Enable researchers to find, access, use and share Rice collections of research materials.
New Large Map Collections at Fondren Library
About the collection:
This collection was donated by Exxon Mobil. It documents the geographic interests of a major oil company during the second half of the 20th century. The maps could be of great interest to various departments including Earth Science, Engineering, Climate Change and Renewable Energy Research, and Humanities, including History, Political Science, and Economic Research.
As the history of the expansion and influence of the petroleum industry during the second half of the 20th century becomes the focus of more intensive academic research, these maps will provide evidence of the oil industry’s desire to locate and exploit petroleum and other mineral resources in a wider geographical space than just the United States. Such efforts to seek an international base of resources most likely had an influence on national political, economic, and foreign relations decisions during this time.
Image: Original status of the 2000+ uncataloged maps in 7 large containers. The maps have been inaccessible for nearly 20 years.
About the project and Fondren Library map project team and milestones:
The project involves the Kelley Center for Government Information, Cataloging & Metadata Services, Collection Development, and the Preservation departments. The team faced major challenges such as inventory issues and a gap in cartographic knowledge and skills.
After the early internal investigation initiated by Denis Galvin and carried out by Anna Xiong & Hannah Edlund from the Kelley Center for Government Information, Denis has invited an external map consultant, Ronald Grim, to visit Fondren Library December 2023 for deeper investigation, collection evaluation, recommendations, and guidance on what to do next. Anna and Scott Vieira facilitated Ronald’s first visit.
Image: Ronald Grim and Anna Xiong examine the maps.
After the investigation and based on Ronald’s evaluation, the Fondren Library Mobil Oil Map Project team has decided to move on to the next phase of the project. We were facing two major challenges. First, to identify and prepare an adequate place to process the large amount of the map collection. Second, how can we work with the external consultant for about just 3 days during his second visit to make sure we can independently continue working on the project without major issues after the consultant left?
Anna initiated and invited Dave Erlandson and Scott to collaborate on a pilot project with Ronald in preparation for his second library visit. During three months, they encountered numerous challenges, including overcoming frustration, anxiety, and uncertainty—particularly in effectively communicating remotely with the consultant about the complex state of the physical map collections, which lacked organization and proper inventory descriptions. They experimented with various strategies and methods, developing criteria for selecting representative samples. Finally, their perseverance led to the creation of an initial work plan for the team.
As to the space for map processing, ideally it should be conveniently located near the donated map collection and the departments heavily involved. It needs to be spacious, easily set up, and equipped with all the necessary furniture, tools and supplies for efficient work. It was not an easy task to find such a workplace at Fondren Library. Anna took on the challenge, working hard to carefully measure and redesign part of the Kelley Center, as well as calculate the budget, with input from the map consultant, her staff Hannah Edlund and Mary Kelleher and other map team members, Lisa Spiro, Norma Perez, Jeff Koffler, Joe Hatfield, Woodson Research Center, Burton Heisley from Library Systems, and the University Facilities. After receiving approval and generous funding from Sara Lowman, the space was reconfigured. The newly designed area later served as a comfortable meeting space for the large map team during Ronald’s second visit and supported continued map processing through their ongoing hard work.
Before photo: 
After photo: 
Images: Before (left) and after (right) of the Kelley Center office suite reconfigured to support large map assessment & processing.
The pilot project proved to be highly successful. During Ronald’s second visit in April 2024, which went smoothly, the team collaborated with him over three days to efficiently develop detailed, seamless cross-departmental work procedures. The staff were well-trained, provided with clear written instructions, and had successfully tested the entire process. Below are some photos showcasing the teamwork.
Everyone in attendance on the second visit with the consultant had an opportunity to learn more about the finer details of handling and describing maps as library objects. The team got to collaborate and openly discuss anticipated challenges and potential solutions to issues of selection, description, preservation, etc. The outcome of this visit was clear documentation of how each item should move through the various departments from the old map case storage to a shelf-ready item for patrons.
Image: Maps are sorted for processing.
Weed, catalog, shelve, preserve, documentation started April 2024:
After Ronald's departure, the map team successfully worked with the maps as planned, following the established procedures and standards to work independently without major issues. Mary Kelleher from the Kelley Center earned the title of 'map weeding queen,' serving as the first step in the workflow. She handled tasks from removing maps from their containers, researching and evaluating them based on the provided instructions, sorting, and documenting or discarding the maps. By June 30, she had evaluated over 1,000 maps. Jane Jones from Cataloging & Metadata Services took on the primary role of cataloging these maps. Kathy Knox and Sara Trejo have made notable cataloging contributions too. Anna and Dave met with Mary and Jane bi-weekly to discuss emerging issues and helped resolve any new problems to ensure continuous team progress. Together, we made significant progress: by June 30, approximately 900 maps had been discarded, 150 were ready for cataloging, 50 had been cataloged and were ready for shelving, 40 were being held while waiting for the rest of their series to appear, and 10 were set aside for preservation. Kudos to the hard work of the map team!
Visit https://libguides.rice.edu/maps/mobiloilmaps to learn more about this “Mobil Oil Map Project”, the collection, how to use the library online catalog to explore this collection, and more.
Digital Humanities Showcase and Meetup Programming
Image: Digital Humanities Showcase and Meetup event announcements.
Fondren’s new Digital Initiative Coordinator, Jerrell Jones, has reinstated semesterly digital humanities (DH) events that showcase faculty, staff, and student work. The events also provide a platform for Rice’s DH community to make connections and discuss potential collaborations across Rice departments. Fondren especially seeks to engage practitioners in STEM fields to uncover intersections of their research, humanities-related areas, and computing. While Jones has committed to hosting semesterly DH events, more events involving special training, guest speakers, symposiums, potlucks, interest group meetings, and more will be pursued. Previous Rice staff member and DH advocate, Dr. John C. Mulligan has presented his pioneering work on SlaveVoyages.org at the events. Rice students Dionne Babineaux, Mariah A-K Bender, and Huijun Mao engaged the audience with overviews of their DH research. Faculty member Dr. Alida Metcalf also presented her work on ImagineRio along with graduate student Bruno Buccalon.
Image: Attendees look on as Alida Metcalf and Bruno Buccalon present on the ImagineRio project in Fondren’s Kyle Morrow Room.
Digital Media Commons Supports Research at Rice
The Digital Media Commons (DMC) has been actively supporting Zotero, a research data management tool. By teaching Zotero workshops and offering Zotero consultations for the Rice community since 2007. DMC director Jane Zhao worked very closely with Julie Fette, associate professor in French Studies, assisting her in using Zotero to automate the citations and bibliography for her new book, “Gender by the Book - 21st-Century French Children's Literature”. The book was published 30 October 2024, Open Access to the ebook is provided by Rice University. The one-on-one consultations covered questions such as how to combine individual chapters to generate a final bibliography list and how to use the “Short Title” field in the Shortend Note style.
The DMC supports academic poster printing so that students and faculty can share their research. In FY24 we supported poster printing for a number of conferences and symposiums, notably the Engineering Design Showcase in April and the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship poster session in July.
Check-out policies--Brown Architecture Serials
While access policies may not sound glamorous, they are integral to getting interesting materials into eager hands for readers to enjoy, and for the library to accurately manage collections. Over the course of Fall 2024, Art & Architecture Librarian K. Sarah Ostrach worked closely with colleagues in Technical Services and Acquisitions to review and revise access policies for key Architecture journals like El Croquis, Perspecta,GA Document, and Cite. Some of these titles were loanable for a full semester or academic year, often being traded from one studio to another. To encourage better usage statistics and timely return of materials, library staff devised a one-week loan policy for issues of these popular titles.
K Sarah Ostrach, Art & Architecture Librarian
Fondren continues support of Overleaf
Fondren Library initiated support of the collaborative cloud- based LaTeX tool which makes writing, editing and publishing scientific papers much easier than other editors available in June 2022. All Rice University students, faculty and staff are provided access to a free Overleaf Pro account. Classes are offered and a support research guide is available. New features this year included the creation of a visual editor mode, which enabled a more traditional word editor interface. The current number of Overleaf users on campus is 1,676.
- For FY24, Rice users logged 24,302 editing hours in Overleaf.
- Academic departments with the most usage are computer science, physics, and electrical engineering.
- Usage shows the greatest number of collaborations with Georgia Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon, and University of California, Berkeley.
- The usage of the libguide shows good usage with 590 views during FY24 (July 1st to June 30, 2024).
