History
In 1978 in Copenhagen, at the Map Department of the National Library of Denmark, 18 participants from 9 European countries decided to establish a permanent Group of curators of public map collections. This first Group concerned not only curatorship in map libraries but also in archives, museums and mapping agencies. In this meeting was
decided to organize a specific biannual conference devoted to map librarianshipThe next meeting was held in Paris in 1980, at the National Library of France. The participants decided to became a section of the European Association of Research Libraries - LIBER (LIgue Europeénne de Bibliotèques de Recherche) the Groupe des cartothécaires (GdC)
Two years later, in 1982 the GdC Conference took place in London and in 1984 in the Lower Countries, with 54 participants coming from 12 countries
In the early '90s the Group offered access to the East European countries looking for sourcing in order to invite map librarians from countries in East Europe. This early initiative has been very successful and soon map librarians from all over Europe joined the GdC
The National Progress Reports appeared soon at the Conference series by the national delegations with abstracts of the more important events related to the map collections in the participating country. From the very beginning the Groupe des Cartothécaires used the LIBER Bulletin for publishing some of the papers presented at the Conferences
With the appearance of the Internet, the GdC has soon developed a webpage as the major information and communication medium. For many years the webpage was maintained by Jan Smits the map curator of the National Library of The Netherlans, the GdC webpage host institution. Later on, the webpage has moved to the National Library of Denmark
The National Progress Reports, the papers presented at the Conferences as well as other texts related to map librarianship were accessible thanks to the webpage. Cataloguing, recataloguing, the introduction of new technologies and the management of maps in digital form were the main issues in the webpage. Finally the GdC webpage was transfered to the LIBER webpage
One of the most important goals was the maintenance of a webpage devoted to education in map librarianship which was used by the majority of professionals to improve their knowledge about maps. In 2011 the webpage was moved to the LIBER webpage until December 2012
In 2012 LIBER approved a strategic plan in order to face the new challenges of the 21st century. In this new period the Working Groups and Expert Groups within LIBER ceased to exist. In 2014 The Groupe des Cartothécaires, in its 19th Conference held in Ljubljana, decided to join the ICA - International Cartographic Association Commission on Digital Technologies in Cartographic Heritage as the MAGIC - Map & Geoinformation Curators Group, now an International and not more an exclusively European Group