MapRecord Publications
MapRecord Publications was founded in 2002 by Jeremy Pool. The goal of the company is to bring modern software technology to bear on a distinctly non-modern activity: collecting. The company's current focus is on collecting in general, but the company continues to have a secondary focus on the particular sub-specialty of map collecting.
The first product produced by MapRecord Publications in 2002 was a CD-ROM version of the Antique Map Price Record, the leading source of information about the trade in antiquarian maps. This was an annual publication, with ten editions produced between 2002 and 2011. The Antique Map Price Record part of our business was sold in 2012, and continues, under its new owners, at oldmaps.com.
In 2007 MapRecord Publications introduced its first product aimed at all kinds of collections: Recollector (originally named the "M.R.P. Collection Manager"), a tool that allows a collector to catalog, organize, and document any kind of collection. This flexible software allows collectors to bring together text and images (and audio and video clips, if desired) about their collection, which they can view and update on their PC or Mac and, optionally, view on their smartphone or tablet. Versions of the smartphone app are available for iPhone/iPod, for iPad and for Android smartphones or tablets. See our web site at collectingcatalog.com for more information about Recollector.
In 2011 MapRecord Publications published the first of what it hopes will be a series of bibliographical works in an electronic (USB flash drive) format. This first work is Don McGuirk's The Last Great Cartographic Myth - Mer de l'Ouest, a cartobibliography of all known 18th century maps that depict a fictional "Sea of the West" in what is part of today's American northwest.
MapRecord Publications is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Jeremy Pool
Jeremy Pool is a software developer and a collector (specifically, a map collector). Though trained as an anthropologist, he began computer programming in 1962, in what today would be regarded as computing's Dark Ages. He worked full-time as a software engineer from 1970 onwards, mostly in the areas of medical informatics (developing software products used to understand and visualize clinical data) and tools for software development.
In 1993 he acquired his first antique map, a late 17th century Dutch map of Denmark. Over the following years, this interest in old maps turned into a map collection, with a particular focus on maps of the arctic and charts of the North Atlantic. In 2000 he began work designing the software for the electronic version of the Antique Map Price Record. This project provided a unique opportunity to combine his experience as a software developer with his increasing interest in antiquarian maps and in collecting. By 2005 he had completely transitioned to this new focus on software for collectors.