Our Land Surveying Library

The NLC Expert Services Library

The Consultants at NLC Expert Services have spent the seven decades collecting one of the most extensive collections of land surveying textbooks available within the United States.

Mr. Robillard began finding select texts during his career in the U.S. Forest Service beginning in the 1950s. At each job site he visited across the U.S., and on travels to Europe and the UK, Walt found forgotten gems of surveying literature. His multi-hundred-book library is now kept at NLC.

Similar to Mr. Robillard’s endeavors, an accomplished California-based civil engineer and land surveyor collected a similar number of state, national, and international surveying texts over the decades. NLC was fortunate to acquire the collection from his heirs in early 2021.

These two libraries, combined with Dr. Nettleman’s love of books, have resulted in arguably the most comprehensive library of first edition, out-of-print, and historically significant land surveying libraries that exists today.

Centuries of Surveying Information

Land surveying has been a discrete profession for at least five thousand years, dating back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, pre-dating the invention of paper by over two centuries. Many land surveying principles such as the priority of calls, junior/senior rights, and following the footsteps of the original surveyor, are between two and five centuries old. These principles of law and equity are still relevant today; in fact, modern surveyors employ them on a daily basis. When complicated surveying and real property issues arise, the courts rely on land surveying experts to explain the generally accepted rules of our profession. And what better way to set those standards than to reference the surveying treatises that are have been used by surveyors since before the U.S. declared independence?

Setting the Standards of Land Surveying

Setting the generally accepted standards of the land surveying profession requires an extensive library of textbooks, treatises, continuing education courses, peer-reviewed papers, and trade journal articles. NLCs extensive library of historical and modern texts allows us to set surveying standards whether the survey was conducted in 1790 or 1990, and provides a distinct advantage when authoring expert reports, survey maps, and certificates of merit.