Our collections are comprised of a range of media covering many topics
Texas A&M Digital Collections contain thousands of items from Texas A&M University Libraries. While only a fraction of materials from the Libraries' holdings are represented, the site reflects the distinction and diversity of the collections held by Cushing Memorial Library.
Collecting Areas
Map Collections
Charting Texas
Features maps and books, documenting several centuries of exploration and political competition for one specific area of North America — Texas.
View collection
Woellhof Maps
Showcases a selection of rare fifteenth- and sixteenth-century maps from the Woellhof Collection at Cushing Memorial Library & Archives
View collection
World War II Service Maps
Explore our collection of World War II Service Maps.
View collectionUniversity Archives
Using our collections
Rights Statements and Creative Commons Licenses
Texas A&M University Libraries uses rightsstatements.org and Creative Commons licenses to help users understand the rights status of works in our collections. Each work includes a Rights Statement field with a badge representing its rights status; clicking the badge reveals more details. Some works also include a Rights Details field with additional information about the rights held in and over the resource. For questions about the rights status of an item, contact Cushing Memorial Library.
International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF)
All content including media files and metadata are available as IIIF manifests, backed by a IIIF Image Server. This allows researchers to explore detailed, zoomable images directly on this site, and also re-use and re-mix the content in outside tools such as Canopy and Mirador, embed it on third-party websites, or query the data programmatically.
The link to a collection's or work's manifest is available on every page under View IIIF Manifest.
Learn more about IIIF and related projects on the IIIF website.
Citing Our Collections
When citing items from our digital collections, we recommend the following format:
[Item], [Collection], [Subject Area], Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, Texas A&M University.
For example:
Manuscript map of San Antonio to Austin, Edwin Everett Papers, Ragan Military Collection, Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, Texas A&M University.
For questions about citing a specific item, contact Cushing Memorial Library.
Georeferencing Our Collections
What is georeferencing?
Georeferencing is the process of aligning a scanned historical map with real-world geographic coordinates. Once a map is georeferenced, it can be treated as geospatial data, opening up possibilities like:
- Layering a historic map on top of a modern web map
- Overlaying one historic map on another to compare how a place has changed over time
- Transcribing geospatial data from historic maps, such as labels, features, or outlines
As a user, you'll most often encounter georeferenced maps in interactive web viewers, where a historic map is displayed on top of a modern base map so you can see the two side by side.
Using Georeferenced Maps
Many of Texas A&M's historical maps have been georeferenced using Allmaps. When a map has been georeferenced, a Georeferenced Map tab will appear beneath the image. Clicking this tab displays the map superimposed on a modern base map in the Allmaps Viewer, where you can adjust the transparency to compare the historic and modern geography.
Contributing to Our Georeferencing in Allmaps
Georeferencing works by matching points on a map image to points on a modern map; these are called ground control points, or simply control points. We've already created control points for hundreds of our maps, but you can help by georeferencing new maps or improving the georeferencing on maps that already have it.
Texas A&M uses the Allmaps platform for georeferencing. Allmaps makes the process easier for contributors, more interoperable across institutional collections, and simpler to maintain. Unlike traditional georeferencing software, ,which can be complicated to use and often requires downloading and uploading very large image files, Allmaps runs almost entirely in a user's web browser. This lowers the barrier for anyone who wants to create or view georeferenced maps, and reduces the need for institutions to maintain expensive, brittle server infrastructure.
To georeference a map (or improve its existing georeferencing), start by finding its IIIF manifest. You can find the link in the upper right corner above the viewer, or under "View IIIF Manifest" at the bottom of the Description tab. Copy the manifest URL and paste it into the Allmaps Editor
If the item contains multiple images, draw a mask around each image that includes a map. Once you've drawn your masks and selected a map, georeference it by connecting three or more points on the image to their corresponding real-world locations. Once you're done, the georeferenced map will automatically appear in our digital collections portal within 24 hours.
