What follows is a considerably condensed version of the history of the organization of map librarians and curators in Europe and around the world.
In its 2013-2017 Strategic Plan, the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) began to focus on Key Performance Areas important to its membership. This resulted in a reorganization of the committee structure of the organization and left many long standing committees without a future.
One of those committees was the Groupe des Cartothecaires de LIBER. This group was formed in 1978 and constituted the map librarians within LIBER. The Groupe des Cartothecaires de LIBER had a long and productive existence which, unfortunately came to an end in 2015.
The history of the work of the Groupe des Cartothecaires de LIBER can be accessed here.
In the aftermath of the dissolution of the Groupe des Cartothecaires de LIBER, many of the still active librarians and curators came together to try and continue efforts to hold meetings and conferences in order to maintain the work of the group and to expand it into an international organization.
An additional complicating factor in this history is that around the same time the International Federation of Libraries and Associations (IFLA) also made some organizational changes that resulted in the dissolution of the Geography and Map Section in 2009.
This left a significant gap in the availability of professional association and professional development options for map librarians and curators.
In 2014, the Commission on Cartographic Heritage into the Digital of the International Cartographic Association, welcomed the newly named Map and Geospatial Information Curators Group (MAGIC) as part of their commission until MAGIC was able to establish itself. MAGIC was formed from many of the remaining members of the Groupe des Cartothecaires de LIBER and has expanded over the years to include membership across Europe and the United States. Some early MAGIC history can be found here.
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Map and Geoinformation Curators Group (MAGIC) 