Besides reading dictionaries and encyclopedias as a child, I also loved studying maps. Any maps at all, imagining and pretending what it all looked like, as my finger traced the tiniest off-the-beaten-path road. You too?


The Map Room Web log features a New York TImes story today about the New York Public Library’s $5-million renovation of its map room, which reopens Thursday as the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division. The map room touts itself as the public library with the largest collection of maps (nearly 420,000 of them) and, despite recent concerns about map thefts, the maps, some of which date back to the sixteenth century, are accessible to the public. Thanks to Joel for the link.”


The NYT article today begins, “For decades, it has been known simply as Room 117.


“Under a gilt ceiling that has been likened to an inside-out Fabergé egg, an avid circle of initiates has marveled at a glorious 1598 depiction of sea monsters in the waters of the Indies. They have cherished 17th-century visions of the world drawn by the Rembrandts of early cartography. And they have savored a renowned 1668 map that depicts modern-day California as an island, an image now sardonically viewed, by some, as a sign. …” (Read all of the NYT’s “Restoration Project Reveals Map Room’s Vivid Palette.”)


Check out the Map Room blog. I subscribe via My Yahoo’s RSS feeds so that I can always see their headlines.


And that library. It looks like, and sounds like, a heavenly place to lose track of time.


The photo is from the NYT story. OPEN THREAD: