A treasure hides behind Middleton Library.If one wanders into the courtyard to the left of Middleton Library, one will find that X marks the spot on the “Mariners, Meridians and Monsters: Exploring the History of Maps in Fact and Fiction” exhibition, which opened Monday in the second floor gallery of Hill Memorial Library. The exhibit, which is sponsored by LSU Libraries’ Special Collections, features a collection of about 50 maps of the world, the Baton Rouge area and theUniversity’s campus. One of the maps entitled “Early Map of Louisiana” by Louis Hennepin — circa 1626-1705 — is the first map to refer to the Mississippi Valley as Louisiana.”A lot of people enjoy seeing old maps,” said Michael Taylor, assistant curator of books. “We usually have four main exhibitions a year to advertise what we have. We are most known for our Louisiana collection. I like to show people collections they may not know much about.”The exhibition is organized by different themes, like propaganda maps, maps of Louisiana and fictional and mythological maps.Geologist Dave Morgan, a map collector, investigated the exhibit as soon as he heard about it. Morgan said his interests in maps developed while working on his geology thesis about the historic changes of the Mississippi River Delta.”I did a lot of research with copies of historical maps, and I decided I wanted the real thing,” Morgan said. “The theme is interesting. I’m anxious to see how it all fits together.”Taylor curated the exhibition, choosing the maps and writing the information on the labels next to each map.”I wanted to pick a subject for people in different disciplines,” Taylor said. “I want to show how maps are related to art, history and literature.”The exhibition has a wide range of maps from old road maps that extend on a scroll to a map of Middle Earth from “The Hobbit” to maps of Louisiana and Baton Rouge from the Civil War. A map of the University from 1935 by Ben Earl Looney is also featured and includes traditional University symbols like a crawfish, bike riding, a fleur de lis and a tiger.”[The exhibits] are successful because it’s our way of letting people know the range of materials we have in the collections,” said Leah Wood Jewett, exhibitions coordinator and Civil War Manuscript Archivist. “The great thing about having exhibitions in our library is that once the exhibition is over, people can still see the materials in our reading room. This is our way to really showcase the materials we have in our collections that people may not realize we have.”The map exhibition will remain in the second floor gallery of Hill Memorial Library until August 15.–Contact Mary Walker Baus at [email protected]