----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Darius Bartlett wrote:
 
> Yes, it is unapologetically academic - that is where I am coming from!
>
> But that doesn't necessarily diminish the importance of the debate?
> For a start, I would question the premise, implicit in what you say,
> that _either_ GIS _or_ cartography are mere "tools". They are both
> very
> much more than this, each with their own intellectual foundations and
> ways of looking at the world.
 
Don't all tools have this same implicit foundation? It is a very
different thing to hoe a garden, than it is to rototill it. Tools, ways
of working the world around us, deeply affect our understanding of it.
 
What is our goal in cartography or GIS? Is it the creation of a
storehouse of knowledge, or is it the usefulness of that storehouse?
Maps in and of themselves don't do much, but they can be used to further
understanding of the world, increase effectiveness of use of the world's
resources, and in a general and perhaps a spiritual sense, connect us to
the world at a scale larger than that our eyes can comprehend. So, for
that matter, can GIS. That's the sense I think of map making as
toolmaking. Nothing "mere" about it.
 
 
> That there is considerable overlap between
> the two is unquestionable. Most who have responded to my question have
>
> agreed on this. But there are also differences. I was, and remain,
> interested to know where each profession / discipline is heading:
> are the two converging? Will the "professional cartographer" become
> one-and-the-same thing as the "GIS professional"? And will the
> conceptual
> bases of the two sciences merge?
 
Aha! I think I have a root of my difficulty with the question: the
assumption that there is a unified profession of cartographers (or of
GIS folk) with a common set of skills, goals, standards, and work ethic.
The label "professional cartographer" is an amorphous one, and not very
descriptive of a broad range of job duties, from data-entry-style
production workers, to map designers who only supervise the overall
layout of maps. Likewise, "GIS professional" runs the range from pure
data-crunchers to people whose main job is the preparation for printed
maps.
 
The geographic information world is hugely diverse. I believe the
distinction between the two branches, and even more, the discussion of
"who owns who" is counterproductive, not unlike the endless Mac-Windows
wars. We all work in the geographic information world, and whatever of
the multitude of job descriptions we fill within that world, we serve
that world and the population at large.
 
By trying to decide who is in which camp and which camp is "winning," we
make it harder to create a project-specific way of thinking about
geographic information people. If a specific sort of map needs to be
made, it is more useful and effective to ask what specific skills and
tools are best suited:
- One will need to compile information. Often it may be more effective
to do this in a GIS system. Sometimes (as we have found), it may not. It
depends on the scope of the project and the probablilty of data re-use,
and to NOT use a GIS is NOT a crime against humanity.
- One will need to organize the compiled information for presentation.
Sometimes this may involve someone experienced in cartographic design.
Sometimes (as many businesses using maps for analysis have found), that
simply isn't cost effective (I mean that in the broadest sense of the
word "economy").
 
As to the conceptual basis for the two camps, I would suggest they are
already, in the field, fragmented within themselves even more than they
are divided between each other, mostly because we are all mapping such a
variety of things in such a variety of environments. As a commercial
street and specialty-map publisher, I have little in common with the
cartographer creating land use or drainage maps for the local watershed
management group. I can talk tools, and I can talk information
resources, but in terms of what the maps are to be used for, the
decision process as to their content, and the politics of deciding the
final form of the maps, I have relatively little to offer my colleague.
I expect the GIS experts at Thomas Brothers have as little to say,
beyond technical questions, to the world-climate GIS researchers near
here at Dartmouth.
 
> Creating a model of the world requires many skills: in particular,
> those
> of the geodesist, ground surveyor and cartographer being fundamental
> and
> complementary, each contributing to the overall whole. Cartographers
> have
> the skills (visual, graphical, geographical, communicative) to enable
> the
> results of geodesy and surveying to be merged with specialist thematic
>
> information from the end-user of the map. Cartographers encapsulate
> this
> information in one of the most effective means of storing and
> communicating
> knowledge yet invented by humanity. Some of these skills can be
> automated
> within a GIS - but all?
 
No, of course not. At the same time, there are some processes that can
be automated, just as great writing still requires a skilled editor, but
a great deal of an editor's work can be automated by spell checkers,
outlining macros, etc. Not all geographic information is equal; a
routing application for a delivery service does not require the same
attention to graphic detail as, for example, a directional graphic for a
national park.
 
> The contribution made by the discipline of cartography to GIS is clear
> and
> well documented. What seems less clear is whether there have been
> reciprocal
> advances offered by GIS to cartography as an intellectual persuit and
> as a
> skill?
 
GIS has opened up the previously laborious process of sorting and
placing compiled information, has made it possible to quickly sample and
compare various presentations (cartogram or scatter-plot? variable-size
circles or proportionally raised areas?). It has allowed cartographers
greater freedom and opportunity to adjust formerly fixed aspects of a
map (wouldn't that fit better in a Lambert projection?)
 
> Or has GIS even "deskilled" and endangered the cartographic
> profession?
 
No, but it and computers in general have redefined the skills. Many of
the basic skills of cartographers have been esoteric and technical:
scribing, shaded-relief drawing, hand-lettering, etc. Now it seems to be
a matter of knowing how a map should look in order to increase, and what
graphic aspects of it need to work in what way to get it there. The
technology has allowed more play in the graphic design side of
cartography. I hope this trend will continue, that the tools for
mechanically processing geographic information will become more and more
transparent.
 
I hope this continued rant has not offended any more than it was meant
to. This is a fascinating discussion t be involved in, and I hope we can
continue it further.
 
--
Nat Case
Hedberg Maps, Inc.
 
Publisher of PROFESSOR PATHFINDER Maps
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