In December 2022, Dr. Asuka Sango accidentally discovered the collection of modern Japanese maps in Carleton College’s Gould Library. At that time, nobody knew what kinds of maps or how many sheets we had -- only that these maps had been gifted to the Library by the Army Map Service (AMS) in the late 1940s, and that they were in a corner of the library that she had never visited in her 15 years of teaching at Carleton. Since then, her chance encounter has grown to be an exciting public scholarship project, entitled, “Mapping Japan, the Real and the Imagined,” supported by the Japan Foundation Institutional Project Support Grant. 

Out of this project was born a new cartography course, “Mapping Japan, the Real and the Imagined.” Students study some of the maps in the collection and contribute their analyses and images to this site. In addition, they help Dr. Sango develop pedagogical materials to be shared with any educators of Japan Studies outside of Carleton. 

While the images created by students are simple snapshots, the project team has also had select maps professionally digitized (also shared on this site), which will be helpful for research and teaching.  

Finally, exciting research projects are emerging. The first is Dr. Sango’s forthcoming article, “Mapping the Layers of History, War, and Colonialism.” It focuses on the map of Sumba Island in the Dutch East Indies from our collection. Sango and her student research assistants are also conducting archival research about how these maps came to us from AMS in the 1940s. They will share the fruits of our research on this site. 

Sugested citation for the Project

write this out with with Sarah Calhoun's help

The Team

Project Director

Asuka Sango, John W. Nason Professor of Asian Studies and Religion (2022-present)

• content expertise, teaching experience, language knowledge, and knowledge of historical maps and spatial representations.
• Attended ILiADS (Summer 2023)
• Dates involved: December 2022 to present
• Project lead for “Mapping Japan, the Real and the Imagined,” supported by the Japan Foundation Institutional Project Support (IPS) Small Grant Program, 2024-2025. 

 

Project Manager

Sarah Calhoun, Reference & Instruction Librarian for Humanities and Digital Scholarship (2022-present)

• Attended ILiADS (Summer 2023)
• Project management, Omeka platform knowledge, understanding of institutional support needs and resources, student supervisory skills, and an Asian Studies background.
• Scrum manager/Collaboration Facilitator 

Technical Lead

Em Palencia, Academic Technologist (2022-present)

• Domain of One’s Own and Omeka administration expertise, project management experience, student supervisory skills, and an understanding of institutional support needs and resources.
• Attended ILiADS (Summer 2023)

Library Experts

Katie Lewis, Cataloging and Government Documents Librarian (2022-present)

• Curator of the Map collection
• Expert metadata and cataloging skills, and a deep knowledge of Carleton’s physical map collection, including the gaihōzu, naihōzu, and OSS maps.

Contact Us

maybe a form? or just name, email, office.