The Library of Congress is now home to a huge collection of nearly 100 pocket globes -- miniature globes that were fashionable art objects from the 17th to 19th centuries, during the age of exploration. The globes, perhaps three inches in diameter, were made of everything from ivory to papier mache, some housed in expensive sharkskin boxes. The family and foundation of the late Jay I. Kislak donated 74 pocket globes to the Library recently, adding to the collector's prodigious donations to the Library's Geography and Map Division.
The Library collections on Ukraine stretches back for centuries, including current news and analysis from the Congressional Research Service and one of the first maps that used Ukraine in its name in 1648.
The Aeronautical Chart and Information Center of the U.S. Air Force created this photo-mosaic map of the moon in 1962, as part of the nation's drive to put astronauts on the moon by the end of the decade.
In 1154, Arab Muslim geographer al-Idrisi, working at the behest of King Roger of Sicily, created a huge map of the known world. The map was more than 9 feet long and composed of 70 separate section maps. The Library preserves a 1928 recreation of this map.
The remarkable career of Marie Tharp, the cartographer and scientist who helped map the ocean's floor for the first time in history, is preserved in her papers at the Library. A pioneering female scientist of 20th century, her work help lay the groundwork for the modern understanding of continental drift and plate tectonics.
The Library's Geography and Map Division recently acquired a rare 18th-century carving of a Theravada Buddhist cosmography that originated in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). The Library's John Hessler translates and explains the nine-foot-tall carving.
John Hessler, a specialist in the Library's Geography and Map Division, is tracking the COVID-19 pandemic with computational geography and geographic information science.
The Library's Geography and Map Division has several 19th-century maps that show how malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases spread across the nation. Produced long before current map-making technology, they still show how diseases spread across the landscape.