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Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 18:58:30 EDT
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: commercial repackaging <fwd>
Sender: [log in to unmask]



" Should the taxpayers have to pay twice for federal or any other government
information? I say NO public accessible library should pay for information,
in any format, that has already been paid for in full."

Among other problems, this attitude assumes that government published
information is of the highest possible quality. That simply isn't so.
Government cartographers do their best, I'm sure, given their budgets and
their understanding of the market that they are working to serve. But many
"government" mapping products are of very low quality. As a prime example,
take a look at the nearly ubiquitous dataset known as ETOPO5. The fact that
this is a "digital" product released by US government agencies has lent it
credibility that it does not deserve. Doubt it's bad? Take a look at the
"Bahama Bank" in ETOPO5. This is a region that has been known and mapped for
nearly five centuries, yet the errors in ETOPO5's description of that area
are huge. Private cartographers almost invariably produce better map products
because they have usually have a smaller set of customers to satisfy. These
private map products are almost always based on government originals, but
they are not merely cases of re-selling data and thus "cheating" cartographic
consumers.

-Frank E. Reed
Chicago, IL
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