-------- Original Message --------
Subject: maps as primary sources
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 10:01:10 -0700
From: Julie Sweetkind-Singer <[log in to unmask]>


------------------
Hi all,

I got this question from one of the students that took my map
librarianship
class at San Jose State's Library School this past summer.  I was hoping
to
get your thoughts



>Are maps primary sources?
>Do they just have to be the first version that comes out of a surveyor's
>brain, or original GIS data?
>Or, can they be anything that uses original data?
>
>On the surface, this sounds to me like a silly question, but since no one
>I've asked in the New King library has a clue about the answer,
>it has turned into a serious debate.
>

Here was my "off the cuff" answer to her.

Now, as far as your reference question goes, I would say it depends, but
in
general, yes, I would call maps primary sources.  The strange things
about
maps is that they are a composite of everything that came before.  So, a
detailed map of California shows the El Camino Real from San Diego to
San
Francisco.  That road, and before it the trail, has been around for a
couple of hundred years.  It's on every map of the area you see.  Do you
have to go back to the early maps to call them primary?  Do you only
take
manuscript maps as primary material?  We don't do that with books.

Then, is GIS data primary material?  Only if it's the original work of
an
author.  In your GIS project, you may collect data points on your own,
say
the types of trees on the Stanford campus.  You could then lay this
primary
source information over the street data from Navtech or the Stanford
Maps
and Records office, etc.  Also, GIS data is simply that, data.  It in
itself is not a map.  You must use the correct software in order to make
it
a map.

***
Any opinions?

Julie


Julie Sweetkind-Singer
GIS & Map Librarian
Branner Earth Sciences Library & Map Collections
397 Panama Mall, M/C 2211
Stanford University
Stanford, CA  94305
[log in to unmask]
Phone:  650-725-1103
Fax: 650-725-2534