Letters and maps: Using a picture’s thousand words by Imogen Wegman.

Historical maps and paintings are often used to supplement a story and to add colour to the telling of a moment in history. As archives, museums and libraries around the world digitise large parts of their visual collections and publish them as digital resources into the public domain, it becomes ever easier for the casual or professional researcher to find a perfect illustration for their work. But do they – we must ask – interrogate the image to uncover the additional contribution it can make to the narrative?

Imogen researches the relationships between people and the land in the early colonies, a topic that lends itself very well to the use of visual sources such as cartography and artwork. Her work places these sources at the centre of her research to find details that were not recorded in the written records. In this talk, Imogen will discuss how she does this and share some of the secrets and tricks she has discovered over the years.

Jointly sponsored by the State Library and Archive Service of Tasmania and the Professional Historians Association Vic & Tas, the Libraries Tasmania Talks are a series of monthly public lectures held at the Hobart Library. They can be attended free at the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts or viewed online via the Webinar.

To register for the event visit the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts website.

You can listen to all previous lectures on their Soundcloud website.

Image: ‘Map of the East End of Aelsmeer’, at the Noord-Hollands Archief, item number: 983.