New map center is a unique Maine resource

October 19, 11:12 AMPortland Sightseeing ExaminerPatricia Washburn

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This map of the United States was drawn by 12-year-old Mary Hall in about 1814.
Image courtesy Osher Map Library and Smith Cartographic Center

Sometime during your time in Maine, you've used a map -- maybe a Google Map or Mapquest directions, maybe the little diagram in a Freeport Merchants Association brochure, maybe the screen of your GPS system or DeLorme's wonderful Maine Atlas (a great gift for anyone moving to Maine, by the way).

Maps tell us a lot -- not just about streets and distances, but about who we are and how we see our world. That's the focus of the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education at the University of Southern Maine. OK, the name is really long, but the place is worth a visit.

The Osher and Smith families -- awesome people, all of them -- spearheaded the effort to create this resource 15 years ago, and now it has a beautiful new building that marks the gateway to the university's Portland campus.

The first thing you notice about the center is the 156-foot depiction of the Dymaxion Map, a map of the world invented by R. Buckminster Fuller as a way of approximating the earth's surface on a piece of paper that can be folded into a polyhedron. It's a fitting choice -- Fuller, a futurist whose many inventions include the geodesic dome, spent much of his youth on an island in Maine, where he first learned to build in wood and metal.

The center is a resource for scholars and researchers, but its mission specifically includes reaching out to K-12 students and the wider community. Physical and digital exhibits incorporate useful interpretation to help make old maps accessible to ordinary viewers, and that's part of the magic of this place.

Whether you love maps as art, as science or as history, the Osher and Smith collections are worth a visit. Unfortunately, the exhibits are only open to the public in the afternoons on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. However, the center's Web site includes many excellent resources and highlights some of the gems of the collection, including Columbus' letter announcing his successful voyage and a historic map of the British colonies in America in 1775.