The Map Library has been collecting newspaper maps depicting current events and published in the New York Times or the Washington Post since 2020. The maps come from copies of issues received by the Communications Library and are collected by inspecting each issue.
The maps selected for retention in the Map Library’s newspaper maps collection are all data driven; maps intended to orient an article reader to the story’s geographic location are not selected. Most of the maps in the collection are accompanied by the related article and any other illustrations, tables, or graphs.
All of the maps in the collection are fully cataloged and will appear in Library catalog topical search results. As an example, more than 10 maps by both the New York Times and the Washington Post are included in search results for the keyword search health United States maps.
Additionally, lists of maps from both of these newspapers can be compiled from the Library’s catalog by searching New York Times Company as an author and limiting the results to maps as a resource type or searching Washington Post Company as an author with a limit set to maps as a resource type.
Historic maps from a broader list of newspapers, such as those published during the United States Civil War, Spanish-American War or the two World Wars, and a small number of contemporary maps published in other newspapers, such as the News-Gazette and USA Today, are included in the Map Library’s general map collection.
Newspaper maps are non-circulating.