I have a view that is and list of markers. This list is displayed along the side of my map. I have an onclick event that is fired when someone clicks on a marker name in the list. Within this onclick event I need to interact with the map. I am trying to get a certain layer on the map. How do i interact with openlayers map from this event? app.MarkerListView = Backbone.View.extend({ el: $( '#markerListPanel'), initialize: function(){ //event setup $('#markerlist').on('click', 'a', function () { var layer = map.getLayersByName("Marker Layer"); }); }, createMarkerList: function(json){ //...some code here } });