Skip to Main Content

Maps and More

resources from the regular collections show-and-tell at the Earth Sciences and Map Library

Maps and More is a map themed show-and-tell held at the Earth Sciences and Map Library, 50 McCone Hall several times each year.

Maps and More events planned for Spring 2025 include:

Tuesday, February 25: Mapbacks & More! the back cover cartographies of the Dell paperbacks

From 1942 to 1960, the Dell Publishing Company produced 1,020 paperback books. They were priced at 25 cents each and were primarily reprints of popular fiction titles, covering a wide range of genres: mystery, romance, western, adventure, and science fiction. The covers featured original artwork by a host of commercial illustrators, and 577 of them also featured maps or diagrams on the back covers. These books came to be known as “mapbacks,” and are highly prized by collectors today. Although un-credited on the books themselves, researchers have linked the illustrator Ruth Belew to hundreds of the "mapback" maps. In 2021, the Bancroft Library acquired a complete collection of the Dell paperbacks. 

Bancroft Library staff members Geanna Hernandez-Phan and Randy Brandt will be bringing over a choice selection of the Library's mapbacks for visitors to explore. Please join us in taking a dive into the world of mapbacks, complemented with maps from the Earth Sciences & Map Library collection. 

  • Brief remarks at 12:15 PM by Geanna Hernandez-Phan and Randy Brandt from the Bancroft Library
  • Exhibit open 12 - 2 PM
  • Event listing: https://events.berkeley.edu/Library/event/291051-maps-more-mapbacks

Tuesday, April 8: California National Parks

In addition to being the head of the Library's Digitization Services Department, Christine Huhn is also an accomplished photographer who has worked with the National Parks Service. In this special exhibit we're excited to pair maps of California's National Parks with Chrissy's photographs. https://www.christinehuhn.com/

  • Brief remarks at 12:15 PM
  • Exhibit open 12 - 2 PM

Contact Susan Powell (smpowell@berkeley.edu) or Samantha Teplitzky (samteplitzky@berkeley.edu) with questions. If you require an accommodation or information about campus mobility access features in order to fully participate in this event, please contact us with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7-10 days in advance of the event.

Stay Informed

Sign up for our email list to learn about upcoming Maps and More events. Email frequency is low (typically less than 1 per month).