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Thank you Blake Gumprecht for your view of GIS.  It is refreshing to read
the view of someone who has some hands-on experience with GIS, and the
cross-over experience of a graduate student in geography, and a librarian.
 
Many of us agree that GIS cannot replace the printed map, just as on-line
full-text is not replacing the printed book.  However, my fear is that
Federal, State, and local agencies will stop producing printed maps
because they believe it is economically more effective to produce "on
demand" maps - in an effort to reduce massive expenditures that benefit
the few users of maps.  Thereby, map librarians will be - are being -
forced to retool themselves as computer techs, with an array of machines
-- one for each application or data base -- instead of banks of map
cabinets full of paper maps from which we retreive the desired document.
 
I suppose the future of map librarianship--and perhaps librarianship in
general--will focus, as it has in the past, on maintaining the separate
but equal status of "The Map Collection."
 
Stan Stevens  UC-Santa Cruz  [log in to unmask]