-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Google Maps/Earth as sources Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2012 12:37:48 -0400 From: Fry, Michael <[log in to unmask]> To: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship <[log in to unmask]> Some of this has been discussed here before (search the archives for a 2008 thread entitled "Google Earth miss-matches") but I thought I'd try to get an update... How do you all regard Google Maps, Google Earth, Bing Maps, etc. as sources for accurate boundary-related data? Aside from several high-profile mistakes (e.g., http://goo.gl/nP6ev and http://goo.gl/0gKfH), how dependable do you think Google, Bing, etc. are? I understand that Google gets more than half of its boundary files from the State Dept's Office of the Geographer, so there certainly are places where boundary data comes from a highly reputable source. But it's not clear to me how reliable and accurate the depicted boundaries are at large scales. My primary concern is that users can zoom way in--to scales much larger than most anything they'd ever see in print--and may draw conclusions about the boundaries that the underlying data, if not also the legal documentation, don't actually support. Am I right to think that boundaries, at the very least, should be viewed skeptically, particularly at large scales? Thanks. mf -- Michael Fry Senior Map Librarian National Geographic Society 1145 17th St. N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 202.857.7098 <tel:202.857.7098> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>