----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Thank you Blake Gumprecht for your view of GIS. It is refreshing to read the view of someone who has some hands-on experience with GIS, and the cross-over experience of a graduate student in geography, and a librarian. Many of us agree that GIS cannot replace the printed map, just as on-line full-text is not replacing the printed book. However, my fear is that Federal, State, and local agencies will stop producing printed maps because they believe it is economically more effective to produce "on demand" maps - in an effort to reduce massive expenditures that benefit the few users of maps. Thereby, map librarians will be - are being - forced to retool themselves as computer techs, with an array of machines -- one for each application or data base -- instead of banks of map cabinets full of paper maps from which we retreive the desired document. I suppose the future of map librarianship--and perhaps librarianship in general--will focus, as it has in the past, on maintaining the separate but equal status of "The Map Collection." Stan Stevens UC-Santa Cruz [log in to unmask]