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Connie,
 
        We here at UT, Knoxville have in the past received a request from a
fellow in a Virginia prison who was looking for navigation charts of the
Holston River down through the Tennessee River to the Ohio, and on to the
Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. I politely wrote him back and told him
that since the Holston is not a navigable river, there were no such
published charts. He had claimed to already have copies of the topographic
maps of the areas he wanted, so I wrote that he already had the best of
what was available.
        I have also had the odd experience of getting a collect call, not
knowing who was calling, and having the operator tell me that the person
on the other end of the line was an inmate at a state prison. Needless to
say, I refused charges. Nothing against prisoners in general, but I
wasn't sure how the University would look on our paying for calls like
that. We don't accept any collect calls, so it's not that big a deal. I
just kinda hope it wasn't his "one" phone call ;-).
        As part of a state institution, we are real careful not to put
ourselves in any situations where we might cross an unknown legal line.
It's been my standing practice since I've been here to respond to inmates
only with single sheet of textual information. This is nothing official
or sanctioned, it's just self-defense.
 
Hope this contributes,
 
Eric
 
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Eric Schmidt                      |
University of Tennessee           |     "GIS Ain't Cartography"
Cartographic Information Center   |
(423) 974-4315                    |     -To Be On My Tombstone-
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