Hi Michael,
When they say 'linear feet' I get the impression they're after storage capacity. Could it be translated to 'map collection footprint'. As in, square footage? Seems like it'd be fruitful to have a conversation, while meeting in person, physically, in the map collection, regarding what statistic could actually help them.

Usually when people ask size/extent it's the number of sheets. Or if you want to give an example of how meaningless the number could be, estimate the average sheet size, then take the number of sheets, and multiply by the average perimeter.

Good luck with all that!
Craig

Craig Haggit
Map and Geospatial Librarian, Special Collections and Digital Archives
Denver Public Library
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On Tue, Oct 11, 2022 at 8:48 AM Fry, Michael <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
If your superiors asked you to describe the size/extent of your sheet map collection, what would you say? In what unit(s) of measurement would you provide an answer?

I'm being pressured to answer the question in terms of linear feet--again, for sheet maps--and can't get my head around that. The only way I can get to "linear feet of maps" is to literally stack them on top of each other and measure the height of the stack. Which, IMO, would be a ridiculous (and meaningless) way to measure the size/extent of the collection. Much less meaningful than # of sheets, or number of drawers, or even square feet (of area occupied by map cases).

I'm off to search the literature on this, but wondering what your thoughts are. ?

Thank you.
mf

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Michael Fry
Collections Manager | Map Library Manager
National Geographic Society Library, Archives & Media Management
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