Staff

Christopher Baruth retired as Curator of the American Geographical Society Library at the UWM Libraries, where he worked for 31 years in 2011. He started at AGSL in 1980 as Map and Imagery Librarian and was appointed Curator in 1995.

In his leadership role, Baruth oversaw a substantial increase of resources, including the Archives of the Association of American Geographers and the McColl Collection of China-related materials; the procurement of a major NEH grant for photographic preservation; the expansion of visiting fellowship programs; a comprehensive recataloging project; and the establishment of digital spatial data services. He also initiated the ongoing digitization of the collection and its placement online.

“Chris really brought the AGSL from the 19th century into the 21st century,” said Ewa Barczyk, Director Emeritus of UWM Libraries. “He guided efforts to update and automate its antiquated card catalog, preserve thousands of deteriorating maps, and scan selected AGSL materials for internet access.” Baruth created a popular speaker series, Academic Adventurers, that offers UWM faculty and staff an opportunity to share their research-related travels and experiences with the public. He was also instrumental in organizing the Map Society of Wisconsin.

He received the Honors Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Geography and Map Division of the Special Libraries Association in 1993, and the Honors Award from the Map and Geography Round Table of the American Library Association in 2001.

His publications include GEODEX: GEOgraphic InDEX System for Map Series (1988), a system that allowed AGSL to build one of the largest automated cartobibliographies in the world with over 350,000 entries; articles in Geographical Review, Journal of the International Map Collectors’ Society, and Care and Conservation of Manuscripts; and a chapter in The Map Library in the New Millennium.

Baruth has been active nationally and internationally in his field, serving as Executive Director of the North American Cartographic Information Society from 1990 to 2001, and as a member of the Standing Committee for Geography and Map Libraries of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions 1999-2005.

Baruth received emeritus status from the Chancellor upon his retirement in 2011.

In June 2018, during the fortieth anniversary celebration of the arrival of the AGSL at UW Milwaukee, Dr. Baruth received the Samuel Finley Breese Morse medal from the American Geographical Society “for innovations to the field of geography” during his AGSL tenure.

Born in 1922, Drazniowsky joined the staff of the American Geographical Society in 1962 as map curator. As the financial position of the society began to deteriorate in the early 1970s, “Dr. D” as he was called, assumed added responsibility, eventually taking charge of the library and the editorship of Current Geographical Publications. When the library and map collection sought a new home, Drazniowsky was a key figure in the process which ultimately selected UW-Milwaukee (UWM) as the new home of what came to be called the AGS Collection (AGSC).

It was only natural that Drazniowsky followed his collection to Milwaukee in 1978, and became its first curator: he oversaw the collection’s move, its unpacking, and its redeployment in its new space at UWM. In his fifteen years in Milwaukee, he was able to pass on not only his knowledge of the collection, but also much of the lore of the society and his deep understanding of map and geography librarianship as a profession.

In addition to his role with the AGSC, Drazniowsky also held adjunct faculty appointments in UWM’s Geography Department and its School of Library and Information Science (now School of Information Studies), and taught courses on cartographic resources and map librarianship (as he had done at Columbia University before moving to Milwaukee).

Drazniowsky retired from UWM in 1993, only to pursue an active second career at the Free University of Ukraine, in Munich, Germany, where he taught geography, and served as rector. Drazniowsky’s busy retirement did not permit many return visits to the library though he did serve on the AGSC Advisory Committee.