This Pilot Project was first conceived in May 1999 to provide Web access to high use maps from the University of California-Berkeley's Earth Sciences and Map Library's collection. One-time funds were requested and received from the Library's collections budget to cover scanning and other project costs. The U.S. Geological Survey's topographic quadrangles of the San Francisco Bay region were selected for digitizing. These maps are in the Public Domain and have no copyright restrictions, and the geographic area selected is of high use and interest to our primary clientele, as well as off-site users.

Access is provided to both the 15- and 7.5-minute USGS topographic quadrangles, spanning more than 100 years of mapping (1885-1999). Geographic coverage extends from Pt. Reyes south to Half Moon Bay and east to Antioch, Livermore and San Jose. Historic topographic maps are invaluable for tracking changes in land use, development of transportation systems, and growth of urban areas. 350 maps were carefully selected to represent a historic perspective of the changing landscape of the region from rural to densely urban. Efforts were made to only digitize first editions of quadrangles and not use reprint editions where the date of situation was uncertain. Some editions of the quadrangles were published by the Corps of Engineers, the Army Map Service, or the Defense Mapping Agency.