Reference Special: Visualizing the World
This week I've been thinking about law, but it's such a cold, gray day that I think I will save that topic for later. Instead, I thought I would take a look at atlases today.
Atlases are a lot more than the tattered collection of Rand McNally road maps from 1986 shoved under the front seat of your car. They are also rich visualizations of the subject at hand. They help you see the "big picture," and are usually accompanied by a "big picture" essay that weaves the maps into a story.
Atlases also combine two things I love--maps and numbers--so I could spend all day pouring over these.
For those of you who like to browse the shelves, all the atlases are usually together in the geography section (G call numbers). So, an atlas of American history won't be with the American history books, it will be with the atlases. This is a good example of why it's good to start a search for books by looking in the catalog (The CAT) for all the books on your topic. Add the word "atlas$" ($ truncates your search, to find either 'atlas' or 'atlases' in the description) or the word "maps" to your search to find atlases on your topic.
A few of the atlases in the Eiche Library Reference Collection:
Mapping America's Past (1996)
Check out "Prostitution in 19th-Century New York: Victorian Gender Ideology" (pp.140-141) or "The Geography of 'Stupidity': 'Intelligence,' Race, and Illiteracy" (pp.166-167)
Atlas or World Art (2004)
For example, "Art, War and Empire: The Aegean, 500-300 B.C." (pp. 60-61) - see the sources of metals, the trade routes, and major construction sites as advances in shipbuilding and navigation allowed for more trade in modern-day Greece and Turkey and the rise of communities and wealth led to an increase in skilled craftsmen (artists) (think: The Parthenon and giant marble statues)
Atlas of the World (2005) -- on the Atlas Stand, along the left wall on the 2nd Floor
Check out star charts and the 22 nearest nearest stars or maps depicting continental drift and geologic time, as well as maps of the world's countries and major cities and an index of locations.
But I wanted to take a little closer look inside the New Historical Atlas of Religion in America (2001). Based on the title and brief catalog description of the item ("ecclesiastical geography" and "church history") you do find what you might expect... all sorts of maps and essays about the history of Baptist churches, Methodist churches, Roman Catholic churches, Jewish synagogues, Muslim mosques, and the list goes on. Name a religion, it's probably in there.
What I wasn't expecting to find were sections on "Native Americans" before (Section 1, pp. 30-34) and after (Section 2, pp. 113-121) 1800, because they're
looking at both "institutional" and "ethnic" religions in this book. The sections describe the rise, spread, eventual fall of numerous religious movements in the Native tradition, including the spread and use of the hallucinogen peyote in the 19th and 20th Centuries. The legality of the use of the drug as part of Native American Church worship has been contested throughout the 20th Century, recently in the 1988 Supreme Court case Employment Division v. Smith.
They're so packed with information, atlases just may be the "ultimate" reference book. Since they are so dense, how do you go about finding what you are looking for? My advice would be to ask for help and to plan to spend a little bit of time looking! You will be richly rewarded for the time invested.
Atlases are a lot more than the tattered collection of Rand McNally road maps from 1986 shoved under the front seat of your car. They are also rich visualizations of the subject at hand. They help you see the "big picture," and are usually accompanied by a "big picture" essay that weaves the maps into a story.
Atlases also combine two things I love--maps and numbers--so I could spend all day pouring over these.
For those of you who like to browse the shelves, all the atlases are usually together in the geography section (G call numbers). So, an atlas of American history won't be with the American history books, it will be with the atlases. This is a good example of why it's good to start a search for books by looking in the catalog (The CAT) for all the books on your topic. Add the word "atlas$" ($ truncates your search, to find either 'atlas' or 'atlases' in the description) or the word "maps" to your search to find atlases on your topic.
A few of the atlases in the Eiche Library Reference Collection:
Mapping America's Past (1996)
Check out "Prostitution in 19th-Century New York: Victorian Gender Ideology" (pp.140-141) or "The Geography of 'Stupidity': 'Intelligence,' Race, and Illiteracy" (pp.166-167)
Atlas or World Art (2004)
For example, "Art, War and Empire: The Aegean, 500-300 B.C." (pp. 60-61) - see the sources of metals, the trade routes, and major construction sites as advances in shipbuilding and navigation allowed for more trade in modern-day Greece and Turkey and the rise of communities and wealth led to an increase in skilled craftsmen (artists) (think: The Parthenon and giant marble statues)
Atlas of the World (2005) -- on the Atlas Stand, along the left wall on the 2nd Floor
Check out star charts and the 22 nearest nearest stars or maps depicting continental drift and geologic time, as well as maps of the world's countries and major cities and an index of locations.
But I wanted to take a little closer look inside the New Historical Atlas of Religion in America (2001). Based on the title and brief catalog description of the item ("ecclesiastical geography" and "church history") you do find what you might expect... all sorts of maps and essays about the history of Baptist churches, Methodist churches, Roman Catholic churches, Jewish synagogues, Muslim mosques, and the list goes on. Name a religion, it's probably in there.
What I wasn't expecting to find were sections on "Native Americans" before (Section 1, pp. 30-34) and after (Section 2, pp. 113-121) 1800, because they're
looking at both "institutional" and "ethnic" religions in this book. The sections describe the rise, spread, eventual fall of numerous religious movements in the Native tradition, including the spread and use of the hallucinogen peyote in the 19th and 20th Centuries. The legality of the use of the drug as part of Native American Church worship has been contested throughout the 20th Century, recently in the 1988 Supreme Court case Employment Division v. Smith.They're so packed with information, atlases just may be the "ultimate" reference book. Since they are so dense, how do you go about finding what you are looking for? My advice would be to ask for help and to plan to spend a little bit of time looking! You will be richly rewarded for the time invested.
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