Maps: Digital | Analogue
Proudly held with the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford
The Sunderland Collection is delighted to announce its upcoming Symposium, proudly held with the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford:
Discover the secrets that digitisation can reveal about historical maps and atlases, explore the world of online gaming maps, learn about globes and conservation, and find out all about the colours and pigments used in early cartography...
This event is open to all and free to attend. Registration is essential - book your tickets now!
All the presentations will be recorded and uploaded here after the Symposium.
Thursday, 26th February 2026
09:15-16:00 GMT
At the Weston Library, Oxford and streaming live
Click here to register for your free tickets
Desceliers, 1546. French MS 1* ©Image provided by The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester
Programme
09:15 Registration
With tea and coffee in Blackwell Hall.
10:00 Welcome Remarks
10:15 Morning Panel: Digital Discoveries in Maps
The Sheldon Tapestry Maps: A Digital Re-Imagining of the Tudor Landscape
The Bodleian's own Map Librarian Nick Millea will introduce us to the remarkable late-sixteenth century Sheldon Tapestry Maps.
"Non Du Tout Descouverte": Exploring the Hidden Lives of Two Maps from the John Rylands Library
Map Curator Donna Sherman and Imaging Manager Jamie Robinson will shine a light on a magnificent manuscript world map by Pierre Desceliers (1546) and the fifteenth century Borgia/Velletri map.
11:30-11:45 Break
11:45 It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Architect and graphic designer Eric de Broche des Combes from the Harvard Graduate School of Design will take us on a journey into another dimension: the world of born native digital maps and maps in online game design.
13:00-14:00 Lunch and Exhibition
During lunch there will be a selection of maps and atlases on display from The Sunderland Collection, the Bodleian Libraries, and our speakers. Held in Blackwell Hall.
14:00 The Model World, the Model Heavens: the Making and Conservation of Globes
Leading globe authority Sylvia Sumira will take us behind the scenes in her work as an expert and conservator of historic printed globes.
14:45-15:00 Break
15:00 Afternoon Panel: Colours on Maps - Purpose and Materiality
Professors Dr. Diana Lange from the Humboldt University of Berlin, and Dr. Oliver Hahn of Hamburg University, will discuss their pioneering research into colours on old maps.
Followed by a discussion and Q&A moderated by Dr Sara Öberg Strådal, a specialist in Medieval scientific manuscripts and volvelles.
16:00 Closing Remarks
Meet the Speakers
Nick Millea is Map Curator at the Bodleian Libraries, an Honorary Fellow and 'Bartholomew Globe' winner at the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and Chair of the British and Irish Committee for Map Information and Cataloguing Systems. He is also a founding member of The Oxford Seminars in Cartography.
Nick has published extensively on maps, including 50 Maps and the Stories They Tell, co-authored with Jerry Brotton. He has curated several exhibitions at the Bodleian, including Talking Maps.
Image ©John Cairns
Donna Sherman is a Special Collections Librarian responsible for curating the map collections at the University of Manchester Library. She has over 15 years’ experience of working with geospatial collections and has an undergraduate degree in visual arts and culture and master’s degree in librarianship.
She is a member of several professional organisations including the British Cartographic Society, British and Irish Committee for Map Information and Cataloguing Systems (BRICMICS), Manchester Geographical Society and steering group member of University of Manchester’s GIS, Mapping and Earth Observation Research Group.
Jamie Robinson has worked in heritage imaging at the University of Manchester for over nineteen years, contributing to a wide range of preservation and research projects. He has worked on developing multispectral imaging in the John Rylands Library since 2011 and now manages the Rylands Heritage Imaging Lab, including its move into a new state‑of‑the‑art facility.
In 2025, he completed a master's degree with distinction in Library and Archive Studies at the University of Manchester. His thesis, NON DU TOUT DESCOVERTE, examined the 1546 Mappemonde held at the John Rylands Library and demonstrated how object biographies can be reconstructed through heritage science.
Eric de Broche des Combes is an architect, graphic designer, and musician. He was born in 1971 in Marseille and grew up in Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse. He studied architecture at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Marseille and later completed a postgraduate research cycle at the GAMSAU.
He moved to Paris in 1999 and has worked there ever since. He founded his first visualization studio, Auralab, followed a few years later by the visual studio Luxigon, which produces images and films for architecture. Alongside this work, he runs the architectural practice Buro BC, and runs the music label Goosuto.
He is a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he teaches courses on representation, digital environments, and world-building.
Image ©Eric de Broche des Combes
Sylvia Sumira is an independent conservator specialising in globes for many years. After a degree in the History of Art, she gained a post-graduate diploma in paper conservation. She worked in globe conservation at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, for several years and spent a period of study at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Since setting up her own studio she has carried out extensive work for many clients, public and private, in Britain and abroad. Sylvia has led several workshops on globe conservation and has many publications to her name, including her book ‘The Art and History of Globes’ published by the British Library.
She is an accredited member of the UK Institute of Conservation and a Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.
Diana Lange is Professor for History and Cultures of Central Asia at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. She has specialized on Tibet and the Himalayas as well as East Asia as her primary research areas and has wide-ranging interests including the history of knowledge and exploration, material and visual cultures, history of mapping and cartography and cultural interactions. Between 2018 and 2021 she studied the collection of East Asian maps at the Museum am Rothenbaum in Hamburg in the context of the research project Coloured maps.
Her publications on maps and colours include: Colour on Maps: Systems, Schemes, Codes (Imago Mundi, 2022), Colours on East Asian Maps: Their Use and Materiality in China, Japan and Korea between the Mid-17th and Early 20th Century (Brill, 2023, co-authored with Oliver Hahn) and Maps and Colours: A Complex Relationship (Brill, 2024, co-edited with Benjamin van der Linde).
Image ©Diana Lange
Oliver Hahn received his PhD in Chemistry in 1996. After a stint as a research associate in the Department for Restoration and Conservation of Books, Graphic Arts and Archival Materials at the TH Köln – University of Applied Sciences, he now works for the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM, Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung, Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing) in Berlin.
His areas of special interest include the scientific analysis of manuscripts, drawings, paintings, colorants and inks as well as the preservation of Germany’s cultural heritage.
Hahn is head of the institute’s Division 4.5 ‘Analysis of Artefacts and Cultural Assets’ and since 2014 he has been professor at the University of Hamburg, Arts Faculty. The Division 4.5 closely collaborates with the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at University of Hamburg (UHH), with the Klassik Stiftung Weimar (KSW), and with the Albertina in Vienna.
His current research projects deal with the non-destructive investigation of drawings and manuscripts by means of different non-invasive analytical techniques.
Image ©Oliver Hahn
Dr Sara Öberg Strådal is an art historian and expert in medieval scientific and medical images and diagrams (MPhil and PhD, University of Glasgow). Her previous work at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge and, most recently, as a Getty/ACLS Research Fellow focused on volvelles and the circulation of interactive diagrams in manuscripts, print and other media.
She is the Managing Director at Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books, the world-leading specialist dealer of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and miniatures.
Image ©Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books
Bodleian Libraries is the library service supporting the University of Oxford. Its mission is to support the learning, teaching and research objectives of the University; and to develop and maintain access to Oxford's unique collections for the benefit of scholarship and society.
Libraries in the group include the Bodleian Library itself - founded in 1606 - alongside 25 other libraries across Oxford. Together, the Libraries hold more than 13 million printed items, over 80,000 e-journals and outstanding special collections including rare books and manuscripts, classical papyri, maps, music, art and printed ephemera.
Bodleian Libraries are also a key part of Oxford’s cultural community and leads an exciting programme of public exhibitions and events to engage communities with collections.
Find out more about the Libraries and their forward programme of events at www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk
About the Sunderland Collection Symposia
The Sunderland Collection Symposia are dynamic, hybrid conferences that aim to bring map enthusiasts of all backgrounds into conversation with the latest ideas and developments.
You can find links below to our first Symposium at the Bodleian Libraries in October 2024, and our conference held at the Royal Geographical Society in October 2025 below.
Sign up to the Oculi Mundi Newsletter to be notified of future conferences and events:
