News: Places & Spaces: Mapping Science (website accessed 9/17/08)

Are you interested in seeing science from above? Curious to see the impact that a single person or invention can have? Keen to find pockets of innovation? Desperate for better tools to manage the information flood? Or are you simply fascinated by maps? Come and see the "Places & Spaces: Mapping Science" exhibition on the Luchtbrug to the University Library. In a series of beautifully produced posters Dr. Katy Börner makes cross disciplinary visualisations of human activities and scientific progress on a global scale. The physical collection allows viewers to closely inspect the high quality reproductions of maps displayed at conferences and educational institutions; the online exhibition at http://scimaps.org provides links to a selected series of maps and their makers along with detailed explanations of how these maps work.

The maps on show in Rotterdam are part of the original exhibition and match the theme of the inaugural Knowledge Dynamics lecture by prof. P.F. Wouters (entitled: Dolend dromen van het wereldbrein). Paul Wouters is scientific director of the Erasmus Studio, in which the University Library also participates, and program leader of the Virtual Knowledge Studio for the Humanities and Social Sciences in Amsterdam.