----------------------------Original message---------------------------- RV Verlag is the publisher - American Map Corp is the exclusive US importer. GeoData is the cartography company that drew the maps. American Map puts their covers on the RV maps as part of their exclusivity agreement. RV Verlag is a wholly owned subsidiary of Falk Verlag, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of VVA/Bertelsmann, Bertelsmann being one of the largest publishers in the world. I would be surprised if Kummerly + Frey had anything to do with any of the EuroCart series, as K+F is a strong competitor company. Concerning the dates, travel maps by the large commercial publishers are updated and reprinted at irregular intervals. Typically the maps are updated every other year or so, although reprint jobs sometimes contain minor corrections. Rules on when you call a map a new edition and assign it a new ISBN# are more vague than for new editions of books, and each individual publisher has their own protocol. You are right about a company's cartography being available in several different covers. There are actually very few companies out there producing cartography - K+F, Bartholomew, RV Verlag, ITMB, etc. These are then resold to anyone who will buy enough copies to warrant recovering the map. For example, Gizimap's map of Ukraine is available in a Gizimap cover, and also in Bartholomew and Maplink covers; ITMB's first edition Australia map was a UBD map. The frustrating thing is when the publisher doesn't put the publisher information on the map when they buy a finished product from another company; thus you think you are getting a new map with new cartography and you find that you now have your fourth copy of a map, all with different covers. (enough of my soapbox). While I think about it, International Landkartenhaus (ILH Geocenter) has been split up and sold and Herbert Leuser has retired about 8 months ago. Bertelsmann had owned the whole business for several years now and had was unhappy with the financial requirements of running the thematic and topo part of the business. The thematic and topographic map part was purchased, privately, by a person who is on the board of Bertelsmann (we were told the chairman of the board, but that is not confirmed). This is now a private holding and not part of Bertelsmann. The travel map business, including the "Geocenter" imprint were reorganized under the Falk Verlag umbrella and remain a part of the Bertelsmann empire. Cheers, Russell Guy Omni Resources At 12:43 PM 2/12/98 EST, you wrote: >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >Some contemporary commercial maps can drive you crazy! > >I have here a map of Europe, no title on the sheet, itself, >but the cover it's folded into has: Euro Cart, Euro- >-Continental Map 1:2,500,000, Europe. >Also on cover: American Map Corporation, Maspeth NY. > >In the margin of the sheet we see that the copyrights are: >RV Verlag, with another one which has: Kartografie: GeoData. >No date, but this: " Laufzeit 1998". > >A search through OCLC shows that others in the Euro Cart >series were published by Kummerly and Frey--and RV Verlag >was involved, also. > >Which entity is the real publisher? Is American Map Corp. >just the U.S. distributor? > >More and more we see that one company's maps are issued >inside a different publisher's cover. > >Well, what map cataloguer doesn't love all this complexity! > >Sue Haffner >Map Library >CSU Fresno >Fresno, Calif. > OMNI Resources International Map Specialists [log in to unmask] http://www.omnimap.com/catalog