The Library of Congress presents Maps in Our Lives, an exhibition in recognition of a thirty-year partnership between the Library's Geography and Map Division and the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM), the nation’s primary professional organization dedicated to surveying and mapping activities. This exhibition explores four constituent professions represented by the ACSM--surveying, cartography, geodesy, and geographic information systems (GIS)--and draws on both the Library’s historic map collections and the ACSM collection in the Library of Congress.

The surveying section of this exhibition features maps illustrating the historical evolution in surveying with maps of George Washington's farm executed between 1760 and 1999. The cartographic section highlights more than forty items selected from ACSM's annual map design competition and exemplifies notable advances in cartographic interpretation, design, and production over the last twenty-two years. The portion of the exhibit about geodesy (the science that determines precise locations on the Earth's surface, such as latitude and longitude) demonstrates the value of geodetic surveying and its impact on our daily lives.