 1945.

In Boggs and Lewis the subject matter of a map is secondary in importance to the geographical area it covers. This means that when you go to find maps in the map cabinets, they are organized first by area, and then by subject (e.g. topographic, geological, political, etc.)

Different areas of the world are represented by numbers:

000 The Universe (astronomic charts, planets, etc.)
100 World (and larger parts)
200 Europe
300 Europe
400 Asia
500 Africa
600 North America
700 Latin America
800 Australia and New Zealand
900 Oceans

To see these areas on a map, go to https://libguides.usask.ca/ld.php?content_id=15002531.

Following the number for geographical area, some call numbers are further subdivided by subject, which is represented by letters:

a General Maps
b Mathematical Geography, Cartography, Surveying
c Physical Geography
d Biogeography
e Human Geography
f Political Geography
g Economic Geography
h Military and Naval Geography
n History of Geography