Mapping Chicagoland: A Collaborative Model for Digitizing Chicago's Historical Maps

Mapping Chicagoland is a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)-funded project to make openly available over 5,000 georeferenced historical maps of Chicago from three institutions: The Chicago History Museum, the Newberry Library, and the University of Chicago Library. Mapping Chicagoland strategically deployed collaboration at phases that benefited most – such as map selection, staffing, metadata creation, and user engagement – while leveraging centralized coordination for digital workflows. This paper presents the processes and decision points shaped by partnership, explores where collaboration enabled broader coverage and continuity, and discusses lessons learned in choosing when to collaborate and when to streamline. This model of collaboration resulted in a more diverse digital collection, deeper institutional memory, and an increased public impact. The resulting open-access, georeferenced map images enable scholars worldwide to pursue broad research goals and incorporate maps and spatial data into their teaching.