Maps, Atlases and Gazetteers - Resources

Books

Printed atlases are shelved at 912 on Floor 3 of The Sir Duncan Rice Library.

Sheet Maps 

The library collection of sheet maps is located in cabinets on Floor 1 of the Sir Duncan Rice Library.  The maps are for reference only. The collection is reasonably comprehensive in terms of topographical coverage of countries around the world though by no means up to date. Additionally some sheet maps are held in closed access storage and can be fetched for you. Please ask library staff for assistance.

Atlases

Atlases are mostly in closed access storage and can be fetched on request. Find details on Primo.

Current Ordnance Survey maps of the UK

University staff and students have access to Digimap for current Ordnance Survey maps of the UK.

Help

With maps and atlases should be sought on Floor 4 of The Sir Duncan Rice Library during office hours Monday to Friday. Thereafter ask for assistance from the Information Centre on Floor 1.

Journals

Print journals are shelved within the Geography collection at Per 910 on Floor 2 of The Sir Duncan Rice Library

Maps and atlases

British maps constitute the bulk of our collection and of users' requests. On paper, Aberdeenshire, the Scottish Central Belt, Highland towns, and areas notable for University field trips, hillwalking and archaeology are held at 1:10,000. This scale not only shows field walls, but is large enough to enable most details of city streets to be made out. It is also the Ordnance Survey's largest scale to cover the whole country. We also have maps of Aberdeen at the largest modern scale of 1:1,250 for those interested in urban land use.

Our holdings at 1:25,000 include the Outdoor leisure maps, useful for visits to the Cairngorms and Cuillins, and also for studying the management of national parks. We will be expanding our holdings of the new Explorer maps as they become available. At a less detailed level we stock all of Great Britain with the 1:50,000 Landranger series. At this scale - perhaps most suitable for cyclists - we aim to buy all major revisions of the 204 maps in the series, thus allowing you to study the growth of tree planting in the north, or of houses in the south of the country.

In addition, University of Aberdeen staff and students have access to Digimap which allows you to access and manipulate Ordnance Survey map data. Please note that registration is required prior to use and this usually takes 2 days.
Registration for and access to Digimap is via Metalib. Use the find a database option from the menu at the top of the screen to search for Digimap, then from the next screen click on login via UK federation. Select University of Aberdeen from the drop-down menu and you will then be prompted to enter your University of Aberdeen shibboleth username and password. This is the normal login details that you use to login to University PCs. From the next screen click on Digimap Ordnance Survey Collection. If it is the first time you have used the resource you will be directed to a registration page at this point.

On cd-rom we have:

• The Interactive atlas of Great Britain which gives 1:250,000 mapping.
• Window on the UK 2000, which gives reasonable aerial photographic cover and comparative maps.
• Nearer to home, Munros is produced for walkers by the Scottish Mountaineering Club and has photographs and notes on how to ascend to the tops.

World maps

For general world mapping we rely on atlases: the Times, Oxford Hammond, National Geographic and Dorling Kindersley are the main ones. Most of the world, including Asia, Africa and parts of the Americas, is covered by the interesting Tactical pilotage charts, produced for military air pilots at a scale of 1:500,000. World maps can also be found using the cd-rom for National Geographic. All of the maps originally enclosed with the magazine are included along with a supplement resource: National Geographic picture atlas.

We have paper maps of Europe at a motorists' scale of 1:200,000 or so. On cd-rom Autoroute express Europe enables the same route planning to be done as on the UK version.

General atlases

Most of the Library's collection of printed atalses is held in closed access stores. Some of these are general atlases, as opposed to old atlases or specialist atlases, notably The Times comprehensive atlas of the world, Oxford Hammond, National Geographic and Dorling Kindersley. See also the Useful Reference Works section of Maps, Atlases and Gazetteers within this Subject A-Z, where there are links directly from named atlases to the library catalogue.

Old maps and atlases

Old maps are much requested. The Military Survey of Scotland, often called General Roy's map, gives coverage at up to 1:35,000 for the 1750s. We hold a microfilm of the map in draft and in final form, and photocopies of Grampian along the Dee and Don valleys. The oldest detailed map of Scotland we have is Timothy Pont's, in a photocopy of his 1590s rough notes, with Jeffrey Stone's useful book on Pont to explain the maps.

• Pont's Maps of Scotland c.1583-c.1596 is available on the National Library of Scotland's web site. You can order scanned digital images of Pont's maps from the National Library of Scotland.
• On the Image of the world cd-rom we have 10 antique maps from the British Library.
• Try old-maps.co.uk for around 85,000 images of the original 1: 10,560 maps, complete with a 40,000 place gazetteer.

For the 19th century we are fortunate to hold a complete set of the 1:10,560 county series of 6" maps for Scotland, produced from 1860-80. They are useful for family historians and for tracing industrial development, for example the spread of meal mills. We also have a set of the original 1:63,360 one-inch maps of Scotland.

We also stock old atlases. The Special Collections Centre on the Lower Ground Floor of The Sir Duncan Rice Library has a 12-volume facsimile set of Blaeu's world atlas, also an original volume dedicated to Robert Gordon of Straloch, the Aberdeenshire cartographer. The map room houses a coloured version of Blaeu's Grand atlas with other facsimiles, mainly by Ortelius, Mercator and various followers of Ptolemy, in the Theatrum orbis terrarum series.

Our Special Collections Centre has more than 100 original atlases from the 1500s to 1840. Please contact  member of staff for more information.

Specialist maps and atlases

Often your questions are subject ones: industrial, weather, census or planning maps and atlases are acquired to cover this type of interest. We also stock analytical atlases for Japan, China, the Danube Basin, Switzerland, and the prehistory of Africa.

• Other subject cd-roms in the library include World climate, which allows 5 different map projections on Floor 1.
• The Taylor Library has the 1991 census of Great Britain, and Regiomap which covers economic data of the European Union.

Other map collections

We work in co-operation with the Geography Department's map room, which houses about 250,000 maps and stereo photographs. We also have links with the Geology Department's collection, and Edinburgh University Library's map curators. Try:

• the Bodleian Library's colourful Map Room page
• The closest Ordnance Survey agent is Mason's. Their nearest office is in Dunfermline. Thin's of Inverness, the bookshop, is also an OS Superplan agent.
• Stanford's on Long Acre, London is probably the best British map shop.
• You can often obtain copies of hard to find maps from the Map Library, National Library of Scotland, email maps@nls.uk

Copying from maps and atlases

We offer an in-house photocopying and photographic service and will be happy to advise you on the copying of maps within legal and practical limits. We ask you not to attempt to photocopy from the bound volumes of six inch maps as these are fragile and too big to fit on our machines, although the Geography Department will probably be able to photocopy from a similar edition in their sheet collection. For purposes of non-commercial private study or research you may copy up to 4 A4 copies of an Ordnance Survey map, published in the last 50 years.