African Maps Redux

If you should happen to wander through the NUL’s InfoCommons, you may notice a familiar sight on all of the unused desktops:

You may recall these images from this blog. NUAMPS partnered with the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies (or the Africana Library) at Northwestern University to create these rotating details from the Herskovitz’ collection of African Maps. Selecting a large number of the images (over 100) I put together a slideshow that plays as a screensaver. As a mac addict the challenge for me came in finding a way to replicate the Apple OS X screensaver slideshow function. Fortunately some very clever people figured out a way to do this for me.

The result is pretty spectacular — an unsynchronized visual orchestra of details of maps panning, zooming and moving around in a tranquil display across the room.