New Resources in Ball State University Libraries' Atlas Collection

Historical Atlas of Weaponry, poisonous gas attacks map

Atlas of Sports: Who Plays What, Where, and Why, high school baseball map

Los Angeles in Maps, Hollywood

Los Angeles in Maps, Wrigley Field

Atlas of Food: Who Eats What, Where, and Why, meals eaten out in a year chart

What's New in the Atlas Collection?

The Ball State University Libraries’ Atlas Collection and the atlases included in the GIS Research and Map Collection (GRMC) cover a wide-ranging list of topics and themes and geographic locations from all over the world. The Atlas Collection houses over 2,500 atlases, including volumes from nearly every country of the world—many in the native languages.

The thematic atlases in the Collection cover topics from many different disciplines, including political science, art, education, health, women’s issues, literature, and recreational activities depicting topics in cartographic form like world tobacco use, obesity, women in government, rainforest loss, illiteracy, wealth distribution, and even golf, fishing, and surfing. The Atlas of Fantasy actually includes maps of fictional places.

Atlases offer more than just maps for research and learning: charts and other images provide graphic descriptions of numerous issues. And atlases are an excellent tool because their smaller size allows for convenient reproduction of the maps for research and learning. Topical maps from atlases can be easily scanned and inserted into papers and presentations for the classroom.

Some new atlases recently added to the collection include the Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust, Illustrated Atlas of Wildlife, Atlas of Transatlantic Slave, and Atlas of Human Rights.

The Historical Atlas of Weaponry is an excellent new resource for history and military science students. The atlas includes 180 maps detailing the use of weaponry around the world dating back to prehistoric times. Maps of important battles are also shown, including Pearl Harbor (shown—click to enlarge).

Atlas of Sports: Who Plays What, Where, and Why by Alan Tomlinson is another interesting new resource in the Atlas Collection. The atlas includes maps about the economics of sports, international sports politics, and country profiles. Sports from around the world are included.

Los Angeles in Maps by Glen Creason is a new atlas describing the cartographic history of the city from the colonial era to the present. Over 70 map reproductions and other historical documents detail the discovery of oil in Los Angeles, the rise of Hollywood (shown), the streetcar system, earthquakes, urban sprawl, and sports history, including a map of Wrigley Field (shown).

The Atlas of Food: Who Eats What, Where, and Why by Erik Millstone and Tim Lang features maps covering a broad range of topics related to the food industry.  Maps, charts, and other illustrations in the atlas describe issues of feeding the world and unequal distribution, organic farming, fast food, pesticides use, changing diets, disease, and world trade.

To investigate the scope of the Atlas Collection, perform an "Advanced Search" in the Library CardCat online catalog: Simply type a topic or geographic place, and choose "Atlas Collection" in the location field. Or type the topic or geographic place and the word "atlas." Atlases can be circulated for 28 days or longer.

For more information about using atlases, please contact Melissa Gentry in the GRMC at 765-285-1097 or email mgentry@bsu.edu.