The Recently Digitised Map Collection of the NL CR

In cooperation with the Research Institute of Geodesy, Topography and Cartography, the Manuscriptorium has provided access to another part of the map collection in the National Library in Prague. The use of a large-format scanner has made it possible to digitise map sheets in a single image. For this reason, also some of the documents that had already been published were digitised anew, like in 2013. In addition, the maps were georeferenced, which is the first step in the future hyperlinking of map data with texts, cataloguing records and the search system within the development of the Manuscriptorium user environment and integrated external services.
The documents that have been newly made accessible include maps of diverse parts of Europe and Russia from the second half of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. They come from the Prague Lobkowicz Library, for which its founder, August Anton Joseph of Lobkowicz († 1803), acquired for instance a greater part of the Czernin Library and which comprises an extensive collection of aristocratic, monastic as well as private libraries from the turn of the 19th century. Apart from the maps of European countries or individual regions, the recently digitised documents include also war atlases and maps of particular campaigns in the Balkans against the Turks. Considering the wide spatial scope of this collection, it may be assumed the georeferencing of these maps will enable such a method of their publication that will significantly increase their applicability.