Map Collection Security Guidelines

Abstract

As librarians we have a responsibility to preserve the collections under our care and provide access to them in our institutional environments. Access to our collections has supported scholarship throughout the sciences, humanities, and social sciences and remains the key to intellectual freedom. We must create an environment where primary source materials are respected, handled carefully, and returned intact to the collection so that they might be studied again in the future. Institutions and librarians must reassess their collections and administrators must provide collections with an infrastructure and staffing that will allow appropriate access, preservation, and security. It is important that rare book collections, archives, and government document collections and their curators realize that thousands of valuable maps are contained in many volumes in their collections. Similarly, map collections and their curators must be more cognizant of the marketplace and the increasing prices of early maps and even early twentieth century road maps. The following guidelines will allow librarians and curators to better assess their map collections, prepare security proposals for their administrations, and provide a more secure environment for their map collections.