--- Begin Forwarded Message --- Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 11:25:42 -0400 From: mike furlough <[log in to unmask]> Subject: more comments on Sanborn Sender: mike furlough <[log in to unmask]> A little late, but.... We have subscribed to Virginia for the year; I hope to round up the funds for purchase this year. I recognize the problems with this database that others have raised, but I apparently had very low initial expectations because I am less concerned about some of them than others are. Partly this is because user response has been good, and because we do not have an extensive collection of originals to work with. Overall the users have been *very* pleased just to have these resources available in a digital format. The planners and architects have been very glad to have the PDF versions because they can open these in Photoshop, edit them or incorporate them in other documents, scale them to larger print sizes, etc. We'd all like to have them in color, but that is many years off now that the LC project has been abandoned. Considering that these are scans of microfilm, I think the quality is actually pretty good--and much better than when Chadwyck Healy initially offered this. And no matter how irritating or lacking you find the interface or search methods, it beats the interface of the microfilm reader. So the users are happy, and that makes me happy. BUT, I think the cost is way too high for us to be able to get much more than Virginia. Like David, we have users requesting cities areas all over the east coast, and seeing Virginia makes users wonder why they can't get New York too. I would like to be able to aquire on a locality basis (eg cherry pick major cities), but that was not an option last I checked. One other thing to keep in mind--these are the maps included in the LC checklist, which were published on microfilm by Chadwyck Healy a while back. The B&H product does NOT include the maps on the UPA/CIS/Lexis-Nexis/Whoeveritisthisweek Microfilm reels. mike -------------------------------------- Mike Furlough Geospatial and Statistical Data Center University of Virginia Library http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu (434) 924-3169 --- End Forwarded Message ---