OML's collections are open to all researchers, from fourth-graders to octogenerians. Access is not restricted solely to academics with a PhD!
Online Research: users may search for maps and books in Osgood (View|Find Maps > Find Rare Maps & Books). This interface named after Osgood Carleton (1741-1816), a mathematical practitioner in Boston, some of whose maps of were the first to be printed (in 1793-1802).
- important: in searching for maps and books in Osgood, check the box "show only results with images" to limit the results to works that can be consulted online.
- to find information about the maps and books, in OML's exhibitions and lesson plans, please use the search box in the upper-right corner of this page.
Onsite Research at OML:
Before visiting OML, check our the current open hours for OML's facilities.
All visitors to OML must check in at the reception desk. Researchers will be asked to register and must agree to abide by the fundamental rules for treating both rare and reference materials.
Rare Collections: are paged by OML staff. They can be identified through Osgood (View|Find Maps > Find Rare Maps & Books) or OML's in-house collections management database.
Reference Collections: OML's extensive reference materials are housed on (mostly) open-access shelves in the main reading room. But they do not circulate and cannot be checked out. The reference materials are all catalogued in Ursus (View|Find Maps > Find Maps), the University of Maine System library catalog. They are housed in several sections:
- loose facsimiles, kept behind the reception desk (these are not open-access);
- bound facsimiles, kept on the flat shelving at the rear of the left-hand side of the reading room;
- bibliographies, housed on the tall shelves on the right-hand side of the reading room;
- series, housed in the vault manager's office;
- journals, housed in the side "corridor" on the left-hand side of the reading room;
- oversized books, housed on flat-shelving on the left-hand side of the reading room;
- books and monographs, housed on the flat (oversize) and regular shelves on the left-hand side of the reading room; and
- older, semi-rare, and less-popular works are stored in the vault (the open-access shelves are limited) and must be paged.