The LA Central Library has received a massive donation of maps

The Los Angeles Public Library system is known for more than just books. You can check out tools and computers. And it even has a recording studio.

But did you know it has its own map collection?

They’ve got fire insurance maps spanning Los Angeles; old maps detailing curiosities like an alligator farm or an ostrich farm in L.A. County; copies of the Ord Survey, the first formal land survey of the city from 1849.

A recent donation has added thousands of maps from the region and all over the world to the collection.

Stacks of maps from the Central Library's map collection.

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Peter Hauge

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Peter Hauge

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The mapping link

The new addition came from the collection of Bill Hunt, the founder of the now defunct Santa Barbara-based map distributor Map Link.

Hunt is also an avid collector and traveler. His collection, consisting of hundreds of boxes of well preserved and carefully catalogued maps, took up an entire storage space in Ventura.

Hunt got in touch with the Los Angeles Public Library in November to offload some of his collection. The library brought them in starting in January.

Stacks of boxes containing a lot of Bill Hunt's donation of maps to the Los Angeles Public Library.

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Peter Hauge

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Peter Hauge

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A treasure trove

Not since 2012 has the Los Angeles Public Library landed on such a sizable collection. Then, they were from collector John Feathers, who had thousands of maps filling his Mount Washington Home.

“It was said that John Feathers’ collection doubled our map collection,” LAPL’s map librarian Peter Hauge said. “I would say this Map Link donation probably boosted us again by another 30 or 40%. It is absolutely massive.”

Hauge said Hunt’s collection is much more organized, which should make cataloging it all a lot easier.

What’s in the boxes?

Many of the new maps will be housed in the  history and genealogy department of the Central Library, located on lower level four. There they’ll be accessible to all Angelenos, no library card required for viewing.

Flat map drawers where a lot of the Los Angeles Public Library legacy collection is kept.

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Peter Hauge

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Peter Hauge

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Hauge said the donation, global in scope, helps to fill out the library’s own collection. For example, the library now has 12 new maps from different time periods and regions of Senegal, building on its much smaller, previous collection.

“That was really the most exciting part of it,” Hauge said. “The quality and the scope of the maps I think is what made it so much more important and valuable.”

The donations span pretty much every country in the world and just about every type of map you can think of.

“ This collection has folded maps, travel maps, street guides from the entire United States, just about every county, from every state in the country,” Hauge said.

A Legacy of Maps

Many of the new maps are already available for the public to access. However, Hauge said it'll take at least a year before the entire trove is added to the collection, and even longer for them to be properly cataloged and indexed.

These maps are lenses to the world and the past. Hauge said people come to the map library for all sorts of reasons. Some are writers looking to accurately describe what the transportation system was like in Los Angeles. Others are residents looking for the history of their neighborhoods and how they developed.

Whatever it is, the library probably has a map that can help you out.