General Information
Content
The database especially lists old printed maps: world maps and city plans of all countries, topographic and thematic maps, atlases with single sheet references, panoramas, bird’s eye views, relief maps, and globes, thereby also including facsimiles and electronic resources of the collections of participating libraries.
In the beginning, the idea of the project was to catalogue only those printed maps that were published no later than 1850. In the meantime, this has been modified to a certain extent. Some participating libraries have included their collection items published after 1850.
The database contains ca. 289,500 publication records and ca. 325,700 holdings records, including online resources of more than 15,600 digitised old maps (statistics as of June 2022).
Cataloguing and classification
In order to have a precise identification of single maps in the datapool, the recording libraries agreed on listing all titles, additions to titles, variants of titles as well as dedications to personalities which may appear on the publication. As far as possible, missing bibliographical information regarding maps and the people involved in their production is added by research in reference works on the history of cartography. In addition, information is provided regarding the history of publication of some maps and further literature is indicated as well. When maps lack a date of publication the indication of the placement of graphical elements (title and scale cartouches) makes it easier to distinguish between different maps.
The formal cataloguing of maps is refined by the identification and description of special cartographical features. The orientation of maps, their basic underlying grid system (definition of the prime meridian) as well as the method of landscape representation are precisely described. The information on the scale of a map is given in the same graphical form in which it appears on the map itself.
Subject classification of the listed maps is done according to their geographical relations (standardized geographical subject headings) and according to what they represent (e.g. a map showing a siege).
Literature
Crom, Wolfgang: Die IKAR-Altkartendatenbank : Geschichte und Zukunft. – In: Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie. – 70, Heft 2, 2023. – S. 63-73
Crom, Wolfgang: Die Rolle der IKAR-Altkartendatenbank in Vergangenheit und Zukunft. (PDF document)
Crom, Wolfgang: IKAR: Migration und Fortführung der Altkartendatenbank. – In: Bibliotheksdienst. – 35, Heft 3, 2001. – S. 347 – 348
Klemp, Egon: Grundsätze und erste Ergebnise der Neukatalogisierung von Altkarten in deutschen Bibliotheken. – In: Inspel, 1994: S. 62-66
Klemp, Egon: Die Erfassung von Altkarten in der IKAR-Datenbank – gegenwärtiger Stand und künftige Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten. – In: Gerhard Mercator und seine Zeit. 7. Kartographiehistorisches Colloquium Duisburg, Oktober 1994, Vorträge und Berichte. – Duisburg, 1996: S. 225-232 (Duisburger Forschungen ; 42)
Wiegand, Günther: Das DFG-Programm zur Erschließung historisch wertvoller Kartenbestände. – In: Kartographische Nachrichten 43. Jg., Heft 5, 1993: S. 190-192
Wiegand, Günther: Die Erschließung historisch wertvoller Kartenbestände : Ziele, Verlauf und Bilanz eines Förderprogramms der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft. – In: ZfBB 40 (1993), 1: S. 22-31
Wiegand, Günther: Wegweisung in eine vergangene Welt. Erschließung historischer Kartenbestände. – In: Forschung. Mitteilungen der DFG 1995, Heft 2-3: S. 28-30
Wiegand, Günther: Showing the Way into a Past World. Cataloguing Historical Maps. – In: German Research 1996, Heft 1: S. 16-18
Wolff, Hans: Die Erschließung von Altkarten an der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek. – In: Bibliotheksforum Bayern. – 14 (1986): S. 105-121
Zögner, Lothar: Die IKAR-Datenbank. Von der nationalen Kartenerschließung zum internationalen Auskunftsmittel. – In: Jahrbuch Preußischer Kulturbesitz 35, 1998: S. 247-252
Access
You may access the IKAR-database in the Internet via the GBV Union Catalogue: http://gso.gbv.de/DB=1.68/LNG=EN/
There is also a CD-ROM version of the map database (last update 1996).