Bartlesville Public Library

The Oklahoma Historical Society has digitized and put online over 600 historical maps thanks to the support of a $200,000 grant from the Chickasaw Nation. Plans exist to make as many as 4,000 maps accessible through its Web site available at www.tulsaworld.com/ohs. PDF versions of the maps can be printed directly from the Web and include original plats of nearly every town in what is now eastern Oklahoma, a hand-drawn map of the Choctaw Removal, a 1926 Oklahoma State Highway system map predating Route 66, and an unusual "New Map of Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico and Indian Territories" from 1856.

The Chickasaw grant allowed the Society to buy equipment and hire a full-time staff member for the project. The Society also plans to scan 40,000 rolls of microfilm including its newspaper collection. Newspapers will probably not be available online due to the size of the files but will be recorded on digital disks instead.

Next on the agenda is acquiring enough server space to enable the Society to open the collection to search engines such as Google and Yahoo. (Tulsa World, May 12, 2008, p. A15)