The Donald W Hamer Maps Library is currently located in the basement of Central Pattee, in the heart of the Penn State University Park campus.
The map collection was started by Ruby Miller in 1947. The bulk of the early collection consisted of Geography Department duplicates and a large number of maps from the Army Mapping Service Library. The former provided the basis for what is now one of the most complete USGS collections available. We hold a full set of current USGS topo quads at 7.5', 30', and 1 degree scales, most of the superseded editions for the entire nation, and a large portion of the early 15' and 30' editions. The Army Mapping Service collection contains a wealth of large scale topographic maps and town plans from around the world, particularly from Europe. Most of the maps date from the first half of the 20th century and consist of items collected, captured, or published by the US Army and intelligence services.
In more recent years the collection has been built on deposits from the USGS, the Government Printing Office, NOAA (World Nautical Charts), NIMA/Geospatial Intelligence, the Library of Congress Summer Program, and the Canadian Topographic Depository program. The library also purchases maps from private companies from around the globe in order to keep all areas of the collection as current, thorough and diverse as possible.
The Maps Library also houses 4,000 atlases, reference books, and gazetteers. Along with the selection of current general atlases is a nice collection of thematic atlases, foreign atlases, cartography texts, journals and cartobibliographies. All books are listed in the Libraries' online catalog.
