Ligue des Bibliothèques Europeénnes de Recherche, Groupe des Cartothécaires de LIBER

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Developments in professional schooling for curators of map collections and topographical-historical atlases in The Netherlands

Susan Vejlsgaard

© LIBER and author
Published from: Bulletin Ligue des Bibliothèques Europeénnes de Recherche, 37(1986)

RÉSUMÉ EN FRANÇAIS
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Our attempts to solve storage and conservation problems at the Royal Library Map Room despite limited space and lack of economic means

The Royal Library was founded in 1673 and was situated at various places until our present library was built in 1906. Until 1793 only the Court and a few scientists had access to the Royal Library, but since then it has been open to the public, today any Danish citizen can become a reader .
The Royal Library is a legal deposit library and museum for Danish hooks, but in contrast to many national libraries, we also serve as university library for the humanities, social sciences and technology, and therefore many of our books are for circulation as well. In 1985 the circulation was 136,000 and interlibrary loans 54,000 items. Furthermore, we have many special collections, one of which is the Department of Maps, Prints and Photographs.
The map room as such was founded in 1902 and was based on the library's holdings of maps and atlases, one of which in particular is worth mentioning, namely King Frederik the Fifth's Atlas, which contains manuscript maps. In the middle of the 18th century the King had many of his prospects and map sheets, totalling 3,535, bound into a 55-volume atlas in regional order. The leftovers, so to speak, were bound into another atlas for his Queen Juliane Marie, which is now to be found in Queen Margrethe's reference library. Today the map room holds about 250,000 map sheet, 7,000 atlases and 27 globes. About 100,000 of the maps are foreign map series which we receive in exchange for Danish map series produced by the Geodetic Institute, our national map producer. The nucleus of the map series collection was given to us in 1976 by the Geodetic Institute. They are stored in a depot of 185 m² in size within walking distance of the library. Because the maps are replaceable and we have no obligation to preserve them for posterity, we have decided that our readers can borrow them, just as they can our foreign atlases. The map room staff attends to the physical transport from the depot to the library , and the maps are carried in acid-free folders. In case of rain and snow, the maps are rolled and put in tubes.

The legal deposit material is registered in the Danish National Bibliography, Maps, this part being produced by the librarians of the map room. Our staff is rather limited, one head librarian, two full-time and two part-time librarians, and one part-time office clerk. Due to the composition and the number of the staff, the librarians must undertake tasks ranging from cataloguing and classifying the material to fetching the maps in the stacks for our readers. We are in the habit of saying that we are a library within the library .Almost all our material is catalogued and since 1980 we have used the AACR II (CM). Our ultimate aim is to automate our catalogue. We are working on a format now, and hope to go on-line the next couple of years.

Map storage as regards cabinets and file folders
But how do we store all our maps? We suffer from limited space about 500 m², whereas the ideal space allocation would be about 2,000 m² according to a recent plan. Therefore we store maps in the reading room, which also serves as office for three of us.

a. Steel cabinets (reading room)
In the reading room we have had special cabinets designed for storing our maps. They are made of steel and each section consists of 20 or 30 flat drawers, each drawer measuring 80 x 105 x 2,4 cm. The cabinets are closed with a sliding door to keep out the dust. There is no humidity-control in the reading room or in the stacks, and neither the reading room nor the stacks are dust free, to say the least, so these are matters we would like to rectify, if we get new accommodation. The maps are placed in file folders of the same size as the drawers. If the file folders were smaller than the drawers, the maps might slide and become damaged. We try not to put more than 10 maps in one file folder, and valuable maps have folders of their own. The folders are made from acid free paper, and the paper is fairly thick and stiff. Recently we ran out of folders and to get the correct paper with a pH-value between 6.5-7, we had to order 3 tons, so I think we have folders enough for a few years to come!

b. The map table
For large and valuable maps we have a special creation called the map table. The protected part measures 272 x 255 x 29 cm and contains a drawer which can be pulled out full length. In this way we can keep our maps flat instead of rolled, which (I'm proud to say) none of our maps is. Under the table there are drawers as well, and the table serves as a desk for the readers when not open. The system has its disadvantage, though. It takes two persons to lift the maps, and the movement is bad for your back. As the table at present contains about one hundred maps, it's quite a job if the required map proves to be one of the bottom ones. The map table is made of wood. The table top is linoleum-covered, and the built-in drawers are made of steel. The big drawer, on which the oversize maps are stored, is supplied with small wheels and can be pulled out full length.
Furthermore it wears on the maps, which is why most of them have been reinforced with Japanese paper or linen on the back and silk tulle on the front. It is, however, the best solution we can find within the space we have. A better solution would be to have several drawers in the map table so that the maps could be stored systematically and retrieved in a more appropriate way.

c. Steel cabinets
The rests of our stacks are situated next to the reading room. Here we use the steel cabinets mentioned before, but also others of a different and less appropriate construction. The drawers in these are deeper and narrower, 96 x 61 x 10 cm. Normally our file folders are made so that they are open to the front of the drawer, but in the deep and narrow drawers, the folders are open to the side. Because of this, the maps tend to be shoved into the back of the drawer. Deep drawers may also result in placing too many folders in them, which again causes wear on the maps. We would of course prefer our other cabinets all over, but that again is a matter of economy, a problem I am sure many of you recognize. Many of our globes are also kept in the stacks under a primitive cloth cover, but we have arranged to provide at least 5 of them with their own acrylic cases.

Measures taken with a view to preservation and restoration
If readers require copies of maps, the maps are sent to our photographic studio. When a map has been photographed, we keep the negative for future use to spare the maps too much handling. Maps in high demand, for example, maps of Copenhagen, have been micro photographed, as will be Frederik the Fifth's atlas.
When new maps arrive, we unroll or unfold them and then flatten them. Our policy is to keep maps in their original state, and as modern maps are not so much in demand, it is not necessary to strengthen them. Because of the comparatively small size of our steel cabinets we unfortunately have to fold oversize modem maps in the middle.

Conservation
Older maps in need of repair are sent to our bookbinder workshop, which is situated in another part of Copenhagen. The different types of deterioration-paper type, acidity, colour layers, tears and micro-organisms, are dealt with by the workshop. The work done there is based on three main principles: The overruling one is to preserve the item in its original state, i. e., if a map has at some point been mounted on linen, they remove the linen and replace it with paper. Another principle is to use only high quality acid-free materials and glues. Finally, any process utilized should be reversible.
We are well satisfied with the way our maps are restored, but the capacity of the workshop is too small, since they carry out conservation for the entire library. Another disadvantage is that each time we come across a map in need of repair, it has to leave the Royal Library .This constitutes a security risk, and also resu1ts in much paperwork. We would of course prefer a conservation workshop within the building, which should be specialized only in paper conservation. That would save us from sending out our material, and we would have our maps restored on a much larger scale than is the case now.
The real solution to our space problems would be a new residence for the Department of Maps, Prints and Photographs. As I have mentioned previously the actual planning has been done and a report has been made. It remains a question of finding a location in the vicinity of the library, and then we must convince the political powers to make the necessary grants to carry out this plan.

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