Introduction

Within the Donald W. Hamer Center for Maps and Geospatial Information, there is a collection for University Park campus maps. This collection houses includes maps ranging from 1874 to today. To view maps, see the Maps & Geospatial: Campus maps (UP) guide.  These maps are a great way to visualize the expansion of the University Park Campus and to study cartographic trends changes through the years.

1881-1882

The first maps show only a few buildings and are in black and white. The 1881-1882 map, titled “Map of Campus, Pennsylvania State College.“, calls its legend “references” probably to highlight that this map is a reference map and not a thematic map. This map includes only 8 location names referenced on the map face with only 5 of them being single buildings. There is also much detail put into the vegetation around the map, but the buildings are only outlines with little definition. There is no scale bar or compass rose but rather a scale fraction that is not very legible.

1910

Fast forward to 1910, a little over 25 years later, the reference map has expanded in scope. Titled “Map of the Grounds and Buildings of The Pennsylvania State College“, The map now includes 23 named locations. This edition of the campus map opted out of including vegetation on the map. This map also includes a more modern scale bar and a compass rose. The modern scale bar addition might be explained by the invention of the first Photostat (predecessor of the modern photocopier) in 1907 (Editor APHA, n.d.).  The innovation of printing subsequently led to the increased popularity of the scale bar. The idea of a map being printed on multiple different scales caused issues with the scale fraction as the fraction would need to be changed depending on the size of the print. The scale bar circumvented this problem completely, changing size with the map itself. (Monmonier, p. 8, 2018).

1940

30 years later, the map has grown to include an even wider scope than its 1910 predecessor, 59 buildings in its legend, street names, and parking lots. This map is titled “The Pennsylvania State College Campus” and has a north arrow and a scale bar. It is interesting to note the similarities in this campus map to Rutger’s Campus map from the same period. Both have colored-in buildings and appear to use the same font. The likelihood of these fonts being the same is high due to the few texts used in map printing at the time. Between the 1940’s and 1980’s, lettering for maps was printed on instead of written on due to the increased availability of photocomposition tools. Due to the complex nature of the letter addition, there were few font styles for used for mapping at the time. Since this map is dated around the beginning of the rise of photocomposition tools, the similarities in font could also be from map lettering stencils or lettering machines that were popular at the time. (“Volume 6”, 2013).

1960

“The Pennsylvania State University Campus“ from 1960 was the first campus map with 3D visualizations of each building. Compared to other BTAA institutions, this is a late improvement considering University of Michigan had a map with 3D representations of buildings as early as 1949. Penn State’s use of 3D visuals continues to the present day. After this map, the expansion of scope of the map stayed relatively constant due to the limited expansion of the university that would occur post 1960. It is also interesting to note that this map is the only map to show Penn State’s old colors, pink and black, as the theme colors. The change of colors happened much earlier in the history of the university (1890) so the choice to use pink might be simply aesthetic, a nod to the past, or a consequence of fading. Colored maps published after 1960 mostly have blue as their accent color as a nod to the current colors of Penn State: blue and white. There are also some maps that use a background of orange. There is no clear explanation for the use of orange other than aesthetics.

1992

The 1992 map, titled “Campus Map“, is the only map to include two sections: “Welcome to Penn State” and “Index”. Within the welcome section, there is a lot of information on campus parking, phones, tours, and on-campus phone numbers. The “Index” section serves as a legend for the campus map as well as to a reference map to show where the university campus was located in relation to the surrounding towns. This map is very busy but is colored coded to match the university’s colors: blue and white. A map from Purdue University from the same year shows their color scheme as their school’s colors as well. Purdue University’s map does not include the other information. This map might have all the information because it served as a handout reference map for students during their New Student Orientation (NSO) or during a tour rather than serving as a general-purpose reference map as the other maps in this collection.

2023

Today the campus map is entirely online and is accessible here. Each building on campus opens a side bar when clicked, showing more information about the uses of the building. This map also shows on campus construction and road closures.

In order from left to right: 1910, 1940, 1960, 1990.

Remarks

Through the years, cartographic trends, map uses, and the University Park campus has changed. The campus maps are a window into the trends of each time period both in cartography and Penn State trends. There is a bit of a gap in research on cartographic trends specifically but through using the BTAA Geoportal, BTAA campus maps of similar time periods can be located, and comparisons can be made of their cartographic styles. In most historical cases, maps looked very similar to one another despite being in different locations. This matching phenomenon was either accidentally in an attempt to keep with what was “in” at the time or done on purpose order to not confuse visitors from other universities (i.e. touring/prospective students). It is important to note that the matching of campus maps does not hold true today.

Another important observation is the change in street accuracies. As the maps move forward chronologically, the roads become laid out in a way that corresponds with their true bends. While not perfect due to some visibility and decisions, the more recent road mapping within the college maps is much closer to reality than the more historic road mapping that depicted campus roads as exactly straight lines.

Today, interactive maps are popular in all universities. The interactive map basics for each school vary greatly based on what platform the college uses. Penn State continues to be on the cutting edge with its geography and cartographic representations within today’s campus maps!

 

Ava Blansfield (she/her) is a second year at Penn State majoring in Geography and minoring in Sustainability Leadership and Energy Business & Finance. Her interests include data analysis, sustainability, and coffee origin & roasting. Ava has been working at the Donald W. Hamer Center for Maps and Geospatial information since October 2023.

 

Resources:

Editor of APHA. “History of Printing Timeline.” American Printing History Association, 12 Jan. 2023, printinghistory.org/timeline/.

Monmonier, Mark Stephen. How to Lie with Maps. The University of Chicago Press, 2018.