-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Google Maps/Earth as sources
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 07:33:58 -0700
From: Virginia R Hetrick PhD <[log in to unmask]>
To: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship <[log in to unmask]>

Good morning, Michael,

While you're particularly interested in the boundary issue, one of the
things that informs our decision to use any geographic resource,
including maps, air photos, satellite images, etc., seems to be our
confidence in the accuracy of the resource as determined by us from
previous use.

For example, when I worked at LC, I did a lot of work with common city
maps published by newspapers, chambers of commerce, etc.  Many times
they are sponsored by local businesses who had small ads around the
map margins.  Consequently, I probably have more confidence in their
accuracy than I used to and probably depend on them when I come across
one more than many people.  And, BTW, the contemporary equivalent is
having a wi-fi hotspot which shows up in google or bing.

I think most people know most McDonalds and most Denny's have wi-fi
hotspots, but lots of times I'm in remote areas where neither is
present.  But driving down the main drag of a small town works well
when I turn on the we-fi app on my cell (which works just fine without
cell towers which aren't usually present) and find a place to have
breakfast where I can handle my email.  ;~)

So, ....

To start with, my career path included some time down the street from
you folks while I was a summer intern at Interior's Office of
Geography.   This was notable for me because it was the first time I
learned that maps weren't just really cool things, but that
governments and businesses turn on their accuracy.

The boundary mismatches that I found while working on  gazetteers for
two different countries were notable for me.  One country's mismatches
were resolved during the summer I was working there.  Those turned out
to be an issue of changing boundaries as several administrative units
became larger.  I never heard about what happened with the other
mismatches.

Why I mention this situation is that many people don't understand (I
hope this crowd already knows) that the whole gazetteer program
existed for the purpose of giving federal mapmakers a resource so they
could make accurate maps with properly named villages, towns, and
cities as well as riparian and other topographic features that were
defined by mapmakers from the "local" area.

Since that time, and particularly while teaching cartography, the
whole "wrong on the map" issue has continued to be an issue,
especially recently.  With the relatively rapid addition of
information to google maps and similarly "easy to use" capabilities, I
regularly do a sanity check when I'm planning road trips.  Rapid isn't
necessarily good unless accuracy is checked by the people making the
additions.

Let me give you an example from last night when I was working with an
area in Washington State and wound up comparing googleEarth to
googleSatellite which didn't match at all.  I also looked at bing for
the area, but it broke down before I got to the scale I wanted.  To
find out what the actual deal is, I will be talking to the county
level agency covering that area whenever its office opens this
morning.

I was working with maps of some areas in England last summer.  I
ultimately wound up sending google and bing map images of the areas to
a friend in southern England who checked out what was right and wrong
with the three areas' maps.  google's were correct and bing's were
wrong.  And, google's turned out to be a match with some government
issue maps my friend was able to consult after she already had the
contemporaneous ground truth for the three areas.

Additionally, as a volunteer in Death Valley National Park, I
regularly hear stories about people winding up  in unexpected
locations because they've depended on their GPS to be accurate for
navigational purposes.  And, this happens despite the warnings on GPS
packaging which seem to  be generally ignored.  The classic event is
that the GPS says to turn left (or right) and there's no road or track
intersecting the road where they're currently driving.  Yet, they take
the specified turn and wind up some distance from any road in the
actual middle of Death Valley.  I've often wondered whether they'd
believe the GPS, IFF they were some miles away in the Inyo National
Forest, the turn was a point where no road intersected the road where
they were driving, and both sides of "their" road were covered by some
significantly tall trees?

Because I've been using googleMaps almost since it was introduced and
because the mismatches seem to be relatively easy to resolve,
generally like the phone call I'll be making this morning, I'm more
comfortable with google than bing.  I find more "just flat wrong"
instances in bing which don't turn out to be wrong on google.

While I'm not sure whether that has any deep meaning, in practical
terms, it results in my using google MUCH more than bing for doing
anything with search engines that requires maps.

Finally, I have one last comment.  I must say, Michael, that, when I'm
on the road in the US and Canada (and this is not a Michael-feel-good
reason, it's true) I use my NGS Road Atlas for the "big" moves.  I
depend on AAA city scale maps for getting around in places where I
need more detail.  ;~)

FWIW- The main reason I use the NGS Road Atlas is that it gives me a
way to keep notes and markups about where I've been and things I want
to go back and see.  The biggest point?  I don't need to have an
electronic device to look at my notes.

v
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Virginia R. Hetrick, here in sunny California
Email:  [log in to unmask]
"There is always hope."
My fave:  http://www.washington.edu/cambots/camera1_l.jpg
There's no place like:  34N 8' 25.40", 117W 58' 5.36"
if you can't be at:  48N 6' 59.9" 122W 59' 54.2"
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