-------- Original Message -------- Subject: RE: maps as primary sources] Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 12:33:09 -0500 From: "Bigwood, David" <[log in to unmask]> ------------------ Julie, I'd consider as primary sources as those materials contemporary with the event being studied. A map of Europe created in 1944 would be a primary source if WW2 was being studied. A map created today, showing Europe in 1944, would not be primary. The 1944 map would not be a primary source if the unification of Italy was being studied. The existence of older items on the map is a red herring. A newspaper account of an event will mention things, like roads, that have existed for quite some time. So may a map. Good question. Made me stop and think. Sincerely, David Bigwood [log in to unmask] Lunar & Planetary Institute Cataloging news: http://www.catalogablog.blogspot.com -----Original Message----- From: Johnnie D. Sutherland [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 12:18 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: maps as primary sources] -------- Original Message -------- Subject: maps as primary sources Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 10:01:10 -0700 From: Julie Sweetkind-Singer <[log in to unmask]> ------------------ Hi all, I got this question from one of the students that took my map librarianship class at San Jose State's Library School this past summer. I was hoping to get your thoughts >Are maps primary sources? >Do they just have to be the first version that comes out of a surveyor's >brain, or original GIS data? >Or, can they be anything that uses original data? > >On the surface, this sounds to me like a silly question, but since no one >I've asked in the New King library has a clue about the answer, >it has turned into a serious debate. > Here was my "off the cuff" answer to her. Now, as far as your reference question goes, I would say it depends, but in general, yes, I would call maps primary sources. The strange things about maps is that they are a composite of everything that came before. So, a detailed map of California shows the El Camino Real from San Diego to San Francisco. That road, and before it the trail, has been around for a couple of hundred years. It's on every map of the area you see. Do you have to go back to the early maps to call them primary? Do you only take manuscript maps as primary material? We don't do that with books. Then, is GIS data primary material? Only if it's the original work of an author. In your GIS project, you may collect data points on your own, say the types of trees on the Stanford campus. You could then lay this primary source information over the street data from Navtech or the Stanford Maps and Records office, etc. Also, GIS data is simply that, data. It in itself is not a map. You must use the correct software in order to make it a map. *** Any opinions? Julie Julie Sweetkind-Singer GIS & Map Librarian Branner Earth Sciences Library & Map Collections 397 Panama Mall, M/C 2211 Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305 [log in to unmask] Phone: 650-725-1103 Fax: 650-725-2534