The New York Times has a story on the New York Public Library’s newly restored map room. The New York Pulbic Library has the largest map collection of any public library in the world and a $5 million restoration project sought to not only return the room to its originally intended appearance but bring it into the digital age. With 420,000 maps, this place is obviously worth a visit when in New York. “The map division has some of the rarest maps in the world, yet all of them can be studied, and handled, by the public.” Also in the works is “a geographical search engine - a cartographic user interface, as it were - that could relate maps to other collections of the library.”

And if you can’t make it to New York anytime soon, you can always browse the Library’s online c+ollection. A search for “map” produced viewable 280 results.