-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: Gazeteers - how important?
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:51:14 +0000
From: Malcomb, Lou <[log in to unmask]>
To: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship <[log in to unmask]>


I believe many of these are very important, even though today we seem to
rely on the online gazetteers such as GNIS. Some of the old gazetteers
include places/features that are not listed (under the specific
spelling) that the online versions might have or might not.   Many of
the old U.S. ones have been digitized or will be through various
digitization projects including the one I am involved in, i.e.
HathiTrust http://catalog.hathitrust.org  (open to all page by page but
full pdf for members only).   U.S. government ones should be at your
regional depository but you might want to check with them before
discarding.  We moved all the old ones to our off-site facility. We
saved them because we are the largest map collection in the state so are
often called upon to identify places/features.

Just my quick thoughts.  I am not a gazetteer expert but appreciate them
from a reference perspective.

-----Original Message-----
From: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Angie Cope, American
Geographical Society Library, UW Milwaukee
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 9:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Gazeteers - how important?

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Gazeteers - how important?
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2011 22:48:49 +0000
From: Robert Lopresti <[log in to unmask]>
To: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship <[log in to unmask]>


We are in the midst of consolidating our map library into the main
library.  I have approximately 22 shelves of paper gazetteers from
around the world.  Most but not all our from the US government, and the
most recent seem to be from the 1990s.  Most are from the 1950s to 1970s.

My question is: how useful/important are they today?  Should I be saving
eight shelves worth of them?

Thanks,
Rob
Rob Lopresti
Map Librarian, Liaison for Huxley College and Government Information
Librarian Western Washington University
360-650-3342   [log in to unmask]