My spouse is a map nerd, so when I saw the book Picturing America : the golden age of pictorial maps (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, in association with the Library of Congress, 2017) in the Library of Congress gift shop, I bought him a copy. While looking through it he called me over to show me one of the map reproductions in the book: a Dewey map of the U.S.! I was able to request the map at the Library of Congress and view it in its full-size (48 x 71 cm) glory.
The Dewey Decimal map of the United States : a guide to library shelves was created in 1936 by Bertine E. Weston, who served as Library Journal editor in the 1930s and 1940s. As one of the keys explains, the map also provides class numbers for "products, industries, etc., found among the various states and neighboring waters simply to provide a further guide to the shelves."
The guide to the map explains that "Books on the history of a state will be found on the shelves under the classification number shown on the map. The shelf number for books of travel, etc., will be found by placing the Figure 1 after the Initial 9. Thus the history number for Illinois 977.3 becomes 917.73 for travel, Topography, etc." That’s a nicely succinct way of describing the patterns of the 900s built off of Table 2's geographic areas.
Below are a few details of the map. I love the spouting whale off the coast of Washington and the alligator crawling out of the boundaries of Florida!
Comments