On the Road Again: Mapping a Texana Collection

Digital mapping and charting holds great potential for repositories. Mapping print collections provides visualization for digital exhibits and context for remote users. This poster presentation will showcase a prototype digital map of the Frank Caldwell Collection, 1778-1941, which contains approximately 3,000 rare books, pamphlets, manuscripts, and other printed ephemera about Texas, collected by Austin-based traveling salesman Frank Caldwell. Maintained by the Briscoe Center for American History, the Caldwell Collection represents a comprehensive scope of items published in and about Texas between the early 18th and the mid-20th centuries.

The Caldwell Collection is a geographically cohesive collection of significant size with extensive bibliographic records, which makes it an ideal selection for this prototype. Using the online application Topo.ly, the map is populated with metadata extracted from the bibliographic records which were created using AACR2R, LCC, and LCSH descriptive standards.