We begin our work as co-editors for Imago Mundi with enthusiasm. As map scholars, we have long admired and used the high-quality scholarship of the journal and consider it an honour to shepherd the field’s flagship publication into a new era of innovation, inclusion and collaboration. Our goals for the next five years are twofold. We shall help Imago Mundi to continue to be a resource that builds bridges between scholars, collections’ specialists, collectors and dealers. At the same time, we aspire to attract readers and submissions from corollary disciplines, young scholars and less-represented regions, including Africa.
We thank the Board of Directors of Imago Mundi Ltd. for the opportunity to carry forward the journal’s mission and outgoing editor Catherine Delano-Smith and her editorial team for their leadership and stewardship of the journal for almost thirty years. We also want to acknowledge their support during the transition, including the articles accepted during the previous editor’s tenure. We thank outgoing associate editors Mary S. Pedley and Roger Kain, picture editor Damien Bove, submissions editor Ljijlana Ortolja-Baird, and book review editor Ian Fowler for sharing files, expertise and ideas. We look forward to the contributions of continuing IM team members, namely chronicle compiler Tony Campbell, bibliographer Colin Dupont, book review editor Thomas Horst and editorial assistant Mary Alice Lowenthal.
We hope you will join us in welcoming new members to the team in traditional and newly created roles. Raymond Craib (Cornell University) is book review editor for the Americas, Australasia, Oceania and East Asia. Mylynka Cardona (Texas A&M University, Commerce) joins as the second bibliography editor. We are also pleased to introduce the next generation of map historians to editorial work by welcoming assistant editors Flynn Allott and Tony Cui, doctoral students at Oriel College, University of Oxford (English) and at the University of Maryland (Art History), respectively.
We believe that tradition and innovation are complementary, as you will see in this first issue under our leadership. Although much in the journal’s front and back matter and in its content will be familiar, a moment of review will reveal changes that reflect our intent.
Substantively, we have updated the Imago Mundi Aims and Scope statement, established an Editorial Board for the journal, and introduce a new journal section, the Forum. The revised Aims and Scope statement highlights the journal’s goals of publishing global research on historical map production, materiality, original and subsequent acquisition and uses, audiences and circulation. We particularly welcome articles and themed-issue proposals that engage or debate methodological and conceptual questions, advance pedagogy, increase public impact or contribute to collaboration. (See https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rimu20.) Sixteen scholars, curators and collectors at different career stages make up the Editorial Board. During three-year terms, board members will advise and support the editorial team, with particular attention to strategic planning. In the Forum section, a small group, generally invited by the editors, addresses an emerging, contested or understudied topic in the field. Our inaugural Forum on the collection of born-digital maps amply meets this goal.
Less visibly, although equally important, we are committing to increasing access to IM in several ways. Issues of Imago Mundi are now available to JSTOR subscribers three years after publication. In front matter and online, the journal will identify a staff or board member by the individual's name and institutional affiliation, not title; we value community members for their expertise, however it was acquired and is exercised professionally. We look forward to working with the map history community and to hearing from you about how Imago Mundi can best serve this wide and welcoming community in the journal's paper and online pages.