This presentation, in the 2019 Lager Lecture series, was created for the general public as part of the Library's outreach program in the year of "The Celebration of STEM" (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and/or Medicine). It is an overview of the entire history of cartography, from ancient times to the Apollo moon landing, stressing the advancements made by the introduction of new technologies.

MacSphere: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/25362

This presentation, designed for a landscape art class along with a similar one written for a French language class, is an attempt to convey the way a cartographer views and communicates the landscape. For those who feel they already know what a map is, this lecture may be a revelation, as it deconstructs a map to its elements and explains the use of perspective, colour, symbols, scale, generalization, form, function, depictions of relief, and printing methods. Links to examples in our own online map collection are provided below each corresponding image in the PowerPoint so that you can view the entire map in detail.

MacSphere: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/25363

This lecture was prepared to coincide with an exhibit of some of McMaster University Library's rare map collection in the McMaster Museum of Art during the summer of 2018. In 1969, McMaster University Librarian, William Ready, travelled to England to acquire material for the Library's archives. He returned with nearly 400 rare maps purchased from the estate of the Late 5th Marquess of Cholmondeley. Although only 59 of these bear the ownership label of Robert Clifford, it is believed that the entire collection may have belonged to him for reasons that will be revealed near the end of this lecture. View the presentation to learn about the extraordinary man behind the Library's most significant collection of maps only rivalled by our WWI collection.

View in MacSphere: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/25364

This presentation seeks to capture the content that went into the 2018 exhibit, "Gentleman, Soldier, Scholar & Spy," in the Tomlinson Gallery, McMaster Museum of Art. The Map images in this PowerPoint are at low resolution, and are only meant to be a form of “thumbnail” image to act as a place-holder in the narrative of the exhibit. This has been done out of necessity as many of the maps are enormous in size. After reading the description of each map in the note field of each slide, it is therefore recommended to click on the link below the “thumbnail” image in order to be able to examine the full, high resolution, scalable image online in the McMaster University Library digital archive.

View in MacSphere: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/25373

This presentation, in the 2015 Lager Lecture series, was created for the general public, but it has also been used frequently as a teaching tool and introduction to GIS (Geographic Information Systems). It illustrates methods of collecting, compiling, and producing maps under the most hazardous of conditions, and enumerates the unforeseen obstacles, problem solving steps, and rapid evolution that took place in the field of cartography which led to the development of technologies and methods still used today. The lecture, and McMaster's collection of WWI maps, also inspired the creation of the Canadian Geographic giant floor map of Vimy Ridge and the CG documentary, "Drawn to Victory," which can also be viewed in its entirety by streaming it from the CPAC (Canadian Public Affairs Channel) website.

View in MacSphere: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/25365

This lecture, delivered in 2014 at the National Gallery of Canada, was presented to coincide with the NGC exhibit, "The Great War: The Persuasive Power of Photography." It discusses the introduction of the new sciences of remote sensing and photogrammetry as well as the disciplines of air photo interpretation and camouflage detection.

View in MacSphere: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/25366

This 2016 presentation, given at Ruthven Park National Historic Site, is an example of how genealogists can use trench maps to trace their ancestor's movements during the Great War. This particular presentation follows the experiences of Andrew Thompson, a member of an economically and politically influential family residing in Ottawa and at Ruthven Park (Cayuga, Ontario), with ties to the McNab family at Dundurn in Hamilton.

View in MacSphere: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/25367

This presentation, given at the 2019 ACMLA CARTO Conference, deals with the demand for mapping in WWII, which resulted in a combined Allied Forces output of close to a billion maps. The maps ranged from the detailed 1:12,500 scale topographic sheets for Operation Overlord, codenamed ‘Benson,’ to the geologic maps for the siting of temporary airfields, supply depots, and cross-country transportation routes for tanks and heavy vehicles. They also included hydrographic charts and cross-sectional profiles of the English Channel opposite the D-Day landing beaches, and aeronautical lattice charts for the newly invented ‘Gee’ radio-navigation system used on bomber missions. The lecture looks at the obstacles encountered, the cartographic and navigational technologies developed, and the legacies left to us as a result of these various mapping initiatives.

View in MacSphere: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/25368

This lecture lists and describes the way to effectively use the five most heavily sought-after resources in the Lloyd Reeds Map Collection: topographic maps, aerial photographs, fire insurance plans, city directories, and local historical maps. Originally designed for a 4th year Environmental Science course in environmental assessments, it can prove to be of equal value to biologists, engineers, archaeologists, historians, genealogists, geographers, medical researchers, and those working in banks, law firms, and insurance companies.

View in MacSphere: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/25369

This 8-minute, close-captioned video, explaining the geopolitical motivations behind the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916), was created for the online courses in Modern Middle Eastern Societies, History 2A03 and Peace Studies 2F03, taught by McMaster University Professor Virginia H. Aksan. The Lloyd Reeds Map Collection has a copy of the map believed to have been consulted by Sir Mark Sykes (representing Great Britain) and Francois Georges Picot (representing France) when planning the arrogation of territory in the Middle East in anticipation of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Map of eastern Turkey in Asia, Syria and western Persia (ethnographical), was originally published in 1910 by the Royal Geographical Society, with later editions delineating international boundaries as of July 1914, and railways as of November 1917.

View in MacSphere: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/25475