On March 14th, 2008 four Belgian federal institutions announced their common project to digitize their map collections. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any substantial information about it, except for some small articles in the Belgian press. The websites of the four institutions remain silent. Nevertheless, the expectations run high, since considerable sums of money are being mentioned.

The four institutions are:
- Rijksarchief (State Archives)
- Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België (Royal Library)
- Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika (Royal Museum for Central Africa)
- Nationaal Geografisch Instituut (National Geographic Institution)

Some 3400 images have been added to the image database Maps & Atlases of the Special Collections of the Amsterdam University Library. The images represent a restricted number of 17th and 18th century town books in the collection, including full texts, architectural plates, maps, and town views and plans.

Each volume has its own topographical index (mostly names of towns, of course) and there is an overall topographical index, producing all images of one place in all town books together. An ideal way for comparison, finding similarities and differences in the plates used for one town or city.

At this moment the explanation and accompanying text of the site is in Dutch only, but the images are ‘universal’. They will be of use to the international historical cartographical community and far beyond. The underlying metadata are very simple, the indexes offer the main access. Full bibliographical analysis and descriptions of the contents of these and many more Dutch town atlases and their variants will be published by Peter van der Krogt in the forthcoming part IV of Koeman’s Atlantes Neerlandici (’t Goy-Houten : Hes & De Graaf, 1997- …. ): The Town Atlases: Braun & Hogenberg, Janssonius, Blaeu, De Wit, Mortier and others.

It has been the explicit desire of the University Library to include all texts in digitizing some of its examples of the town atlases, as they are so often neglected in all sorts of reproductions. Therefore, approximately half of the 3400 images are of text pages, important for students of geography, history, languages etc.

The Regionaal Archief Leiden (Regional Archives Leyden, The Netherlands) has digitized the six volumes of their Blaeu atlas, entitled Tooneel des Aerdrycks ofte Nieuwe Atlas (1659). If you want to skip the introduction in Dutch, you can go straight to the viewer.

Finally, the one and only Caféplan Antwerpen  [Map of pubs in Antwerp] came out. 400 pubs in the heart of Antwerp are documented on a large map, measuring 120 x 95 cm. The map was distributed to all citizens living in the centre of the city and is available for free at the Antwerp Tourist Office and in 250 pubs. Not less than 65,000 copies were printed!

Similar maps exist for Gent (297 pubs), Leuven (177 pubs),  Mechelen (111 pubs), Oostende (137 pubs), Kortrijk (117 pubs), Aalst (204 pubs) , Sint-Niklaas (82 pubs) and Hasselt (101 pubs). Maps of Brussels and Bruges are forthcoming.

One copy of the Antwerp map will be kept in the collections of The FelixArchief (City Archives of Antwerp) for future generations.

35171 Belgians enjoy their retirement abroad. France, Spain and Germany are the most favourite countries. The exodus of our senior citizens is appropriately illustrated in a typical French jeu de boules.
[Source: Het Nieuwsblad, Saturday 9 February 2008]

The “globe with a roof” on Bart Peeters‘ fantastic CD Slimmer dan de zanger (Smarter than the singer) refers to his song Het dak van de wereld is er af (The roof of the world has gone).

Bart Peeters’ lyrics are rather untranslatable into English. His music, on the other hand, is what we would call world music, inspired by several different musical influences. I am sure people who don’t understand Dutch will nevertheless appreciate his infectious enthusiastic music.

His universal song Aaa illustrates perfectly what I mean. 

What about maps in lyrics of popular songs?

My first contribution to this new topic are the first lines from KT Tunstall’s famous song Suddenly I See:

Her face is a map of the world
Is a map of the world
You can see she’s a beautiful girl
She’s a beautiful girl
…

More about KT Tunstall on MySpace and Wikipedia.

Centea, a Belgian Bank, advertises that “Your dream is coming nearer with 6,5 % after 1 year”. The map above illustrates this slogan.

Read on MapHist: Whimsical liquor dispenser will be an impressive addition to your bar. Durable plastic globe with a silver finish base can hold 55 ounces [= ...] of your favorite liquor. From Bed Bath & Beyond.

Today’s Het Nieuwsblad announces that Belgium is shrinking. The Belgian railway company NMBS/SNCB is dismantling the Vennbahn railway track. Since the peace treaty after World War I the railway belonged to the Belgian territory, althought it crosses German territory. This situation created five German enclaves in Belgium. It’s not clear yet if there will be any German compensation for the loss of Belgian territory.

Update January 11, 2008: The German Minister of Foreign Affairs has declared that Germany will not touch the Belgian territory as it was defined in historical treaties. So the Vennbahn will keep on being Belgian territory, even if the railway track has disappeared.