June 9, 1997
Contact:
Guy Lamolinara, Library of Congress (202) 707-9217
Heidi Belden, Office of Sen. Pete Domenici (202) 224-7098
Deborah Deal, First Market Group, for LizardTech (407) 788-7070
New Technology Makes Detailed Maps Available on the Internet from the Library of Congress
Beginning today, the Library of Congress is making
available on the Internet detailed American panoramic maps
from its collections, thanks to a gift from LizardTech,
which has donated special software.
The maps will become a part of American Memory, the
Library's electronic collections of some of its most
important materials, available at http://www.loc.gov/.
"Due to the generosity of LizardTech, the Library's
National Digital Library Program is reaching another
milestone: making available some of its most important and
detailed maps to Americans everywhere via the Internet,"
said James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress. "This
donation will allow users to view their cities and towns as
they looked during the late 19th and early 20th centuries."
"The Library of Congress's use of the LizardTech
software is another successful example of technology
transfer from our national laboratories. These transfers
enable the public and private partnerships that provide
additional returns to the nation," Sen. Pete Domenici (R-
N.M.) said. "This collection of maps will greatly enhance
the offerings from the National Digital Library Program,
which is bringing the riches of the Library to all
Americans."
This new collection from the Library's site on the
World Wide Web is made possible through the donation of a
file-compression technology developed by LizardTech of Santa
Fe, N.M., and Seattle. The presentation of detailed maps
on-line, once highly impractical due to the very large size
of their digital files, is now possible with the technology
that reduces the size of massive map files by more than 20
times. Users can access these maps on the World Wide Web to
view the entire image or zoom in for greater detail. No
special software is necessary to view these maps. They will
be accessible to the public on the Internet for the first
time at http://www.loc.gov/.
"LizardTech is particularly proud to be involved in
this effort. The MrSID software and the Center for
Geographic Information are both the result of a historic
collaboration between government and industry that provides
the nation access to its heritage and the opportunity to
explore that legacy using the Internet," said John R. Grizz
Deal, President of LizardTech.
The donation of the file-compression technology is the
latest gift received by the Geography and Map Division
through its Center for Geographic Information, an alliance
with private sector industries that are working to develop a
vast array of new geographic technologies. The large-format,
flatbed scanner that is used to digitize the maps, for
example, was donated by Tangent Color Systems; Hewlett
Packard gave the computer equipment that is used to process
the map images so that they can be displayed.
The compression of these very large files is made
possible by the use of Multiresolution Seamless Image
Database (MrSID) software, which was invented at Los Alamos
National Laboratory. Sen. Domenici sponsored federal
technology transfer legislation in 1989 that enabled
partnerships between national laboratories and U.S.
industry. LizardTech has used this and other legislation to
develop private sector commercial uses for this technology.
"During the first century of the existence of the
Geography and Map Division, access to our maps was limited
to the few who could visit our reading room or afford photo
reproductions," said Ralph Ehrenberg, chief of the Library's
Geography and Map Division. "We begin our second century
with the prospect of making our historic collections
available to anyone through the World Wide Web."
The Library's Geography and Map Division comprises a
collection of 4.5 million maps and 60,000 atlases, making it
the largest in the world. The division is scanning maps
from its core collections to make them available from the
Library's National Digital Library Program. The first
virtual cartographic collection, "Panoramic Maps of the
United States," will be available on the World Wide Web
today as a component of "American Memory"
(http://www.loc.gov/), which is bringing the most
significant of the Library's American historical collections
to a wider audience through the Internet.
The National Digital Library Program aims to make
available via the Internet millions of important materials
from America's past contained in the incomparable
collections of the Library of Congress. Already accessible
are Mathew Brady's Civil War photographs; documents relating
to slavery, the civil rights movement and women's suffrage;
and early films and sound recordings. The Library's
services on the World Wide Web currently process more than
42 million transactions per month.
LizardTech, formed in 1992, is a private company
focused on publishing innovative software that allows users
of all levels easy access to digital images and multimedia
content. LizardTech is a spinoff of Los Alamos National
Laboratory; it is based in Santa Fe and Seattle.
# # #
PR 97-106
6/9/97
ISSN 0731-3527