Finding topographic maps on the 3rd floor (Irvine Map Collection)

I just had a primer from Bill on locating maps in our library collection.

As many of you know, not all of our maps are cataloged. This is true for a lot of topographic maps (topo for short) in the Irvine room. We generally have these uncataloged maps in alphabetic order by geographic location. The broader level is by state. We only have them for 3 states: California, Arizona and Nevada.

If you are looking for a topo map for an area in California, for instance, sometimes the area you need might not be in the quadrangle map (quad for short) that is labeled as the location needed.

Example: I am helping an MSGIS student look for a topo map of Joshua Tree National Park, but the one he found on his own (appropriately labeled Joshua Tree) did not have the land features and areas he needed. As far as he is concerned the area of interest was off the quad he found. So, what to do?

The quad maps themselves have area markers at each corner and side of the quad. These help if you are looking for adjacent areas, but if they aren't adjacent, indices will help. These indices are located in the first drawer of each of the (uncataloged) map collection for each state. The indices are big maps or map pamphlets/books of the state chunked into different quads that correspond to the different quad maps we have in the drawers. The names of each quad map are in the index, so that's a good way to figure out which map name you should be looking for. Also, be aware of the date on the map. The later maps will be a better match to the map index.

That's what I learned today! Pretty cool!

~Melissa

Supreme Court cases

A student from Art Svenson's GOVT 402, Equal Protection class came to the ref. desk asking to see a number of Supreme Court cases. She had a list of volume and page numbers but her syllabus did not appear to have the series title. Svenson had told her it was on the 4th floor and she had written "US Reports" in her own handwriting. We do indeed have United States Reports upstairs, which "contain the fourth and final generation of the Court's opinions. " Unfortunately the catalog record(s) may be misleading as they do not reflect these multiple volumes.

Furthermore, if a student comes in knowing the case name, but not the United States Reports volume/page number, you may use United States Supreme Court Decisions which is located behind the Reference desk. Essentially, you'll find the case name and the citation below it. In the example below, you will find the following case in United States Reports, vol. 347, beginning p. 483

E.g. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
347 US 483

In case you were curious, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas is actually listed more than once in the c2001 reference book United States Supreme Court Decisions--once for a case decided in 1954 (the landmark case) and another time for a case decided in 1955. Unless you or the student knows the date/year of interest, there is no way (I could find) to readily distinguish which citation referred to the landmark case. I hope this was helpful.