The Origins of Bibliographic Control of cartographic resources

Abstract

The librarian interest in the preservation and cataloguing of cartographic resources is an old topic, but the widespread awareness within the library profession belongs to the post-World War II period. For a very long time, in fact, these resources were not subjected to adequate bibliographic control. The reasons for this delay are many: the lack of awareness of these resources by the library community, the tendency to consider them an "inferior" category compared to traditional library resources and the difficulty in defining a common description model both at national and international level. It is only since the middle of the 20th century that the urgency of dealing with this heritage of extraordinary documentary value has been felt. Since then, much has been done both in terms of the census of these resources and the definition of guidelines within international standards, but much remains to be done.