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Inside Spencer: The KSRL Blog

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Welcome to the Kenneth Spencer Research Library blog! As the special collections and archives library at the University of Kansas, Spencer is home to remarkable and diverse collections of rare and unique items. Explore the blog to learn about the work we do and the materials we collect.

Ogilby’s Britannia: Bringing English Cartography into the Scientific Age

April 11th, 2016

John Ogilby, was born in Scotland in 1600, and held many different careers in his life; a dancing-master, theater owner, poet, translator, publisher and cartographer. He is most remembered for bringing English cartography into the scientific age with his 1675 road atlas of England and Wales titled, Britannia. To create the wonderfully detailed strip maps that displayed the topographical features and distances of the roads, Ogilby’s team of surveyors worked with the precise and easy-to-use perambulator or measuring wheel to record the distance of the roads in miles; implementing the standardized measurement of 1,760 yards per mile as defined by a 1592 Act of Parliament. They also used the surveyor’s compass or theodolite to better record the changes in the directions of the roads. Besides the use of scientific instruments, Britannia was also the first published work to use the scale of one inch equaling one mile, which became the prevailing scale for cartography. Through the use of detailed illustrations and precise technology, Ogilby’s Britannia became the first comprehensive and accurate road atlas for England and Wales, making it the prototype for almost all English road books published in the following century. Our Special Collections house several editions and iterations of Britannia and its surveys, including the first edition from 1675.

Title Page for John Ogilby's Britannia (1675).
The title page for the first edition of Ogilby’s Britannia, 1675.
Special Collections, Spencer Research Library. Call Number: H1. Click image to enlarge.

Strip map from Britannia of “The Road From LONDON to ABERSWITH…”.
Strip map of “The Road From LONDON to ABERSWITH…” Note the illustration around the title,
the perambulator/measuring wheel is being used by the man on foot and
the surveyor’s compass/theodolite is being used by the man on horseback.
Special Collections, Spencer Research Library. Call Number: H1. Click image to enlarge.

After Ogilby’s death in 1676, his step-grandson, William Morgan, continued his work. Morgan utilized many of the original maps and descriptions created by Ogilby and his team of surveyors, since Britannia provided such exact and thorough accounts of the British roads. Many travelers and merchants desired to take these accounts with them, so the maps, surveys and descriptions used in Britannia were often scaled down and published in more portable works.

Ogilby editions size comparison
Comparing the size of the works from left to right: Britannia followed by The traveller’s guide or,
a most exact description of the roads of England. Being Mr. Ogilby’s actual survey,
and lastly The traveller’s pocket-book: or, Ogilby and Morgan’s book of the roads improved and amended.
Special Collections, Spencer Research Library. Call Numbers: H1, Bond C69, A297. Click image to enlarge.

Unfolding map for The traveller’s pocket-book: or, Ogilby and Morgan’s book of the roads improved and amended.

Open map for The traveller’s pocket-book: or, Ogilby and Morgan’s book of the roads improved and amended.
The traveller’s pocket-book: or, Ogilby and Morgan’s book of the roads improved and amended

with attached map of England and Wales, 1765. Special Collections, Spencer Research Library.
Call Number: A297. Click images to enlarge.

To learn more about John Ogilby and Britannia, come by Spencer Research Library and take a look at these sources:

  • Hyde, Ralph. “John Ogilby’s Eleventh Hour.” Map Collector No11 (1980): 2-8. Print. Call Number: E1814.
  • Ogilby, John. Britannia: London 1675 with an introduction by Dr. J.B. Harley. Amserdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1970. Print. Call Number: G730
  • Worms, Laurence and Baynton-Williams, Ashley. “Ogilby, John (1600-1676)—London.” British Map Engravers: a Dictionary of Engravers, Lithographers and Their Principal Employers to 1850. London: Rare Book Society, 2011. 498-500. Print. Call Number: GA793 .W67 2011.

Mindy Babarskis
Library Assistant
Public Services

Throwback Thursday: Jayhawk Edition

April 7th, 2016

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 26,300 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Photograph of the Jayhawk mascot hanging out behind the counter in the union store, 1963/1964

The Jayhawk mascot hanging out behind the counter in the Union store, 1963/1964.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 0/25 1963/1964 Prints:
Campus: Jayhawk mascot, dolls, etc. (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt, Megan Sims, and Abbey Ulrich
Public Services Student Assistants

The Garden of Health: Gart der Gesundheit, Hortus Sanitatis

April 4th, 2016

The herbal is a medical garden in book form–hence the titles Hortus Sanitatis and Gart der Gesundheit–and as such contains data on the appearance, gathering, preparation, and use of medicinal plants. Remedies from the animal and mineral kingdoms are often included as well. Although the works shown here are from the early part of the Golden Age of the Herbal (roughly 1470-1670), these practical manuals have been popular with scientist and non-scientist alike since antiquity, and a stroll through any bookstore today will attest to a resurgence of that popularity. The Department of Special Collections has a rich and growing garden of herbals spanning six centuries.

Page from herbal book. Call number Summerfield E60 v. 1_1, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.   Page from herbal book. Call number Summerfield D291, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.

Left: Otto Brunfels, Herbarum vivae eicones, [1532], call number Summerfield E60 v.1. Right: Pedanius Dioscorides of Anazarbus, De medicinali materia, [1542], call number Summerfield D291 item 1. Click images to enlarge.

Page from herbal book. Call number Summerfield C1125, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.   Page from herbal book. Call number Summerfield C2114, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas.

Left: Christovam da Costa, Trattato  . . . della historia, natura, et virtu delle droghe medicinali, 1585, call number Summerfield C1125. Right: Incipit Tractatus de virtutibus herbarum, [1509], call number Summerfield C2114. Click images to enlarge.

Adapted entry from the catalog for the exhibition, All that in this delightfull Gardin growes, Department of Special Collections, 1983
Sally Haines, Rare Book Cataloger