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Date: April 2, 2005
From: "Youngblood, Dawn" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Last call -- Map Use Across the Disciplines
Dear Maps-L Colleagues
Last Fall I mentioned on Maps-L that I was pulling together an article on map use across the disciplines. In running the Edwin J. Foscue Map Library at SMU for
the past five years, I have been amazed to find people from every discipline darkening the map library door from artists who want to study
the way rivers flow so they can paint it to engineering students who must pretend they are planning a pipeline from point A to point B.
For those of you who did not have an opportunity to respond back then, please help me enrich the scope of my coverage by sharing your experiences and insights on map use across the disciplines. I have the disciplines organized in blue below. Glancing over this list may jog some memories. What I have received that has been very helpful are simple lists like the wonderful EXAMPLE submitted by Dr Brendan Whyte Assistant Map Curator ERC Library University of Melbourne that you can view at the bottom of this message.. The deadline for submitting your contribution to this article is Monday, April 18, 2005. It does not need to be neat or even spell checked. The article is now officially slated for the "Journal of Map and Geography Libraries" and we hope that it will benefit everyone by emphasizing the importance of map collections to a far broader audience than most administrators realize. I will be sure to credit you for your contribution
Send to: [log in to unmask]
Thank you!!!
And special thanks to those of you who have already sent in contributions.
This makes it far more interesting than hearing the goings on at just one University map library.
Dr. Dawn Youngblood
PhD Archaeology
Edwin J. Foscue Map Library
Southern Methodist University
6425 North Ownby Dr.
P.O. Box 750375
Dallas TX 75275-0375
214-768-2285: work
214-768-4236: FAX
[log in to unmask]
www.smu.edu/cul/maps
Map Use Across the Disciplines
Introduction
Map Use in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
Government and Political Science
Sociology
Cultural Anthropology
Archaeology
Geography
Economics
Psychology
Map Use in the Physical and Life Sciences
Environmental Science and Environmental Studies
Biology, Zoology, and Botany
Geology
Oceanography
Chemistry and Physics
Map Use in the Arts and Humanities
Art, Drama and Music
English and Literature
History
Religious Studies
Philosophy
Foreign Languages.
Statistics
Map Use in Business and the Professions.
Architecture and Urban Planning
Law and Medicine.
Education
Journalism
Urban Planning
Engineering
Business, Marketing, and Finance
EXAMPLE. EXAMPLE. EXAMPLE.
From: Dr Brendan Whyte Assistant Map Curator
ERC Library University of Melbourne Vic 3010 AUSTRALIA
Botany: a student wanted to locate the origins of numerous specimens of a
genus of plant held in the university collections. Each specimen had the
name of the collector, date, place etc. Many of these were in German, Dutch
or French, in cursive script, and over 100 years old.
Thus we had to transliterate placenames and locate the places to the
nearest minute of lat/long. This involved poring over old dutch and French
mapping of SE Asia in particular.
A medical professor was writing a paper on how some ancient map of Asia
showed pre-ice age coastlines, not modern ones, so utilised our nautical
charts for Asia to provide the evidence (his article was published recently
in Cartography).
Railway historian had uncovered a poem involving many Queensland rail
station names, and wanted to find out where they all were. Most were on
long-closed lines.
This chap also had a character out of Shakespeare, Lord
someone, and he wanted to locate the place this chap was Lord of. It was
once of the historical plays, and the place seemed to be in France (Hundred
Years War and all that), but he swore it was an English place, though we
never found one in England by that name.
Had a French literature student come in with a French autobiographical
novel by some chap who'd spent time in Africa. She wanted to know where the
French colony he talked of was, and needed a map with all the placenames he
mentioned in the colony. The colony and the placenames were all fictitious,
but realistic enough in appearance. It was obviously a veiled attack on the
politics of the colonial authorities at the time. This surprised her, and
it took some convincing to prove to her that the colony and its placenames
were allegorical, not real.
Architecture and urban planning students seek info on specific sites in
Melbourne for their projects: cadastre, elevations, and site histories.
Geography students looking at changes in river meanders over time and
measuring river length
Genealogists wanting to locate places they or their fathers fought in
during the World Wars
Historian looking for pre-Housmann maps of Paris streets to do a dot map of
locations of some industry.
Historian after maps of London showing a particular inn north of the city
pre-1800.
Singapore scholars seeking detailed historical mapping of singapore because
it is not held (or is not publicly accessible) in Singapore!
A publisher's representative who wanted to see examples of oblique
pictorial maps of cities, to commission an artist to do one for Melbourne
Education students wanting to borrow wall maps for use in their teaching
practice rounds.
Anthropology student who needed a map of an island in PNG where she was
heading for her fieldwork the next week!
Ditto for an agriculture student heading to a remote Indonesian island for
a development project.
And the usual crop of first year students who "want a map" because their
tutor told them to come to the map collection, but the students have no
idea which map, or how to use it, or what to do with it. (we had one
student who had to locate her house on an aerial photo montage of the city
we have on computer. Unable to locate her house, even by tracing her daily
route from the university in the city to her home, we directed her to the
street directory, and told her to use that in conjunction with the aerial
photo to work out the streets. but she couldn't locate her street in the
street directory. She was flicking through the pages with no idea. I
actually had to show her the index of streets at the back even though it
takes up half the directory!)....
Archaeology lecturer taking a fieldclass to Malta next month wanting to
copy her own maps on our planprinter, and I showed her our Malta holdings,
and she will be integrating our resources into her teaching and the
student's projects.
Dr. Dawn Youngblood
PhD Archaeology
Edwin J. Foscue Map Library
Southern Methodist University
6425 North Ownby Dr.
P.O. Box 750375
Dallas TX 75275-0375
214-768-2285: work
214-768-4236: FAX
[log in to unmask]
www.smu.edu/cul/maps
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