----------------------------Original message----------------------------
     Thanks, Pat, for your comments. I am enjoying the give and take on
     this, except for the flaming and the sarcasm. Lighten up folks! I have
     printed out all this discussion so far, except what came up this a.m.,
     and I plan to sit down and mull over it on my 3 hour weekend, Sunday
     afternoon...A glass of Jack should help make all things clear, don't
     you think?
 
     Once again, MAPS-L, & MapHist, have come through, and the wired
     community has added immensely to my own understanding of the issues we
     are each struggling with locally.
 
     My preference is to wallow in the Blaeus and Sanborns. Yes, the hard
     copy, the paper copy, the original stuff.
     Horrifying, I know.  But, still, even at my age, I am caught by the
     potential of the new technologies, and how they can help make images of
     those Blaeus and Sanborns accessible, beyond the walls of the library.
 
     A danger here, is an assumption, that these digital images will be an
     acceptible
     substitute for the originals. A digitized image will never substitute
     for the look, feel, smell, sound [as  you turn the pages, and crack
     the vellum, opening the damn things] the aura, of the original. That
     aura, to me, is what reaches back through time to the creator and
     first users of these atlases when they were new. When they were new
     technology. The way the atlas is stitched together, the order of the
     plates, the varying color schemes from one printing to the next, etc.,
     etc., -- for me these are all tangibles lost on disc. And they are all
     clues to the people who created these atlases, and the rationale behind the
     atlases, etc.  [How is a digitized Sanborn ever going to make clear the
     gritty reality of those "pasties?" and the reality they cover up?]
 
     Financially and spatially strapped administrators, may well see
     digitizing entire collections, and thus reducing them to a shoebox, or
     better yet, vapor, [downsizing to the max] as a solution to space and
     economic issues [read staff costs].  Over and over in discussions on
     digitizing, the lauded access beyond the doors of the museum or library is
     raised as the answer to our prayers. The flip side, is a message that
     the originals really arent that valuable, and can be put in storage. The
     flip side to "hey, these are accessible to the guy in the street in
     Podunk," is the assumption that then the curator or the librarian is not
     needed as an intermediary, and more importantly as a bridge to related
     information  and collections. Of course, all the guys and gals in Podunk
     have computers and access to the Web. [Hah.]
 
        What is the expression?? "the map is not the land. Well, the digit is
     not the map."  Digitizing is great, as an enhancement, not as a
     substitute. Maps from library and museum collections, digitized and
     placed on the web will enhance their home collections, will serve as
     "advertisements" for those  collections, and invitations to distant readers
     to use these  collections, even when it means travel to remote places
     [like Manhattan].
 
        Oh well, I am sure I have stepped in it now, having opened the barn
     door..., but, even if messy, this is all sure fun!
 
 
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Digitizing Maps
Author:  Patrick McGlamery <[log in to unmask]> at Internet
Date:    7/14/95 8:48 AM
 
 
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The horse is out of the barn Alice.  I loved Tom Neff's statement,
"A whole CD-ROM or optical disk is no more valuable than the original
 map whose image it carries."  This really gets to the nub of scanning
cartographic treasures.  I mean, compare the Red Hot Chili Peppers
latest release for $14.95 and a really good scan of a Jefferson and Frye.
 
Why are we quibbling about file size?
 
Alice, I know this hasn't gotten to your much more significant question of
WHAT to scan.  Is it a question of putting together an exhibit, or a
collection development policy?  Personally I'd rather see excellent scanned
images of maps, which meet all the technical controls, as part of multi-media
publications than simply as maps.  Puts a whole scholarly twist to it, but
I, for one, am ready to be the scholar/librarian for a change.
 
 
Patrick McGlamery