In June 2022, the Maps and Panoramas Department of the Zurich Central Library acquired the South American collection of cartography pioneer Robert Helbling (1874–1954) on the secondary market.

The collection comprises approximately 200 individual items (including photographs, sketches, original cartographic drawings, hand-colored map prints, and individual pieces of correspondence). It documents the Aconcagua region on the Chilean-Argentine border across several decades. The publications contained therein circulated almost exclusively in South America and are largely unknown in Switzerland. This is primarily because no Swiss territories are depicted.

In 2014, Andreas Schellenberger published an article titled “Pioneer of Stereophotogrammetry in the Argentine Andes and in Switzerland” about Robert Helbling—and specifically about this collection—in the journal Cartographica Helvetica: https://www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/view?pid=chl-001:2014:0::79#19

In May 2022, a biography of Robert Helbling, written by Bernhard Ruetz, was also published.