Kolekcja atlasów morskich w zbiorach Biblioteki Gdańskiej PAN

Twelve marine atlases from collections of the Gdańsk Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences have been scanned, elaborated and described by the Scientific Academic Computer Network (NASK), and than posted in the full-text version on the portal Polska.pl. Most atlases in the portal were published by one of the most important publishing houses of 16th century, located in Amsterdam. This publishing house was founded by Johann Wagener Lucana, creator of the so-called Dutch school, which dealt with the creation, release and publishing of marine atlases. These were the first printed atlases, where besides maps were charts, descriptions of the waterways with their depth, marked shallows and coastline as being seen from the sea with important buildings. This information was to facilitate shipping and to assist in more efficient entering the individual ports. Paper navigational instruments were also placed in atlases. These publications were the kind of marine textbooks. All atlases are presented with an advanced magnifying tool Erez Imaging Server at portal Polska.pl. This tool allows the performance of giant enlargements, creation your own bookmarks and notes. Thanks to technology 3D it was possible to present a manual navigation instrument from Apian’s textbook in a way which gives a user real feeling of movement. The collection can be viewed at www.atalsymorskie.polska.pl.