Almost 30 atlases have been selected as suitable for digitisation, ranging in topic and scope from Vesalius’s early human anatomical atlas (1543), to geological atlases of the UK (ex. Smith 1750s), to colonial atlases (ex. of the Caribbean Dankerts, 1760s), early archaeological atlases of human fossils and tools (1850s), a Moravian missionary atlas (1850s), a Cuban revolutionary atlas (1960s), a Chinese economic reform atlas, and a fascinating dual narrative in both Arabic and English of the Iranian White Revolution from 1971.
The collection has gradually amassed over the past 60 years, through several donations of people’s personal libraries. Some of the atlases are one of a handful that remain in their edition, with replicas only otherwise held by several key libraries around the world, including the British Library. In some cases, the atlases include annotated notes that exist nowhere else.
Like much of the material stored by Special Collections, the atlases can currently be viewed by scholars and the public, but only by appointment and only in Bristol. Having gathered this series of atlases into a collection, the University is now working with cartographers and photographers with the aim of creating an online digitised exhibition which will reach a wider audience.
Dr Mark Jackson, from the School of Geographical Sciences, said: “Ideally, we would like for people to be able to see and touch the books, however that isn’t always possible. The beauty of an online exhibition is that people could virtually flick through the atlases, zooming in on points of interest in quite precise ways, which they, of course, cannot do when the books are kept under cover of glass cabinets.”
The construction of the archive is inspired by the idea of an Atlas as “a theatre of the world”; a book that provides a complete, illustrated picture from beginning to end of the progress and growth of a particular period in history or a particular way of understanding and constructing knowledge about the world.
Head of Special Collections Michael Richardson added: “The intention is to unlock an under-utilised and little known resource at the heart of the University’s research and teaching environment in an exciting, vibrant and easy to use form. Ultimately, it would provide a one-off, dynamic, interactive and globally accessible showcase of the University’s visually stunning research resources, and hopefully entice on-line exhibition viewers to visit the collections for further study and research.”
The digitisation of the atlases is an ongoing project which the team hope to complete this year.