----------------------------Original message---------------------------- The original question was: >> Is there a future for USGS maps in print form or are there >> digital alternatives that can replace our paper collection now? Just before Christmas last, at the end of a one-term course on basic principles in cartography for second-year students (which covered such things as basic geodesy, coordinate systems, projections, scale, symbolism...) I set an assignment. Part of this invited students to imagine they were tendering for a contract to produce a (hypothetical) National Atlas of Ireland. This "atlas", they were told, should take the cartography of Ireland into the new Millennium. Their task was to present a detailed proposal, outlining the design philosophy they would adopt, the market they would aim at, and the type of product they would seek to produce, as well as detailing the main sources of data they anticipated would be drawn on, and a few other details. I deliberately gave them carte blanche to design the atlas, and present their ideas, as they wanted, rather than constraining them with specific map/atlas design criteria. It was interesting, to put it mildly, to find that well over 50% of the students answered this by presenting proposals for a CD-ROM based interactive atlas, on the lines of Microsoft's Encarta, rather than considering a conventional paper product. Most of them justified their approach on the grounds that it was "more up-to-date"; "by the end of the century, everyone will have access to a computer"; it allowed links to Web sites and generally to richer, multimedia, data sources; and that constraints of scale, projection, etc., could be transcended by conversion to a digital environment. (I should stress that these students have not yet had any formal exposure to lectures or other instruction in GIS, computer cartography, etc. That comes next year, in the course of which I try to lay some of these myths to rest!). It was also more than a bit sobering - in fact it came as a nasty shock! - to realise they all seemed to assume the data they would need could simply be downloaded from "somewhere" on the Internet. The idea that someone, somewhere has to actually capture and compile the data (and any maps used to present the data) in the first place seems sadly to have eluded them.... I fear this is another much more common misconception among (especially young) people today? I certainly don't think it is unique by any means to our students! Darius Bartlett *************************************************************************** Darius Bartlett Darius Bartlett Department of Geography Roinn na Tireolaiochta University College Cork Colaste na hOllscoile Corcaigh Cork, Ireland Corcaigh, Eire Phone: (+353) 21 902835 Fax: (+353) 21 271980 Mobile (in Ireland): 086 8238043 Mobile (from abroad): (+353) 86 8238043 E-mail: [log in to unmask] Web URL: http://www.ucc.ie/ucc/depts/geography/djb --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message was transmitted using 100% recycled electrons.... ***************************************************************************