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Table of Contents

• ↓ A Pop-up Staircase, Surrounded by Maps
• ↓ MapQuest’s Moment
• ↓ Simon Ayrinhac’s Studies of Tolkien’s Maps and Geography, Plus a Middle-earth Globe
• ↓ The United Nations, Mercator and Equal Earth: Another Follow-Up
• ↓ Mapping Tariffs
• ↓ Georeferencing Fire Insurance Maps
• ↓ Top Alternatives to maproomblog.com

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"The entrance to the David Rumsey Map Center at Stanford is via a staircase whose walls are illustrated with maps from the Center’s collections. To mark the Center’s 10th anniversary, RJ Andrews and Ray Marshall engineered a pop-up papercraft model of the stairwell. The keepsake opens up to show every wall on every level. Produced in limited quantities and unfortunately not available for sale. See RJ Andrews’s post and Ray Marshall’s web page for how they did it, and images of the keepsake."

"MapQuest continues to ride a wave of positive publicity after their refusal to rename Lake Ontario. They’ve posted billboards in Chicago and Toronto with directions to the Lake, their CEO made a well-publicized visit to the lake itself, they have we’re-not-changing-the-name merch at their store. Call it principled or opportunistic—it can be both, honestly—but either way they’re making the most of it."

"Simon Ayrinhac is a French physicist who studies the maps and geography of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. I stumbled across his page of his talks and articles via the Tolkien Conference I posted about earlier this month. (The page also includes a couple of bibliographies that I will have to steal from in order to update my own reading list.) In French. Lots for me to go through."

"Amongst Simon’s articles is one exploring how Tolkien’s Middle-earth can be displayed as a globe, occasioned by the release, by Columbus Globes, of Middle-earth globes in various sizes and levels of detail (12, 26, 30, and 40 cm, all but the smallest illuminated; €25-€399). The problem, which Simon also notices, is that the known parts of Middle-earth take up too much of the globe: it’s actually only a small part of the whole, with the rest of the world only roughly sketched out. (Also, the legendarium of Middle-earth is such that it was only round after a specific catastrophic event, and a lot of the geography did not survive it.)"

Key Topics & Focus Areas for maproomblog.com:

A Pop-up Staircase, Surrounded by Maps

MapQuest’s Moment

Simon Ayrinhac’s Studies of Tolkien’s Maps and Geography, Plus a Middle-earth Globe

The United Nations, Mercator and Equal Earth: Another Follow-Up

Mapping Tariffs

Georeferencing Fire Insurance Maps